Sunday journalling prompt

Working with dark emotions

Hello,

When this email lands, I’ll be at the Wildnerness Festival, talking onstage about my bestselling book. The week later, I’ll be at the Edinburgh Festival for a couple of appearances, meeting some amazing authors. Apart from that, I’m spending most of the summer making time to write my next book.

How does that make you feel?

For some people reading this, it won’t be neutral information. My autistic fam will most likely be composing a comment to say ‘OMG that sounds hideous - I hope you get some downtime’ - thank you, lovely people, but I don’t mean you.

No, let’s take a deep breath and talk about envy.

The experience of being a creative person is riddled with envy. Envy for what other people have achieved (or are allowed to achieve); envy for the opportunties they get; envy for other people’s visibility, attention or acclaim; envy for how easy some people make it look. I feel it too, all the time. I will be flicking casually through Instagram and suddenly a small, lizzardy part of my brain will puff out its chest and say, ‘Why them and not me?’

I’m not turning up today to tell you that it’s maybe not so easy for people behind the scenes, and that the object of your envy is probably suffering in ways you don’t know, because it’s boring and unhelpful. Envy is completely normal, and it might even be useful. Let’s work with it.