I hate Samantha St. Claire.

Who is Samantha St. Claire, you are probably wondering. Well, let me tell you. She's a romance writer who belongs to that small and elite group of "soon-to-be published" romance writers. (Note: This is NOT the group of make-believe soon-to-be-published romance writers, of which I am a member. This is THE REAL THING.) She also happens to be an officer of the romance-writers' group that I belonged to for a couple of years, and which I may rejoin at some point in the future, assuming they'll let me back in after they read this. Samantha and I were both among the group that went to the Romance Writers of America® conference in New Orleans in 2001, and at that time we were on the same level--unpublished.

So you can probably imagine my initial reaction when I saw her name in the latest issue of the Romance Writer's Report (RWR). It wasn't really surprise that I felt when I read about her two-book contract because the general consensus was that it was inevitable that Samantha would be published. I remember that someone laughingly remarked that she even had the perfect name. (By the way, I don't believe any of the rumors that she married her husband to get the perfect romance writer's name, and you shouldn't believe them either.)

So like I said, it wasn't really surprise that I felt. It was more like shock--shock that someone at my level, in my romance-writers' group, who was basically just like me, had her name in the middle of an RWR article which mentioned her contract with the publisher that I wanted. Shock that she had done it and I hadn't.

Unfortunately, that initial feeling of shock was quickly replaced by another emotion, one with which I am quite familiar, and don't particularly like: envy--or maybe it's jealousy; I've never been clear on the difference. All I know is that I immediately recognized the feeling, and it's because of nasty character traits like this that I decline to be specific when my therapist asks me why I don't think I'm a nice person. She wouldn't think so either if she knew what I know, and that's exactly why I can't tell her. One of us needs to be on my side.

So instead of facing my thoughts, I try really hard to be the person I know I should be. I immediately email Samantha to say how thrilled I am for her. She has the nerve to be gracious and humble in her reply, as though it's no big deal, and she even writes casually about a second two-book contract. The knife twists. Now she is not only a soon-to-be-published romance writer, but a soon-to-be-successful romance writer, judging from the way she can churn out these books--and a humble one to boot. This makes me mad. I suppose she can't do anything about the second two-book deal, but it would help me enormously if she wouldn't be so humble about it. I want her to be rude and conceited so that I can feel justified in my petty feelings, and even though I've been acquainted with Samantha for three years and I've never known her to be rude or conceited, the hope that this good fortune might go to her head and she might end up losing all her friends lingers, for a few moments anyway, before I admit to myself that it's not going to happen.

She asks me to check out her web site and let her know what I think, adding that she values my opinion since I am a web expert. Well, first of all, I am no expert on web design as I'm sure you can tell by my web site, and Samantha only assumes so because I was the web administrator for our romance writers' group. But web design is like everything else that I tackle. I am a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, though apprentice jack is probably a more accurate term. Secondly, I had already checked out her web site; did, in fact, check it out the moment I finished the article, and I'd been so impressed by it that I didn't even want to mention it to her. (I did one right thing by emailing her my congrats on her book deal--what do you want from me???)

I call up my sister, ostensibly to discuss one of her problems, and manage to casually insert the Samantha information into the conversation. First I say how thrilled I am for Samantha so that my sister doesn't realize how low I can sink, and then I complain, whining that I'm sure I'm just as good a writer as Samantha. My sister immediately agrees (thank God for sisters). Of course, she's only read fifty pages of my historical romance, and neither of us has read Samantha's work, but we are both absolutely certain that I'm just as good a writer.

To reassure myself of this fact, I go back to Samantha's website, and read an excerpt from her soon-to-be-published romance novel. Then I'm not so certain. In fact, the closer I scrutinize Samantha's prose, the more convinced I become that she is a great writer, possibly one of the best romance writers ever, who will most likely go on to win prestigious awards all over the place, and that I can't write at all. Depression about my lack of writing skills and fear that I'll never be published take over and I get out all my books on the craft of writing and begin to re-read them. Eventually I get over this lack of confidence, but the envy remains.

I tell myself that I'm not going to discuss this with my therapist since my true character is bound to come out, and then as soon as I sit down in that chair I blurt out, "I hate Samantha St. Claire!" The story and my feelings come out in a torrent of words, but my therapist is used to my torrents and her expression remains impassive. Finally she says, "But you say she is basically just like you, so if she got a book deal, why can't you?"

"Well," I say, "she isn't really basically just like me. She's got everything going for her."

My therapist raises her eyebrows and says, "Such as...?"

"For one thing, she has great social skills," I reply. "She's friendly and personable, outgoing and confident." I look pointedly at my therapist. I don't need to say anything else about this subject because my therapist is well aware of my social anxiety. So is anyone else who's ever been in a room full of people with me. I'm easy to pick out of the crowd; I'm the one with the bright red ears. She smiles and asks what else Samantha has going for her that I don't have.

"Well, she's very professional," I say. I tell her about my two-minute thought of running against Samantha in our group's annual elections, before reading her impressive bio that included a position as Senior Vice President of one of the largest PR firms in the world, and I say that no matter how I combine secretarial work with waitressing in a topless restaurant, there's no way I can come up with something as professional-sounding as that. I do admit, however, that I was somewhat mollified to read that Samantha's career had spanned more than two decades because unless she started working at the age of ten, she's not as young as she looks. But almost as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I remember that someone correctly guessed my age just the other day, so obviously my looks reflect every single minute of the aging process. Now I have one more thing to be envious about. My therapist scribbles something and asks what else...

"Well, Samantha lives with her handsome husband and her beautiful children.  I live with my fat cat and my Chinese roommate." (This comparison is no reflection on either my cat or my roommate but surely, having my own "hero" and bearing two of his offspring must be more fulfilling than this.)

My therapist nods again. "What else? What about the writing? What has Samantha got going for her there?"

"Well," I say, "she's written three books. I've written--"

I stop, annoyed at my therapist for asking this question, because I haven't even written one book, and I don't want it to be about that. I don't want it to be that I've had 85,000 words out of a hundred written for a few months now and that I keep spending my time on what's already written, rather than finishing the book. I don't want it to be about the fact that I insist that I have to spend the next month of weekends painting my walls because the crown molding and chair rail were delivered a year ago and I'm still not ready to have them installed. I don't want it to be about my complaints that I must spend my weekends weeding my garden or painting my kitchen cabinets. Because if it's about these things, and not about Samantha's writing ability, her professional background, her fabulous web site, her beautiful family, or her sparkling personality, then I'm going to have to hate me instead of her. And it's oh-so-much-more comfortable hating her. But deep down, I know, just as my therapist knows, that it's not about Samantha. It's about me.

While she's been writing, I've been complaining that I have too many responsibilities that take up my time. She obviously committed to her goal of becoming a published author while I just went around telling everyone what my goal was, expecting it to magically happen. Whether she laid out a plan, or wrote by the seat of her pants, she sat down and wrote. And while I can hate myself for NOT doing that, I really can't hate her for DOING it.

So, from now on, I'm not going to waste my time being envious of her or any other published author's success. I'm going to remind myself daily that the only real difference between us is that she is WRITING and I am THINKING about writing, and then I'm going to get off my butt and start doing what she is doing, not because I want to compete with her or anyone else, but because I, too, want to be a published romance author.

So, Sam, if you're reading this, try not to take it personally because it's really, truly not about YOU. Honest...

Oh, and by the way...what kind of car do you drive?