Seek Out Creative Excellence

Strip it down to its components and steal, mercilessly.

Photo by Glen . on Unsplash

As a writer, I’m always on the search for excellent writing.

The problem is, of course is that the idea of what is excellent or not is highly nebulous and individual. How do we decide what is excellent and what is not? How do we recognize it?

Honestly, a large part of identifying excellence is tapping into the opinions of our social groups. The entire function of reviews — whether for books, movies, music, or any other form of art — is to share our ideas of excellence.

And, if enough people think something is excellent, then it becomes a classic.

If only a few people think something is excellent, i.e., it runs counter to mainstream opinions, it becomes a cult classic.

If nobody thinks something is excellent, well…it gets abandoned to the slag heap of history. (A brief aside: this is one of the problems of the internet’s long memory. A dedicated fiend might search for my middle school era, decidedly unexcellent poetry. Oh, how I wish it would stay forgotten.)

But how do you actually spot excellence?

For me, the first sign of excellence is my ability to become immersed in something. If I can lose myself in the story or the music…