I asked this seven-year-old grandson to pose for my picture to illustrate this blog and questioned if his teacher ever told him to keep his eyes on his own paper. “Well, she used to,” he said, stretching his arms into a semicircle, “before we got these things around our desks.” He went on to describe the plexiglass that surrounds his area. Covid and social distancing may make this admonition obsolete in school.
However, I ran across “Keep your eyes on your own paper,” or its equivalent in some writer hints several times recently. The idea behind that admonition suggested that no two authors follow the same pattern nor does success mean the same thing to every writer. “Your journey is your journey” was another way the same idea was presented. Jane Yolen who has 400 books out (and still gets rejection letters) advises, “Don’t try to replicate my career. Find your own. Make your own rules. Play your own game.”
The concept has turned up often lately, and I think it applies to more than writers and artists. Life carries the same temptation. As one looks at a better paper in a nearby desk, that person may be looking across at a different one with envy, and the chain goes on. Keeping your eyes on your own paper allows you to see the successes and possibilities in your own life.
I would add one small proviso that fits the idea of the plexiglass around the desk. The children’s writers that I have met are good at this. Now and again, look up from your own paper to cheer on someone who has done their paper well. That’s a good reason for our desks to be close enough that we can see each other if not the small writing. We all need the encouragement of knowing we have done well in the eyes of our peers.
But once the cheering is done, return to your own paper, not to make a cheap imitation of the winning one, but to make the best original you can make. Barbara Cook said it well, “If you’re able to be yourself you have no competition. You just have to get closer and closer to that essence.”