Quote of the Day: Joltin’ Joe on bringing your best

There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time, I owe him my best.

—Joe DiMaggio

I know what you’re thinking. Joe DiMaggio was not a writer. But he’s the first non-writer—I think—to be honored with a Quote of the Day because what he says here is good advice for writers, especially those publishing often.

He said it, supposedly, after being asked why he’d hustled hard on a play in a meaningless, late-season game.

I used this quote as a guiding principle in my musician days. It’s easy to draw energy from a nice big crowd on a Saturday night and put on a rocking good show. It’s also tempting to kind of mail it in when it’s Tuesday and the crowd is sparse and the joint is quiet.

But the few people in that small audience paid their money just like the people in that big Saturday crowd did, and they’re at least as deserving of a good show. Maybe more deserving, since they came out on a Tuesday. And one of them might be an industry titan with a contract in his back pocket. Play like it’s the Garden on New Year’s Eve.

Writers don’t have to worry about psyching themselves up despite a thin crowd on a Tuesday night, but sometimes we have to overcome just not quite feeling it. When you’re publishing every day, or several times a day, it’s easy to think that any given piece doesn’t matter so much. There’ll be another one soon. They can’t all be home runs.

Don’t do it. When I had a daily column for seven years at Salon, there were certainly some days I didn’t hit a home run, and probably some days when I struck out four times, but I always lived by the ethic of never mailing it in. DiMaggio’s quote, which I’d heard as a kid, was a guide.

Every piece you write, there’s always someone out there who’s reading you for the first or last time. You owe that person your best.