Writer's Block SUCKS!
It's Thursday. Of course it's Thursday - or at least it is when I am begin this post. Some Thursdays are better than other Thursdays still to this day. Sometimes I think that's how it's going to be for the rest of my life. Thursdays were always my night with my Dad. In other posts I have already hashed out what happened on those Thursdays, but it's a Thursday and I am here pondering one thing which has drove me nuts for the better part of nine months: "writer's block."
I have suffered from the worst case of "writer's block" that I have ever had since the beginning of last year's high school football season while covering game for the Johnson County Daily Journal on Friday nights. It wasn't during the last part of the season when I usually have a bad case of it because the game was during the state tournament and I am pressing deadline. Nope, it happened on the very first night of the season in the pressbox at Woodmen Field.
Back on April 13 I had my gallbladder removed. I began having severe gallbladder attacks at the first of March. After several tests and lab work the decision was made to have it removed. Good thing too according to the surgeon because he said it was one of the worst one he'd ever eradicated. I had no idea I had been that sick for so long. Because my gallbladder had been in that condition the surgery didn't go according to plan. I ended up with three extra incisions than they normally make now with the laparoscopic and a tube in my side for three days. Let me tell you having that tube and "bulb" connected to me for 96 hours was enough to make me NEVER want to have surgery again anytime in my life. The worst part was when I finally came out of anesthesia and tried to rollover on my right side and the nurse informed me I couldn't and I asked why and then she showed me the tube and the bulb and my first question to her was "What exactly happened on the table?"
Anyway during this time the surgeon has forced me to be away from my job at FedEx for three weeks. He didn't want me lifting anything over 20 pounds. Wendy took it to the extreme at times and wouldn't even let me lift the laundry baskets.
During this time I figured I would catch up on some reading I had missed out on since basketball season (watched 392 college basketball games and almost every single Pacer game). Oh and also watch the World Snooker Championship when I got bored of reading or vice versa. I got into a pretty good routine during these days of recuperating: Snooker in the morning, reading after the final session, watching the Pacers or Reds at night and then back to reading before going to sleep.
More importantly I thought I would get out of my writing funk and take a deeper look at a project I worked on for the better part of 16 years. It began while pursuing a full-time sportswriting gig and then even as I began my career with Topics Newspapers.
I go back to the surgeon Monday to hopefully get cleared to go back to work for one thing and also to get back to running and swimming as I had been doing before the diagnosis my gallbladder went kaput and I had to have surgery. I am also putting my running shorts and shoes in the car Monday morning. Once the appointment is over and he has cleared me I am heading straight to the gym and running a mile.
My writing continues to be an abyss of non existence. I have done everything which normally snapped me out of this quandary. I have read my favorite authors. I have read my favorite sports writers. I have read blogs of good friends who inspire me because I am freaking jealous of their talent. I have sat at a blank screen for hours while listening to the same music that inspired to write when I worked on my writing projects not of journalistic-driven prose. I have sat in front of the computer eating "Rueff Size" bowls of ice cream. I ventured downstairs to "Rueff Arena" and played snooker until one of the Fabulous Rueff Boys have awaken and come down early in the morning.
And...
Still I wait for something to click.
WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS!
WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS!
I can't remember the last time I seriously opened the computer "folder" which contains my novel. I had titled it Playing Footsie because it dealt with an athletic shoe company and a school it was linked to wearing its gear. I got the title from a chapter in a book titled Raw Recruits by one of my favorite basketball journalist, Alexander Wolff, and Armen Keteyian. Wolff and Keteyian had titled a chapter "Playing Footsie" in their book discussing the big-time college programs and their shoe contracts with such companies as Nike, Converse, Adidas and Reebok.
I read through the entire manuscript and first let me tell you I noticed how much my writing has improved through the years from the first chapter to the last chapter. Even with that I look at this work and think "How could I have ever thought about being a writer on a professional level. What were some of these publications thinking in ever hiring me if my writing was this bad for my own eyes?"
On numerous occasions I have wondered to myself while reading this am I really an above average writer like I thought I was before I quit being a full-time writer? Did I never reach my full potential because I didn't master "the little things" as one of my writing friends once said of my abilities? On second thought was I living in my own fantasy world throughout this and was nothing more than an average to below-average writer at best.
Then again while thinking about what kind writer I am, was or could have been it's been brought up by several of my closest friends who know me best I was always better coach and teacher than I ever was a writer. To be honest I do tend to agree with them, but writing allowed me to go into my fantasy world at anytime and avoid reality on a regular basis. One even saying I missed my calling coaching basketball for a career.
Then again while thinking about what kind writer I am, was or could have been it's been brought up by several of my closest friends who know me best I was always better coach and teacher than I ever was a writer. To be honest I do tend to agree with them, but writing allowed me to go into my fantasy world at anytime and avoid reality on a regular basis. One even saying I missed my calling coaching basketball for a career.
Many a time I have looked at the folder on the "desktop" of my computer and thought about right clicking and deleting it. Fortunately my heart won't let me ever hit the button a second time.
The biggest obstacle with this is I left it on the cyberspace shelf for so long it needs some serious updating. The landscape of college recruiting hasn't really changed that much through the years the schools and the shoe companies are still in bed with each other. It seems there really are only two brands of apparel to choose from now with Nike and Adidas.
Even as I began the manuscript in 1996-97 and because the book is basically set in Indiana, I made sure to add class basketball at the high school level, which began in the Hoosier state during the 1997-98 season.
The one drastic change likely has taken place with the profession of for lack of a better term my two alter egos in the book: Ric Bryant - sports editor of the Brandon Sentinel and Michael Cambridge - the award winning investigative journalist covering college basketball for Sports Illustrated. The media has changed so much now of course with the Internet and wannabe hacks generating their own buzz with blogs, websites and podcasts and social media. Not to mention all the technology changes with laptops, Ipads, tablets, cell phones and other devices. There definitely will have to be some major retooling of how both Bryant and Cambridge go about conducting their jobs in today's world of media. Here's the basics of it.
WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS!
The Synopsis
The Synopsis
I followed the college basketball recruiting circuit very close during my years as a reporter. I looked forward to annually attending the Nike All-American Camp at the National Institute of Sport and Fitness on the campus of Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). I also attended any Amateur Athletic Union tournament that was held close to the area as well. From the time I had my driver's license I was a regular at the outdoor basketball courts throughout Central Indiana.
Anyway everything I viewed at these venues I used to put together a plot about the top recruited basketball player in the nation. The player's name was T.J. Stevens and he was the best basketball player for the fictional Brandon North High School in fictional Brandon, Indiana. Stevens was a 6-foot-4 shooting guard and was wanted by every major college basketball program including Indiana University. He was one of the most versatile players to come out of Indiana since Damon Bailey maybe even Oscar Robertson. Brandon North was also ranked No. 1 in Class 4A (the biggest enrollment class in Indiana) with record of 19-0 and Stevens was the leading candidate that season for Mr. Basketball.
Stevens could shoot the outside jumper and he also had the ability to take defenders one-on-one to the basket. In his senior season Stevens had already broke Brandon North's career scoring record but still wanted to break the single-game record. His coach had called a special play to get Stevens open for an ally-oop dunk that would allow him to score his 51st point.
Unfortunately as Stevens landed from the record-breaking throw down he slipped on the floor. He suffered a career threatening injury with a torn anterior cruciate ligament and a spiral break of his tibia bone. The injury would cost Stevens the coveted Mr. Basketball award for the state of Indiana and also Brandon North would lose in the semistate round of the tournament.
My thought was to have my two alter egos - who were college roommates and fraternity brothers as journalism majors at IU - join forces. During their time at IU Bryant and Cambridge were sportswriters for the Indiana Daily Student and covered the Hoosier basketball team during their run to undefeated season and national championship in 1976. Somehow I also planned to have it set up next to a character resembling the Bloomington Herald Times sports editor Bob Hammel. The duo would be one of the few members of the media to have an ongoing-happy relationship with the IU basketball coach which would also be similar to Bob Knight.
Cambridge - ever the cynic and nose for knowing something wasn't right in the world of college basketball recruiting - coming to Brandon, Indiana and telling Bryant his theory that the shoes didn't come apart on their own. It was a mafia-like person with close ties to a program trying to recruit T.J. who did something to the shoes. Several years ago Cambridge himself had brought down the program associated with the gangster. Unfortunately Cambridge could never pin him for any wrong doing.
Throughout the rest of the read Cambridge and Bryant travel the college basketball recruiting circuit. Most of the time they travel together but on several occasions they split up. The times they go their separate ways is when Bryant's daughter, who becomes Indiana's Miss Basketball and dated Stevens, is playing in her own AAU tournaments.
All the while Stevens' parents decide to sue the shoe company for the injury suffered because of the shoes falling apart. The athletic apparel company feels the need to have local representation in the civil trial and hires Bryant's wife as counsel.
As Bryant and Cambridge do their best Woodward and Bernstein/Holmes and Watson act they find out Stevens may not have always been an innocent by stander during his recruitment. At some of the tournaments to either sound cocky or to see what could be offered the reporters find out that Stevens either talked about or asked recruiters what kind offers could be on the table if he signed with their program.
While this transpiring Bryant and his wife come to odds because she's defending the shoe company while he's off trying to either prove the shoes were defective or the mafia guy did hire someone to do something to the shoes. Their daughter during all of this takes refuge at Bryant's sister's house and Ric begins living at the lake house when he's not on the chase with Cambridge.
I looked at the editing I had done to the novel through the years. I noticed last night the last time I seriously touched the work was in August of 2000. That's 12 years! What the heck! Twelve freakin' years!
WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS!
During this span did I have a serious case of writer's block or was I too busy with everything else in my life to ever sit down and finish it. Or did I look at it and think the writing was completely sophomoric and I had no desire to do a complete reset. Between the layoff I produced a piece about an aging pick-up basketball player and his last game on the park court. I have sent to several of my writing friends and most all of them have told me on more than one occasion it is my best work.
I'll take the too busy part because during these 12 years my wife has given birth to four boys and there is never a dull moment at Rueff Manor. Then again from about 2008 through May of 2010 I had plenty of opportunities to work on it while spending the nights in hotel rooms while on business trips for my job handling wire shelving at various Lowes stores across Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. Hardly ever did I open the file and look at it though.
I also had begun graduate work toward a certificate in nonprofit management to make myself possibly more marketable for my dream job. It unexpectedly became open as I was beginning the program at IUPUI. As I had in little league baseball, I finished runner-up for the position.
I left the wire-shelving company and went to work a "self publishing" company. Briefly the thought of resurrecting the manuscript went through my mind especially since after a year of service the company would publish any work I submitted for free. I say briefly because my life pretty much came to a crashing halt on Sept. 9, 2010 when my father unexpectedly died.
I quit everything -literally. I quit my job because I saw how this "publishing company" did business. I had worked for a couple of "Mickey Mouse" organizations through the years. This one was on par with the preacher I worked for when I made the fateful decision to leave working at Borders full time and him part time and tried to make it again as a radio-show host at night and an advertising salesman during the day. The thing with the preacher was he could never decide which he wanted to serve more - God or money - while running the radio stations. On that radio note - I should have learned from my undergrad at Butler I was better at production and the other behind-the-scenes things than trying to be in front of the camera or behind the microphone.
To be honest I felt at times I was taking someone's monthly food money for their dream to be the next great American author. I was already having trouble sleeping at night after my Dad's death and this job wasn't helping the situation.
In regard to officiating basketball I also wanted to get in contact with the ADs, assignors or partners I had games with and give up my 2010-2011 slate of games. This would allow them or me enough time to find suitable replacements. After a long night of soul searching I decided to keep the games mainly because I needed some sort of normalcy still in my life. Dad died during football season allowing me to still have my writing release. The officiating would also give me my basketball fix. Plus there were a couple of games I looked forward to calling because of where they were being played.
From time-to-time during the day while waiting to prepare to go to the game I was to officiate at night I would sometimes open up the folder on the desktop and look at manuscript. I made some tweaks here and there to clean it up a little. I avoided though the notion of a complete overhaul which needs to be done to actually modernize it over the past 12 years. My mind raced at times with ideas and the contemplated a whole revision. Nothing stuck. When I come to this copy my mind draws a complete blank.
WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS!
I thought this past high school football season the cramp in my brain would be fixed. I would be back in my element of writing and pressing deadline on a weekly basis. As Lee Corso likes to say - "Not so fast my friend." After the Columbus East-Greenwood game I questioned what I was doing in a pressbox covering high school football on a Friday night while my family was at home eating pizza and watching movies in our home theater room.
Through the years of "stringing" for the Daily Journal I got into a routine of adding my statistics between quarters and usually by halftime I was already typing my game story and leaving quotation marks in certain spots for coaches comments. Even with most of my games during the 2011 season being like this I continued to struggle to find the prose as I did the first game of the season. My mind wasn't at the game it was at home wishing I was downstairs "camping" with the boys and Wendy and watching movies.
It got to the point where I looked in advance of the schedule and where DJ Sports Editor Rick Morwick might send me on a given Friday night. When it got to the state tournament he usually sent me the farthest place out because of my ability to beat deadline on a consistent basis. The other thing this past season too was Rick was flooded with capable correspondents. It was even to the point he had to establish a rotation. One or two of us on a given week would not be given an assignment.
Finally the state tournament pairings were announced. I looked at it and none of the teams in our coverage area were getting sent out to the boondocks. Two of the local teams were playing against each other in the first round. Also with the way the draw was set up most of the teams in their respective class sectionals likely would not advance to the next round.
I seized on the opportunity and helped Rick out with his decision making of who he was going to assign games during the tournament. I gladly e-mailed him the night of the drawing and said "Go ahead and take me out of the rotation," I said. "I will drop off the company issued laptop later in the week at the Franklin office." I look forward to hearing from you in the spring about any assignments."
I doubt I return for another season of covering high school football on Friday nights for the Daily Journal. I have been having way too much fun hanging out with my family on Fridays - playing various games and then ending the day eating pizza and watching movies. Sometimes like last night we eat pizza and then watch movies until about 2am. Of course we are dead tired the next morning but it's well worth it.
WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS!
I am complaining about "writer's block" yet I have written this much in a space for a blog - go figure. Still Chapter 26 of Playing Footsie reads blank on the computer screen as it did from August of 2000 and beginning the day after I had the tube in my side removed from surgery.
At some point I need to put Playing Footsie in the proverbial writer's bed and finish it. Everytime I go through the copy I dream the book as a movie (usually like an ABC Afterschool Special). If anything someday hopefully I can write the two chapters I currently have stuck in my head - the one where Bryant and Cambridge go into Bryant's wife's office and explain to her that the mafia guy she is getting ready to put on the stand did in fact have someone tamper with the shoes. The other is the final one where Bryant returns for "Senior Day" and Timothy James Stevens comes into the game against Iowa and makes the only shot of his college basketball career - a dunk.
As for now...
WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS!
My thought was to have my two alter egos - who were college roommates and fraternity brothers as journalism majors at IU - join forces. During their time at IU Bryant and Cambridge were sportswriters for the Indiana Daily Student and covered the Hoosier basketball team during their run to undefeated season and national championship in 1976. Somehow I also planned to have it set up next to a character resembling the Bloomington Herald Times sports editor Bob Hammel. The duo would be one of the few members of the media to have an ongoing-happy relationship with the IU basketball coach which would also be similar to Bob Knight.
Cambridge - ever the cynic and nose for knowing something wasn't right in the world of college basketball recruiting - coming to Brandon, Indiana and telling Bryant his theory that the shoes didn't come apart on their own. It was a mafia-like person with close ties to a program trying to recruit T.J. who did something to the shoes. Several years ago Cambridge himself had brought down the program associated with the gangster. Unfortunately Cambridge could never pin him for any wrong doing.
Throughout the rest of the read Cambridge and Bryant travel the college basketball recruiting circuit. Most of the time they travel together but on several occasions they split up. The times they go their separate ways is when Bryant's daughter, who becomes Indiana's Miss Basketball and dated Stevens, is playing in her own AAU tournaments.
All the while Stevens' parents decide to sue the shoe company for the injury suffered because of the shoes falling apart. The athletic apparel company feels the need to have local representation in the civil trial and hires Bryant's wife as counsel.
As Bryant and Cambridge do their best Woodward and Bernstein/Holmes and Watson act they find out Stevens may not have always been an innocent by stander during his recruitment. At some of the tournaments to either sound cocky or to see what could be offered the reporters find out that Stevens either talked about or asked recruiters what kind offers could be on the table if he signed with their program.
While this transpiring Bryant and his wife come to odds because she's defending the shoe company while he's off trying to either prove the shoes were defective or the mafia guy did hire someone to do something to the shoes. Their daughter during all of this takes refuge at Bryant's sister's house and Ric begins living at the lake house when he's not on the chase with Cambridge.
I looked at the editing I had done to the novel through the years. I noticed last night the last time I seriously touched the work was in August of 2000. That's 12 years! What the heck! Twelve freakin' years!
WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS!
During this span did I have a serious case of writer's block or was I too busy with everything else in my life to ever sit down and finish it. Or did I look at it and think the writing was completely sophomoric and I had no desire to do a complete reset. Between the layoff I produced a piece about an aging pick-up basketball player and his last game on the park court. I have sent to several of my writing friends and most all of them have told me on more than one occasion it is my best work.
I'll take the too busy part because during these 12 years my wife has given birth to four boys and there is never a dull moment at Rueff Manor. Then again from about 2008 through May of 2010 I had plenty of opportunities to work on it while spending the nights in hotel rooms while on business trips for my job handling wire shelving at various Lowes stores across Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. Hardly ever did I open the file and look at it though.
I also had begun graduate work toward a certificate in nonprofit management to make myself possibly more marketable for my dream job. It unexpectedly became open as I was beginning the program at IUPUI. As I had in little league baseball, I finished runner-up for the position.
I left the wire-shelving company and went to work a "self publishing" company. Briefly the thought of resurrecting the manuscript went through my mind especially since after a year of service the company would publish any work I submitted for free. I say briefly because my life pretty much came to a crashing halt on Sept. 9, 2010 when my father unexpectedly died.
I quit everything -literally. I quit my job because I saw how this "publishing company" did business. I had worked for a couple of "Mickey Mouse" organizations through the years. This one was on par with the preacher I worked for when I made the fateful decision to leave working at Borders full time and him part time and tried to make it again as a radio-show host at night and an advertising salesman during the day. The thing with the preacher was he could never decide which he wanted to serve more - God or money - while running the radio stations. On that radio note - I should have learned from my undergrad at Butler I was better at production and the other behind-the-scenes things than trying to be in front of the camera or behind the microphone.
To be honest I felt at times I was taking someone's monthly food money for their dream to be the next great American author. I was already having trouble sleeping at night after my Dad's death and this job wasn't helping the situation.
In regard to officiating basketball I also wanted to get in contact with the ADs, assignors or partners I had games with and give up my 2010-2011 slate of games. This would allow them or me enough time to find suitable replacements. After a long night of soul searching I decided to keep the games mainly because I needed some sort of normalcy still in my life. Dad died during football season allowing me to still have my writing release. The officiating would also give me my basketball fix. Plus there were a couple of games I looked forward to calling because of where they were being played.
From time-to-time during the day while waiting to prepare to go to the game I was to officiate at night I would sometimes open up the folder on the desktop and look at manuscript. I made some tweaks here and there to clean it up a little. I avoided though the notion of a complete overhaul which needs to be done to actually modernize it over the past 12 years. My mind raced at times with ideas and the contemplated a whole revision. Nothing stuck. When I come to this copy my mind draws a complete blank.
WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS!
I thought this past high school football season the cramp in my brain would be fixed. I would be back in my element of writing and pressing deadline on a weekly basis. As Lee Corso likes to say - "Not so fast my friend." After the Columbus East-Greenwood game I questioned what I was doing in a pressbox covering high school football on a Friday night while my family was at home eating pizza and watching movies in our home theater room.
Through the years of "stringing" for the Daily Journal I got into a routine of adding my statistics between quarters and usually by halftime I was already typing my game story and leaving quotation marks in certain spots for coaches comments. Even with most of my games during the 2011 season being like this I continued to struggle to find the prose as I did the first game of the season. My mind wasn't at the game it was at home wishing I was downstairs "camping" with the boys and Wendy and watching movies.
It got to the point where I looked in advance of the schedule and where DJ Sports Editor Rick Morwick might send me on a given Friday night. When it got to the state tournament he usually sent me the farthest place out because of my ability to beat deadline on a consistent basis. The other thing this past season too was Rick was flooded with capable correspondents. It was even to the point he had to establish a rotation. One or two of us on a given week would not be given an assignment.
Finally the state tournament pairings were announced. I looked at it and none of the teams in our coverage area were getting sent out to the boondocks. Two of the local teams were playing against each other in the first round. Also with the way the draw was set up most of the teams in their respective class sectionals likely would not advance to the next round.
I seized on the opportunity and helped Rick out with his decision making of who he was going to assign games during the tournament. I gladly e-mailed him the night of the drawing and said "Go ahead and take me out of the rotation," I said. "I will drop off the company issued laptop later in the week at the Franklin office." I look forward to hearing from you in the spring about any assignments."
I doubt I return for another season of covering high school football on Friday nights for the Daily Journal. I have been having way too much fun hanging out with my family on Fridays - playing various games and then ending the day eating pizza and watching movies. Sometimes like last night we eat pizza and then watch movies until about 2am. Of course we are dead tired the next morning but it's well worth it.
WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS!
I am complaining about "writer's block" yet I have written this much in a space for a blog - go figure. Still Chapter 26 of Playing Footsie reads blank on the computer screen as it did from August of 2000 and beginning the day after I had the tube in my side removed from surgery.
At some point I need to put Playing Footsie in the proverbial writer's bed and finish it. Everytime I go through the copy I dream the book as a movie (usually like an ABC Afterschool Special). If anything someday hopefully I can write the two chapters I currently have stuck in my head - the one where Bryant and Cambridge go into Bryant's wife's office and explain to her that the mafia guy she is getting ready to put on the stand did in fact have someone tamper with the shoes. The other is the final one where Bryant returns for "Senior Day" and Timothy James Stevens comes into the game against Iowa and makes the only shot of his college basketball career - a dunk.
As for now...
WRITER'S BLOCK SUCKS!
posted by RRBUDAWGPOTS147 @ 7:57 AM
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