As a sports fan, there is an unfortunate truth I have learned: somebody has to be in last place.
Last place in the division. Last place in the league. Last place in the whole sport. Someone has the worst record, every year.
In 2015, The Phillies had a bad year. A very bad year. They lost 99 games and had the worst record in Major League Baseball. Players putting on the uniform were acutely aware of this every day. There were thirty teams in the league, and they were playing for the worst of them.
It can be hard to be encouraged when you feel like you are the least successful person or team in a group.
The last two weeks, I've posted blogs about receiving compliments and giving compliments. We need encouragement. And while I hope those blogs have encouraged others, I have been writing them to myself as much as to readers. There are times when no amount of encouragement seems to get through, because I'm convinced I'm the least worthy writer in a group.
The group could be some friends who gather for a writing chat. It could be some journalists hanging out in the office. It could be a FaceBook writing group. Whatever the group is, it can become easy to get trapped into negative thoughts:
“I'm the least-convincing writer here.” Or maybe “least-creative”, “least-proficient”, “worst-reviewed”, or the dreaded “worst-selling”.
Many times these thoughts simply are not true. When they are not, eventually the encouragement can get through and pick up you spirits. But sometimes, it actually is true. You are the only person in the group who sold only one copy of your book, and that was to a cousin. You're the only one to have multiple one-star reviews. You are the only one who can't finish a first draft of a manuscript in under six months.
There is always a last-place team in baseball, and there is always the one writer who does not quite keep up the same pace as the others.
But even if you are finding yourself behind every other writer you know, there is good news:
Being in last place does not mean you are not good.
Read it again.
Read it a third time if you have to.
That 2015 Phillies team was terrible – relative to the other twenty-nine teams in Major League Baseball. But none of those players were terrible. I wrote before about the half-percent of high school players who make it to the minor leagues. Well, any major league player, even on the 2015 Phillies, was in the half-percent of that half-percent just by putting on a major league uniform. And they still won 63 games that year. That was 63 times they put their fans to bed happy with a victory. Other teams might have won more often, but those other teams were not going to satisfy the baseball fans in Philadelphia.
In fact, the Phillies provided one of the most memorable moments in the 2015 baseball season. Cole Hamels, their top pitcher, threw a no-hitter against the Chicago Cubs.
And just like that Phillies team did things no other team could do, the least accomplished writer in a writing group can do things that no one else in the group can do.
Maybe you are the least creative writer in your group – but you can write non-fiction in a stirring way the other writers can only dream of.
Maybe you did get those one-star reviews – but that was because you were willing to challenge some cultural assumptions that the other writers are afraid to address.
Maybe you are the least-selling writer in your group – but the copies you have sold are impacting the readers that the other writers are unable to reach. I learned this lesson in a very personal way this week.
My great-aunt passed away at ninety-five years old. I had not seen her for several years, but I was able to make it to the funeral. There, I learned that one of her granddaughters had been reading The Pride of Central to her in her last days.
It did not matter if I was lagging behind other writers in creativity, proficiency, Amazon reviews or book sales. Even New York Times best-sellers were not in a position to give my great-aunt some comfort and a few smiles at the end of her life. Among writers, that was up to me.
If the 2015 Phillies had given up simply because they were in last place, Cole Hamels never pitches a no-hitter.
If I had given up, there would have been no story for my great-aunt at the end.
If you give up, there will be some moment that never happens because no one else can make it happen.
Even if you are convinced you are a “last-place writer”, it is probably not true. But even if you are, there is so much unique about you and your writing that no one else will be able to do.
So do it.
Next week: Water makes all the boats rise
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