Sports and games have been part of our lives since the ancient Greeks, and probably much longer! Winning…losing…
Once my son ran off the soccer field, anxious, looked up at me, and gasped, “What if we lose?” My answer was, “You get up tomorrow, get dressed, and go to school.”
Life’s like that. Winning (however you define it) can be elating. Losing not so much, but we get up in the morning and move on.
The thing about losing is it isn’t the end of the world. If we’re wise we ask, “What did we learn? What can we fix?” and do better next time.
Losing is on my mind, of course, because here in the U.S. we’re in the middle of NFL Play offs and my Philadelphia Eagles, well, lost
The sun, as predicted, came up this morning in spite of the loss. I assume the Eagles coaches are already planning for next year; we’ll be back. Me? I’m at my desk as usual, staring at my screen, as usual, and about to plunge in full speed to The Price of Glory.
Now, I’ve always found baseball to be the great metaphor for life. Where foot ball is all about swagger, winner-take-all, and spectacle, baseball rewards endurance, persistence, and second chances. From baseball we learn to accept a batting average of .333, enjoying our successes and learning from the 2/3 of the time we don’t get a hit. Hope springs eternal.
Hope keeps writers writing, that and the compulsion to tell stories. So far I haven’t made the best seller lists, but I inch forward finding readers, making sales, envisioning stories. Marketing remains a mystery but I hope my writing skills improve with every book.
I’ve never come close to the NYT Best Seller list, but each of my books has done a little better than the last one.
Marketing remains a mystery, but I like to think my writing gets a little better with each book. I hope so. I’ve scoped out 2.5 novels to draft this year. I say “draft.” That’s just getting the story down. After that comes rewriting, editing, more rewriting to get the words right. It is enough to make me run and hide. I won’t.
I’m back in the game. It’s a new day, a new week, and a whole new year. This is going to be the best book ever. But first? Coffee.