by Barbara Poelle
Ugh. There is a Pretty girl in my office building. And I don’t mean like your neighbor shows you a picture of her niece and you’re like, “Hey, there, well..she’s…pretty,” while they nod and beam. I mean like the kind of Pretty that needs a capital P. The kind of Pretty where I immediately gain 5 pounds in my face and grow some sort of chest pimple while I am standing next to her in the lobby waiting for the elevator.
Pretty kind of looks like if Mandy Moore and Angelina Jolie had a love child. Pretty accessorizes. And Pretty has this uncanny superhero-like ability to always appear next to me when I think I am having a good day; it’s as if I yelled, “Hey Kool-aid” or more like, “Hey Shame Spiral!” and poof there’s Pretty.
Like last Thursday. I felt like I had kind of a sassy thing going on with my zip up black boots and a somewhat dangerous top with a silver clasp that really seemed to say, “I can get a little crazy. I can drink espresso after 6pm,” (Um, no. No I can’t. It’s like what happens when you feed a Gremlin after midnight). So I am standing at the elevator bank humming Tainted Love, tapping my leather clad toe a bit, forgetting Pretty even exists. The doors open and I step in and they are about to shut when who manages to slink in right before the doors close without disrupting the slide? Pretty. In size 0 jeans and a jaunty yet clearly expensive scarf.
Okay, now COME ON, the Fates would NEVER allow me to sashay into the elevator while the door is closing. The Fates would make sure that I tripped and fell into the elevator and then the doors would slide shut on a trialing end of my scarf and I would be madly untangling myself while making gagging noises and then enjoy the painfully silent journey as I remained, collapsed and rubbing my neck burn, amongst the legs of others on the elevator floor.
But not our best girl, Pretty. Nope. She slides through balancing a coffee while texting. It’s all I can do to not push her right down, but then she’s like, “Eleven please,” without looking up and Little Barbie the Troglodyte shuffles over and presses 11.
Sigh.
I have no idea if Pretty adores her job. I have no idea if Pretty has love in her life. I have no idea if Pretty has ever seen the sunset in Pebble Beach, holding a Bloody Mary the size of a toddler, while the Scottish dude plays the bagpipes on the Links at Spanish Bay.
All I know is that Pretty gets within my orbit and I immediately curve into myself as if "fight or flight" has simply become "fat".
It’s almost Pavlovian.
However, I am not alone in my quest for total insanity, as I recently heard a similar story from a colleague that reminded me of Pretty. Okay, let’s say we have an author whom we’ll call Anna. Now Anna has a three book deal with St. Martin’s Press and her numbers are just fine and she has tidy little royalty checks zipping her way across the ether. Everyone is looking forward to re-upping her contract. Now Anna has a “friend” in her critique group whom we’ll call Bobbie. Now Bobbie has a two book deal with Berkley, she got hers after Anna, and for a little bit less, but for whatever reason, she is a touch ahead, selling maybe 1500 more copies per book than Anna and she is also due for a re-up. Anna finds out what Bobbie is getting as far as an advance/co-op/publicity/option clause, whatever and will be unable to shake the feeling that Bobbie got the better deal. Now Anna has 3 more books with SMP, and suddenly what looks like a legitimate shot at the extended Times list, but she cannot help but fixate on Bobbie’s new cover art. Then Anna gets a fantastic article in Marie Claire but cannot stop musing about Bobbie’s appearance on the local KUSA morning show with Blart and Fergie.
(OMG, would you not tune in EVERY DAY to watch a morning show starring Blart and Fergie?)
So here we see that no matter what her agent, her editor, her husband, her neighbor (the one with the pretty niece) says, Anna cannot help but feel like Bobbie is having a better career than she is. And for that reason, and that reason alone, Bobbie IS having a better career than Anna. Because Bobbie ain’t the one on the bathroom floor at 3 a.m. sobbing into a towel so her husband can’t hear, is she? And Bobbie ain’t the one madly scouring chat rooms looking for people bashing her “friend’s” book. And Bobbie for sure ain’t making passive aggressive comments to other writers in the critique group about who is “settling” for what when. So Anna is living her truth- Bobbie IS better off. But only through Anna’s eyes.
Now I have another colleague whom we’ll call Polly Soot, because for the love of Elvis that chick doesn’t need any more publicity about how good she is. Anyway, Polly Soot has this DIVINE list she calls the seven deadly publishing sins. http://waxmanagency.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/the-seven-deadly-publishing-sins/ and I think she does an outstanding job of really exploring some of the self-defeating behavior that authors can get into early on in their career. Check it out. And then tell me how AWESOME it is that she uses a Don Quixote reference as kind of a throw away. So high brow. It makes me want to cheer and barf at the same time. Medically speaking: to charf. (Mom! Charf isn’t unladylike! It even sounds classier! Don’t unfriend me.)
I guess what I am saying is that I don’t want the Annas of the world not to enjoy their successes because they are worried about the Bobbies of the world having more.
Live it and love it.
What’s that? Oh. No. I am still not okay with Pretty’s ability to wear size 0 jeans while munching a chocolate covered croissant in the elevator. But today’s lesson was for you, not for me.
