Earlier this month, I did a blog for the Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal Chapter of RWA, drawing a parallel between the Olympics and Writing. http://ffnp.blogspot.com/2012/07/lessons-from-olympics-by-monica-stoner.html All the raw talent in the world doesn’t do any of us…athlete or writer, much good without study and hard work. As the games progress, it becomes increasingly obvious that timing and luck have a lot to do with success, but first they have to be AT the Olympic Games to take advantage of that success.
Out of the nearly 11,000 athletes competing in London, more than 500 from the UK and USA each, only 312 will take home the gold, silver, or bronze. Not such great odds. A lot of the athletes who paraded into that stadium will go home with nothing but memories, not always happy.
Well, this is certainly like writing!
Except. In each event, as with The Highlander, there can be only one–set of medals. Fourth place and lower, even when the unplaced is a world class talent, becomes a part of Olympic history, to be dragged out in a future game of Trivial Pursuit. Okay, still like writing. After all there is only one winner in each category of RWA’s Rita and Golden Heart.
And here is where writing stands out. Every Rita finalist is already a winner, since the Rita recognizes published books. And every single Golden Heart finalist has the distinct possibility of publication. Every. Single. One. All of them winners. Sure some of them will be read by more people than others, but all of them will be read.
And that is just plain wonderful.
looking west
Lacking permission to display photos of the Olympics, the Rita or the Golden Heart, I’ll share a photo taken from my window. Yeah, New Mexico has some pretty terrific sunsets.
Mona Karel Author 
I think the difference between the Olympics and writing is that to get to the Olympics, athletes must perform to a certain standard before they’re allowed in at all. In writing, we don’t have that. Anybody who can string a few sentences together in Word can publish a book. Quality doesn’t come into it. And that’s a shame, really. Because frankly dreadful books are in the mix and despite what everyone says, cream doesn’t always rise to the top.
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True. And some are really dreadful aren’t they? Quality doesn’t always show up in some of the traditionally published books either.
What’s seriously odd to me, and probably to you, are the truly mediocre books that are not only published but for some reason catapult to the top. Go figure!
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Watching the Cross Country phase of the Three Day Eventing…one of my favorites. Here you really see the results of YEARS of dedication. Okay, and $$$. And it’s also pretty much impossible to succeed with BS and posturing. Reality rears its ugly head when you’re galloping over a course like this
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