I got mad at Janelle once. Like, I was honestly upset! Why you ask? Her pieces on the other blog I run were getting way more traffic than anything else I had put up on the same damn blog! I was so upset. I thought for a while to just stop writing as Janelle.

There was good friend of mine that had to remind me that this person (1) doesn’t exist and (2) wasn’t the point of writing as Janelle to experiment? To grow and explore? Being mad at a portion of me, that I created purely for exploration–and people like it!—why am I upset?

I really had no answer.

The only answer that I had was I wanted more people to look at the work that I was doing. I wanted to be seen, versus Janelle just being seen. It was a weird, pseudojealousy. And once I identified it, I couldn’t unsee it. I couldn’t help but try to reconcile it! And that took a while. The process of that reconcilation, once complete, was hard.

I created an entity, a voice to give voice to other ideas that roll around my head. Things and topics that I want to look closely at, while not admitting my head is even in that direction. In writing, in writing with an alter ego, that reconciliation must occur.

When those worlds collide, you will have to reconcile these writing realities! There may be a portion of jealousy that rises, but those accolades, posts and retweets are still for you. It is still your work. Those thoughts people gush over, are still yours! You need not be jealous…of you.

Your only competition is in a mirror. No more, no less.