Writer's envy

It's time to get serious. How do I get serious? It's time to climb out of the sandbox, stop playing with toys, put my words where the money is. Every day is another day out of the bag. Every January I'm another stage closer to silence. I have words burning in the cavity of my chest, bursting like a fire tree into blossom season after season. Its petals blow over a sea of neglect and settle, sizzling, quenched.

I felt the unfamiliar nudge of envy today. A friend's article appeared in a publication from which I received several rejection letters a few years ago. I gave up trying, not just there. I gave up trying everywhere. Giving up is something a writer must never do.

Envy is not an emotion to which I'm accustomed. It came from the bottom of the well I've let myself down. It came from seeing someone shining in the light, doing what is right, making his mark. Envy has never been my master or enemy. The feeling wakened something. I need to seize that iridescent scaled head, let it spawn willpower through the arms and pen of my soul, turn it to inspiration for 2006.