Let me explain before you get the wrong idea.
A lot of people think Envy is a dangerous emotion, a terrible thing. For them, they’re right. These people don’t know how to use Envy to better themselves. But it can be a positive emotion; you can use envy to say I want that, what do I have to do to get that too?
I do this a lot, with writing. I surround myself with writers and writing which I adore and which I would love to match in skill level; I envy my sisters, who are writers, and who have a writing skill I will never be able to match. Part of this is because their writing voice is not my writing voice, and my writing voice can never match their own without betraying me and my writing. But I envy them still. I am constantly pushing myself to try and meet them, even though I know it to be a ridiculous and unattainable level.
I find excellent fiction and books which I value the prose because of the way it’s written, because of the authors who write it. I value and strive to match what I read from them, even though I know, that, too, is unattainable.
It’s my sisters, though, who I see works in-progress and polished. I see the progression from nothing to what’s released. I see the way they remove or work around unnecessary words, how they handle typos, how they trim and proof. I envy them. My envy is functionally unnecessary, but I envy them anyway.
I strive to be better than I am. To be good enough, to hold enough value in my own self-worth to think I might be on their level one day.
I will never be, because their voice is not mine. But I want to be. So I am constantly working for that goal, which changes every moment that passes, further and further beyond.
Perhaps Envy wont work for you. But maybe it will.
–Natasha
Author Natasha York 