{"id":981806,"date":"2026-07-03T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/?p=981806"},"modified":"2026-07-03T09:52:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:52:32","slug":"envy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/envy\/","title":{"rendered":"Envy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

First:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about my moustachelessness and my notable failures in the matter of pipe-smoking. I have resolved to do better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shall grow a monstrous, \u2018Come on now chaps\u2019, airman\u2019s moustache and I shall be seen at all times to be smoking a briar pipe, even in bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please forgive my earlier failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Envy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sure we all of us sometimes read other people\u2019s books with a kind of envy. You did that<\/em>. You brought that<\/em> off. You imagined that<\/em>. Your sentences always sound like that<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With any really terrific text, it feels like the author wrote without effort. We know that not to be true, of course, but the feeling remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll have your list of authors. I\u2019ll have mine. But, enjoy them though we do, there\u2019s also that pinprick of envy. You genius, damn you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I suppose the conventional advice is that we should learn from those genii, even the pallid, feeble ones who HAVE NO MOUSTACHE. (Glowers over spectacles at Austen, Bront\u00eb, Wharton, Woolf, et al.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yes, so we should. In my crime writing, I\u2019ve found Chandler and Gillian Flynn to be especially inspirational when it comes to prose style. Who says you can\u2019t aspire to really strong, original prose, if you\u2019re a mere crime writer? Flynn and Chandler say otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patricia Highsmith inspires for her willingness to jump waist-deep into psychological complexity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stieg Larsson has an audacious scale of vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Sherlock Holmes \u2013 well, he\u2019s Holmes, right? The one, the only. That whole world of foggy streets and hansom carriages and people scattering clues with the exact colour of mud on their trousers \u2013 pure, enviable heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowing that these things are possible makes us (I think) reach for them too. We stretch further, because they\u2019re there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t get there. I don\u2019t write as well as either Flynn or Chandler, (though dammit, dammit, dammit \u2013 I\u2019d like to.) My world\u2019s not as richly knitted together as Holmes\u2019s. There are any number of writers who do more than I can and more than I will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But only part of the issue here is ability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it also comes down to authenticity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With every sentence we write, we have to make a choice: say it this way, or say it that way? Or say it some other way altogether?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, I\u2019m always going to choose sentences that come out of me, not ones that are simply Flynn-Chandler-Conan-Doyle pastiches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That limits us in one way. (Flynn will always write better than me.) But it also releases the personality that readers want from a writer. If Gillian Flynn were to read some of my books, might she not think, \u2018Dammit, Harry does X, Y and Z things that I don\u2019t really do in my books. I wish I could get some of that magic juice and put it in mine.\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chandler\u2019s writing is sensational \u2013 but his character lacks any complex, reflective interiority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Highsmith\u2019s psychology is uncompromising \u2013 but her books can get boggy and slow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conan Doyle is Conan Doyle \u2013 he\u2019s the king \u2013 but no one ever said that his books were masterpieces of either prose or psychology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Envy. Yes, envy others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And steal. Whatever you can, whenever you can. Just make it yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in the end: your books will be good in your ways; their books can be good in theirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twirl your moustache. Add some golden Virginian tobacco to your rosewood pipe. And write your way, without apology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FEEDBACK FRIDAY \/<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are relaunching our much-beloved The Ultimate Start<\/strong><\/a> course. So, for the next few weeks, we\u2019ll focus again on the assignments there. First up:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look at your opening 500 words and post in the forum. Ask if your peers can guess your genre from this opening. Post to the forum, then read and comment on the thoughts of at least two of your fellow writers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because this email has had an envy & moustache theme, please feel free to add a comment on (a) which author most directly inspired the book you\u2019re now writing and (b) which great author would look best with which sort of moustache. Me, I\u2019d want to see Jane Austen with bushy Hungarian whiskers.\u00a0Upload your work here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Til soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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