The Return To Innocence

With the previews and ads for the "Eragon" movie all over the place, it stands to reason that Adam would be acting the way he has been with me: When we first heard that a movie version had been made, Adam looked at me and said, "I'm so sorry." I was confused, of course. He said he felt bad for me because a fifteen-year-old kid had written a best-selling fantasy novel that was now a movie, and here I was, twenty-seven years old and still working on my first science fiction novel. And I just couldn't help but laugh. "You must hate it," he says. "You should be angry. Look what happened to that kid, he's got a movie made out of his book." And I just laugh harder. I'm not angry. I'm not bitter. I'm not even remotely jealous. Yes... a teenager wrote a fantasy novel for young adults that became a giant whirlwind of a bestseller four years later. Four years after that, here's the movie version. But how does it affect me? It's not even my genre.
Adam says, "I just want that kind of success for you. I really want you to have that kind of success. It should motivate you even more."
Awwww.
Well, yes. Of course I want that kind of success; wouldn't any writer? It does motivate me. But not because I'm jealous or envious. I'm not writing a Young Adult book about magic dragons in a fantasy world.
I see my husband's point. I understand his frustration, and his desire to see his wife become successful and famous and popular as an author. But I just don't get jealous of other writers. If I did, Neil Gaiman would be on a hit list. Even if someone close to my age were to write a futuristic pagan science fiction novel about a group of psychics wielding the ancient cosmic powers of god-like abstract representations of elemental forces, it would be a different book.

After the umpteenth trailer for "Eragon" showed on the Sci-Fi Channel the other day, after Adam had again nudged me to feel frusrated over Christopher Paolini's massive success, I smiled, looked at Adam, and said, "Well, I guess this means you should take me to see the movie, then."
I should read the book, anyway. I hear it's very good.