A very good friend of mine recently got "published" online for a film review he wrote for the Hong Kong crime drama Infernal Affairs. It was submitted and accepted to the website www.MontrealFilmCritic.com . The first thing I must says is I am very proud of my friend, this is the first piece of writing I believe he has had published online or otherwise. The second thing is more to the point of this particular post, I guess I felt a pinch of envy for his achievement, but that is only because I have written a tonne of essays and reviews (well alot by my standards anyways) and have never been published anywhere but this blog. But as per usual, the only reason for that is my own lack of confidence in what I do or have done, and thusly don't attempt to even submit such works. But now here is my dilemma; If I were to submit and be published by the same site would I be doing it for my own achievement or the aforemention envy of a friends success.
I guess I should ask my self what would my friend think and my first assertion would he would also be as pleased for my success as I am for his. I realise that few people even know I have this blog let alone read it and so to spread my work may help me be more confident in it. I don't rightly know. Another fact is that I do not wish to be a professional writer I just do it for fun, my friend does want to make a living if not a career out of writing however.

Maybe I could take this as motivation to even attempt to write more, I think my friend would be please if I were to even write more for my blog and would encourage me to do more off blog stuff too. I think the real thing is I miss my friend as he moved away to follow his dreams and I wish I could do the same but as yet can't sensibly or logically justify upping and leaving yet. The lesson learned here is that no matter what other people do, petty envy is nothing more than our own mistrust in ourselves. I am resolute to trust myself and my work no matter what it may be and be pleased for others success especially if they deserve it. Without a doubt my friend deserves every success I can imagine.

As to the point of submitting to the Montreal Film Journal I think I can wait or indeed find an alternate venue. I don't have to use that site, it can be any site really or any medium. If I find an appropriate venue I'll let you know.

Laters taters.