I Am Trying for a HubPages World Record

“Worry compounds the futility of being trapped on a dead-end street. Thinking opens new avenues.”

Cullen Hightower

And I’m also a baseball fan. Since I was a young teen, I have been able to recite the hitting and pitching records of Major League baseball. It’s just something I find interesting, a part of the game, the legacy, and the joy of the game.

Highest batting average career…..Ty Cobb….. .366

Most singles career…..Pete Rose…..3,215

Most doubles career….Tris Speaker…..792

Most RBI career…..Hank Aaron….2,297

Please notice I didn’t mention any records set by the steroid freaks. Baseball is sacred to me, and I refuse to allow it to be sullied by pill-poppers.

Another thing sacred to me is writing. I love writing. I eat, sleep, and breathe writing. As an old instructor once told me, I swallow a word and fart out a sentence.

So take my love of records, and combine it with my love of writing, and it is only natural that I should become consumed with one of the most revered records at HubPages.

I’m speaking, of course, of the record for Consecutive Hubs Without Winning a Hub of the Day.

Is anyone keeping tabs on this record? Did you even know it exists?

Well, I would like to declare myself the holder of that record.

This article is #785 for William D. Holland, otherwise known to you all as billybuc.

Think about that for a second. I have written 785 articles (excuse me, hubs) in two-and-a-half years, and not once have I sniffed the elusive Hub of the Day. I religiously down a hub each work day, and then check with breathless anticipation the next day to see if I have won, only to be crushed with disappointment and sent back to my writing den with my tail between my legs.

Sigh!

Do all of you understand the dedication to my craft that it has taken for me to set this record? This may well be a record that is never broken, and I have decided to embrace it rather than sulk. As of today I am proud of this glorious achievement.

In fact, I am going to suggest to the HubPages staff that, when the Hubbie Awards are given this year, a new award is designated, The Most Futile Attempt by a Hubber, and that I be given that award.

I can put it on my mantel right next to my three other Hubbies, and I will be so very proud.

Do you know that there are actually writers on HubPages who care about this nonsense? I know because I have received emails from them, emails of concern because their Hub scores are low, or their hubs are not receiving a “featured” status.

Sigh!

As if that makes any difference whatsoever.

Listen to me carefully.

Your Hub score is meaningless. It has nothing to do with your ability as a writer. Whether or not your Hub is given a “featured” status has nothing to do with how good you are. If your hub is featured it simply means that you jumped through the appropriate hoops and made the Hub staff, and their computer program, happy.

Nothing more and nothing less!

HubPages is an online platform where you can download an article and have it be seen by online viewers. I doubt those who vote for the Pulitzer Prize even know HP exists. I’m fairly certain that magazine editors and book publishers don’t give a rat’s patootie about HP.

So stop fretting over your Hub score and concentrate, instead, on being a better writer.

The answer to that question is very simple. I stay at HP, and will continue to stay at HP, because of the community of writers who are now my friends. Here I have found support. Here I have formed a connection with like-minded writers. I love it here, but I think the little awards and gold stars are so much silliness.

HubPages does not make you a better writer. Don’t drink that Koolaid. It will poison you. All HP does is provide an online presence, and give you guidelines that can help you to increase that online presence.

Do you know what I find amazing, he said with tongue firmly planted in cheek?

I find it amazing that John Steinbeck was able to find success without HP.

I find it amazing that Hemingway also found success.

How did that happen?

I’ll bet if Harper Lee were a current member of HP, her Hubber score would be in the 80s, and she would be struggling to please the HP gods.

Concentrate on improving your writing and take HP with the proverbial grain of salt.

Tomorrow I’ll write another Hub, and on and on I go, adding to a record that may last forever, and that brings me peace and a sense of satisfaction.

Just as I find peace and satisfaction in building my craft and becoming a better writer.

Writers write! That is what we do. We do not write for rewards. We do not base our skills on the acceptance of others. We do not write for instant gratification. We write because words flow through our veins, and to not write would be spiritually painful.

Remember that the next time your Hubber score dips several digits.

2014 William D. Holland (aka billybuc)

“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”