Things I forget when I compare myself to others

thoughts on writing, competition and freedom from comparison

Earlier this week I stood in my damp little yard, nipping off faded geranium heads and spying a couple of tomatoes that had emerged despite my woeful neglect. My notebook was on the side in the kitchen. I felt at peace. All my favourite things to hand. Knowledge that all I really want is to garden, write and cook. I’d like to do these things with access to beautiful blue sky and gentle lapping waves, but for the most part I have everything I need.

And I cannot allow it to be enough

Why are any of us so driven? Why do I feel I need to gain a thousand followers on Substack? Why do I think that the only way to prove my writing has meaning is to win and win and win? I even started researching how to grow prize winning tomatoes. My most precious solace almost became part of the endless search for significance through contest.

Some of this is purported to be personality based – type A or Type B as illustrated below. I’m fairly sure I’m type B. Happiest under the radar, dressing the scene for my type A friends. Yet I still feel the need to “win” - a state that is even more ridiculous when I consider that I don’t even want to be in the contest.

The answer of course lies in the writer’s nemesis – self-esteem. It’s not so much believing in the work itself – there are occasions when a certain feeling in my stomach lets me know I’ve written something good. It’s belief in the right to speak, belief that amongst all these esteemed, lauded, majestic voices, I too may have something to say. Something that people may wish to hear.

And I do. Feedback for work such as Dust, or recent poetry films shows that my work can move people. This makes me happy. This makes me want to write. This gives me courage to continue. The truth is that placing in a competition gives me validation, having work selected for publication gives me encouragement and a sense of possibility – but if I am honest the sweetest, most significant feeling comes from the messages and emails I receive to say “that moved me” “you captured how I feel”

My muse is not a horse

The concept of “best” is never more beautifully challenged than in this infamous letter from Nick Cave

Source: FarOut Magazine

I find this the most freeing, liberating attitude. Let’s forget for a moment that Nick Cave has an otherworldly level of genius. Let’s focus on the respect he gives to his work, his muse. Lets focus on that magical phrase “I am in competition with no-one”.

Now  please don’t misunderstand. I’m not against poetry competitions. I will continue to enter an many as finances allow, and as many as I feel I have a chance at winning. The challenge of this phrase lies in my attitude towards the competition itself which in turn impacts my reaction to the outcome.

Conscious competence

One of the greatest steps forward for me in the last 18 months or so is my response to success or lack of it. Early in my career blind enthusiasm saw me entering terrible poems into hugely prestigious competitions. As I delved further into the poetry world I began to understand a little more about the process and possibilities that competitions offered. What I hadn’t bargained for was how ill-prepared I was for failure. Not winning (!) placed me in depths of despair and rather than spur me on, put me in a place of not wanting to write ever again. A ridiculous response, but one that was part of the sudden realisation that I had a lot to learn, and a lot of work to do to make my poetry the very best it could be.

That last sentence is the key, of course. Once I realise that I am not in competition with anyone, rather I have a responsibility to work at my writing, to care for it, to polish it to a shine, then not winning a competition becomes a way to improve. Not winning becomes a way to understand and to perhaps accept that poetry like all art is subjective and the final yay or nay is down to the way a piece of writing chimes with the poor soul given the task of judging. And of course, since I have adopted and inhabited this attitude, I am enjoying more positive outcomes for my submissions and enjoying the simple act of writing for its own beautiful self.

Things to remember when I compare myself to others

There is no comparison. There is only one me. And I am doing my best.

Most of the time.

Thanks for reading,

Kathryn

xx