THE LAST FIVE ...

Closing up shop
- Wednesday, Aug. 02, 2006

It may be time for a change
- Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Entry in the air
- Friday, April 21, 2006

Still here
- Thursday, April 20, 2006

Music of the moment
- Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Or ... BE RANDOM!


GOOD READS

101 in 1001
American Road Trip, 1998


OTHER PEOPLE

Chupatintas
Dancing Brave
Fugging It Up
Kitty Sandwich
Mister Zero
Sideways Rain
Ultratart
Velcrometer


THE BASICS

My crew
Latest
Older
Notes
Our host
Profile

2001-04-17 - 12:35 a.m.

Back in the game

I emerged from my slump tonight.

I hadn't been writing well, not the way I know I can, anyway. Since the beginning of the minor league baseball season on April 5, I'd been writing a lot of game stories and notebooks and the like. And I wasn't happy with most of them. I was struggling for a lede, struggling for transitions, struggling for the right questions to get the quotations I could use.

Last Thursday, the night of the no-hitter, I wrote a decent story. But that was like going 2-for-4 in the middle of a 4-for-30 slump: I went right back to my mediocre stuff on Saturday. Saturday, no less, for a day game that ended seven hours before my deadline. I sat there in the press box that sunny afternoon, laboring through a game story, Sunday notebook and game notes.

But tonight: Tonight was the break-out game, the 4-for-4 with 4 RBI game that tells everyone the slump is over. Tonight, an 11-inning affair that ended just before 10 p.m., I had no trouble. I had a lede worked out, but it fell through when the game ended a little differently than I anticipated. I didn't know what my first line would be until I sat down to write -- at 10:40, with 20 minutes until deadline. But it came to me just then, and so did the following 16 inches. I didn't even need many of the quotes I got during my half hour in the clubhouse, and I still felt great about what I wrote.

It's like writing papers in high school or college. Some you know are horrible; others you are confident are great. Then there are the ones you think are good but turn out mediocre, and vice versa.

But tonight was one of the good ones.

Hell, maybe tomorrow, if I get to it, I'll share and let you see for yourselves. I just don't have time to do it now.

And now I have to come up with a title for this entry ...

Previous page: Pack rat
Next page: The first one back

� 1998-2004 DC Products. All rights reserved.

Yeah, sorry I have to be all legal on you here, but unless otherwise indicated, all that you read here is mine, mine, mine. But feel free to quote me or make fun of me or borrow what I write and send it out as an e-mail forward to all your friends, family and coworkers. Just don't say it's yours, you know?