The superlative best is spurious, and many readers will consciously discern popular writing from literature and realize best takes on often diametrical properties and connotations in those two hemispheres of the writing world. Writers, on the other hand, must survive, especially when the primary income is derived from writing. At this point, the grandest of literary visions falls susceptible to the marketplace, and notions of achieving beauty, profundity, or other high qualities through one's writing are supplanted in lieu of potential sales. Not a few writers can resist this commercial avenue. The bestseller will continue thriving as a popular rank, as the reading public majority sees fit, but the readers, writers, publishers and critics among us wishing to continue our higher pursuits of literature must press forth, even if the direction takes us far from the bridge to Bestsellerdom.
Literature is alive.
We must remember and return to our literary depths, continuing, as we like, to enjoy popular writing, but also developing or deepening our appreciation and awareness of literature's works and writers. As artists, we must take the helm and steer the ship back toward the light, or, when necessary, leave the ship, especially where the entire crew is of a mutinous mentality, and swim against the currents of the mainstream. Some will drown, some will swim ashore, and some will wash out to the sea, but let there be positive attempts to reach something more substantial than what the popular markets would have you believe exists. This is a lifelong journey, and the reward may not be the destination but the journey itself, especially for the writers among us questing after what Flaubert termed mot juste , the precise word. His writings have appeared in English Journal, Recursive Angel, and elsewhere.