If you don't know the Dear Sugar column over at Rumpus.net (one of my favorite literary blogs) you are missing out on something beautiful. Sugar writes an advice column, often dealing with literary matters, but that's like saying the Pope offers occasional theology tips. She's the one who coined the phrase, in response to another young writer, "write like a motherfucker." (I want that needlepointed on a sampler and hung in my office.)
This week's column is titled "We're All Savages Inside." It's her response to a young writer who asks, essentially, how do I cope with my jealousy over other writers' success? Her response is lyrical, compassionate and beautifully insightful. It's also a much needed kick in the pants to all of us who feel or have felt that way.
She tells the young writer to, in so many words, get over herself. But she does it so kindly, with so much good will that it doesn't sting. And she writes about why we write, and how money does and doesn't matter in the artist's life. So consider me to be grabbing you by the hand and dragging you along, shouting "You have GOT to go read this!"
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