You’ve reached the Writer Envy Helpline, where we are happy to assist with all your jealousy emergencies. Our helpline is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and has extra staffing between midnight and 2 a.m., when we always see a surge of calls. Please note that this helpline is intended as a quick fix and is not a replacement for getting therapy or an MFA.
If news of someone else’s literary fortune has caused you to fall and you can’t get up for emotional reasons, press #. If you can’t get up for physical reasons, please hang up and dial 9-1-1.
If this is your first time calling today, please listen carefully as our menu options have recently changed:
- If a friend just got an acceptance to the publication you have been unsuccessfully submitting to for ten years, press 1.
- If another writer’s piece has 10,000 likes on Facebook and yours has 2 likes, one of which is your own, press 2.
- To be transported to a period in history before social media when writer jealousy was less of a problem because it took months for your writing nemesis’s latest book to reach you via barge, close your eyes and click your clogs together three times.
- If someone just signed with an agent and you can’t get your insurance agent to return your call about the hail damage to your Pontiac Aztek, press 3.
- If a writer you know on Twitter has written an entire book in the time it’s taken you to call the hotline, press 4.
- To hear a recording of your mom listing all the reasons why someone out there might actually be jealous of you, say “Replay middle school pep talk.”
- If someone just won a literary award and you never even made employee of the month at the Taco Bell you worked at in high school, press 5.
- To hear a list of all the publications your writing nemesis has been rejected from, press 6.
- If someone else’s book just made the NYT bestseller list and yours is number 6218 in Literature & Fiction > Women’s Fiction > Domestic Life > Bedtime Stories > Books That Put People to Sleep, say “Category Emergency.”
- If an author friend’s book is getting turned into a movie while yours is getting turned into a coaster at your second cousin’s yurt, press 7.
- If you met a writer in person that you have been jealous of for years and they are actually really nice and you are unsure what to do with your conflicting emotions, press 8.
- If you are pondering quitting writing to return to your old job making chalupas in hopes of finally achieving employee of the month, go directly to an animal shelter and adopt a pet.
- To hear the list of publications your writing nemesis has been rejected from again, press 9.
- If you were too distracted by searching #bookdeal on Twitter to hear all the options, please press * to repeat the menu.
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