Shalt not Covet

Sometimes I get envious of other people's art form. I just finished Lorrie Moore's book "Gate at the Stairs.' It's good. I love novels. I'm usually in the middle of one. I don't understand people who say things like, "Oh, yeah, I read a novel last year. Or was it the year before?" I'm jealous of the novelist's expanse and structure and the respect they get and the book tours they love to complain about and the fact that someone can stumble across their work at the bottom of an old trunk and be captivated.
I am not a novelist. I've taken a couple stabs at it. It's just not who I am. I get lost in the size of it. I like to be able to look at a whole work in front of me, map out a play on one big piece of paper and look at the entirety of it. A novel's too big to do that. I'm all about economy and distillation. Oh, and I'm too anxious and disbelieving of the future to be a novelist. To spend a year, year and a half working on something that might not work. That's a lot of faith. I can write and produce a couple of plays plus a half dozen short pieces in that time. If some of them don't work, oh well, move on to the next. And I think I'm too introverted. If I were a novelist, I'd give into the introversion, I'd give up on people all together. My hair and fingernails would grow long and I would become unfit for human company. Theater forces me to work with others to get stuff done. Oh, and you know another big advantage to play writing? I get to see my audience as they experience my work. And a writer reading an expert of his/her book ain't the same thing.
The other art form I get jealous of, for different reasons, is solo performance. Not because I think it's a superior form of theater, but because it's a much better economic model. If a writer/performer keeps the tech simple and does some good marketing, they can make some money. Not huge amounts, but often enough to live on. They can be completely portable. Always ready to pack a show in a bag and fly off to a festival half way across the world. They don't have to worry about anyone flaking out on them. Don't have to split the door. But, like I know I'm not a novelist, I also know I'm not a performer.
It's funny. Painting, sculpture, music, they're great. But I never have days when I really yearn to be a composer or visual artist. For me, it's always gonna be words. And those words aren't gonna be a novel, and it's not gonna be me saying those words. I think it's the sheer proximity of the other means of expression that can make me wistful on good days, tormented on bad.
But, as the great philosopher and man of the sea, Popeye, once said, "I yam what I yam."