On people getting what they deserve (or more than, or less than)

Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? -Hamlet, Act 2, Scene II. 

I was just checking out the sales of my book on Amazon. A few people bought the e-book, which made me happy. Then, I saw sponsored links to other e-books. One was Rebel Cowbear: Paranormal Werebear Romance (Lone Star Cowbears Book 1). There is also a sequel in the Wearbear Cowboy romance series. I was tempted to laugh, but then I saw the book had 58 comments on Amazon. My book has three. 

Earlier this week, I read a couple of installments from this year's Best American Short Stories anthology. The second and third stories in the anthology were from big names who'd been published recently in the New Yorker. I found both stories to be rather lazy efforts undeserving of the attention. They weren't terrible, they just didn't feel like they'd been written with any real urgency. They felt like something a professional writer thought would make a good story, so the writers put into them the stuff they usually put into a story to make it work. And because they are big name writers, they got into the New Yorker and the BASS anthology. 

You won't always feel as a writer that others are getting things they don't deserve and you do. Sometimes, you'll feel that even whatever credit you have gotten is undeserved, and you are a fraud and a hack and a terrible writer. Sometimes, you'll feel both cheated of your due and undeserving of any due at the same time. (Just this morning, I deleted the first page of a rough draft I wrote last night, and asked myself why I ever write anything, because I am obviously terrible.) 

However, when you do start finding yourself as a writer feeling cheated, that others are getting more than they deserve and you are getting far, far less, I find these thoughts help me:

-The Kardashians are all rich without having any apparent abilities between them. This is a much greater injustice than a writer continuing to be published by big journals in spite of having peaked years ago. So if T.C. Boyle phones in some crap sci-fi trash about designer babies, it's low on the list of cosmic injustices when that story gets love. 

-It's almost certainly much worse for minority writers. The market can only support one niche writer at a time. So if you are a Rohingya writer writing about Rohingya issues and the market has already picked who its favorite Rohingya writer is, you're out of luck. Somewhere, there is a Chinese-American female writer who has been waiting for Amy Tan to die for about twenty years. Even when that happens, that new writer will spend a decade being called "the next Amy Tan." 

-Both "Everyone is getting more than me" and "I am terrible" are irrational. I know that being irrational helps write great fiction, but when it starts to unsettle you emotionally, go try some other writerly activity like getting piss-drunk or philandering with half your neighborhood until you feel better. 

-There is a Borges story called "The Secret Miracle." In it, a Jew who has been sentenced by the Nazis to die by firing squad is sad that he will never be able to finish writing his play. As the bullets are about to fire, God stops time. The man is able to complete the play in his head. The moment he completes the play, time resumes, and he is instantly killed. I often think of that story, imagine that each story I write has a private audience of one. If it is ever shared beyond that, this is a bonus. But writing the story is something I have to do. I'm only responsible for writing it. What happens beyond is not my responsibility.