Ha, I was thinking of doing a blog on this. I'm terribly lucky here on the Chrons to have made a couple of good friends, with writers who leave me in awe of their stuff. One in particular, who I'll keep nameless (like there's any chance, she's Scottish and she writes fab, voicey stuff - waves!), I'm particularly close to, and we got close cos we're both pretty focused on our writing, we're juggling young families, and we can understand each other's accent.
She does terribly well with query comps and what not, and it's easy to get jealous, much as I'm cheering her on, writing comments and crossing everything in the world. But seeing how well Cupid's went for her, and knowing I am poor at querys drove me to QLH to improve mine.
And reading crits and not being able to find anything constructive to add makes me determined to send the same out. (I still get red-penned, though.
) I know the friendly competition (I'm not even sure that's the word, shared aspirations, maybe?) has spurred me on to get better, to put more energy into my own writing.
So, I suppose what I'm saying is competition isn't a bad thing, it's what you use it for. I'm not a naturally jealous type, thank goodness, but I am competitive (anyone notice?
), and it does give me the spur I need. It also means our first joint signing on the day we simultaneously release our books, having acquired an agent within an hour of each other, and publisher at the same time, is going to be a blast!
(And if she has hers, first, I've already promised to turn up and be the odd writer friend in the corner who wears a hat and drinks fizzy wine.
And eats all the cocktail sausages.)
