The past weeks have been full of good news for several writer friends. There's been a bout of joy rippling through twitter triggered by writers being taken on by fantastic agents, astonishing book deals, successful book launches...
The bearers of these good news received congratulations from all corners of the world sent by people whom they've never met in person, but they were honest messages. At least I think and hope they were, despite having recently read an excellent blog post about jealousy among struggling writers which got me thinking about this. In these cases, however, I'm convinced that we were all genuinely over the moon with their success.
Most of our happiness lied in the fact that they are very nice people whom we even consider friends, but I believe that part of our delight lies in seeing hope in their examples. These writers have worked hard, suffered rejections and been eaten by self-doubt for years, but they found the light at the end of the tunnel and they have shown us that it's worth all that effort and tears in the end. Their well-deserved success is the encouragement we need when our faith flags and despair casts a shadow over our expectations.
I can say that I'm truly delighted for those people and I hope that one day they will be as happy for me.
