I notice my favourite has a biography just published, and a new collection of poems devoted to a bar. I am thrilled and elated, depressed and deflated. How dull, in comparison, my life has been. How mediocre and dry my verses will seem. The mouse pointer hovers over a buy it now button. This existential procrastination that doubt and inferiority is making.
Cornwall, June 2024. Nikon d750
This feeling is me right now. I see so many people talk about that "first paid subscriber" or their "first published book", even worse, their "second/third published book" and I can't help but ask myself...What have I done lately?
I speak of Substack Envy because it is entirely real and can be difficult to surmount. Sometimes we have to face that envy head-on. In your case that could mean buying a thing to support a person even as you wonder about your own work and self-doubts. We must press on, mustn't we? Cause if we don't, our day may never come.
I also think of the person who hasn't done what I've done for as long as I've done it (albeit with no monetary success) who may be watching the content I'm producing and feeling the same way I am. There will always be someone ahead of us on the "road to success" and we just have to grin and bear it and be happy with what we have done and accomplished.
So, GO YOU for being awesome with these posts I read and look forward to with anticipation and don't sweat what someone else is doing. Just think of me sitting here being extremely envious of you!
Make that one small click that will forever capture that author's works for you. Or you might forever wonder what you missed. Those volumes have value beyond their bought price, you may return to them in years to come.