Two-Fifty Tuesday: The Best of the Year

You.

Year-end reviews give you the best and the worst—of books, movies, TV shows, and, well, everything. What I love about these lists is that they don’t necessarily include the most popular. In fact, one list of best performances in a movie included a slew of A-list Hollywood actors starring in smaller, unnoticed films. The best in the business and they were overlooked.  

So here’s my math: if a=b and b=c therefore a=c, right? If the best=overlooked and overlooked=you, therefore the best=you. 🙂

My point? A well-known one that is easy to forget: popularity does not guarantee quality and quality does not guarantee popularity. Ah, you say, what about when popularity and quality meet? Absolutely! Strive for both if that’s your goal. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with any writing goal, including getting big name celebrity endorsements or getting even bigger movie deals. 

What trips us up, though, is thinking that’s the only goal to make us feel like successful writers. Maybe there are other paths to share your work: write for friends and family, self-publish, hybrid publish, publish with a small press, post your work online, or keep hammering at traditional publishing. 

You may feel overlooked right now, and that may sting. But maybe you remind yourself if the best of the best can also be overlooked, then you’re in good company. 🙂