My eyes are
bleary and my pupils are bouncing like ping pong balls in a lottery
hopper. My legs are cramping from lack
of use. The shower stall is dry. The couch has a permanent pocket imprint on
the cushion. There are Doritos crumbs on the carpet. And my cheeks are sore from the permanent
smile that has been plastered on my face for the past two weeks.
Here is what I
have learned from watching 64 basketball games in a two week span:
Buzzer Beaters
A basketball game
plays out like a good book. The plot line
pushes the action forward building anticipation as it moves. Tension is heightened and suspense grows as
thick as fog. And through all of this
the audience is taken on an emotional ride. Your heart beats faster as the players sprint
out to a fast break, the pit of your stomach drops as the ball rolls off the
rim and you scream in agony when the referee calls a foul against your team.
But despite all
of this it is the ending that resonates.
That one last shot where everything the characters have worked for the
entire game hangs in the balance. Will
the ball drop in and the main character be victorious or will the ball clank
off the rim in disappointment?
It must all come
down to that one last shot.
Cinderella
Give me a 16-seed
making a run at a mighty 1-seed and I am hooked. I was enthralled with the miraculous march
of 15-seed Florida Gulf Coast University into the Sweet Sixteen. To me the NCAA tournament is about the
upsets.
Perhaps that is
why my characters tend to be down-on-their-luck kids trying to make good, but
finding a whole lot of trouble instead. Who doesn’t like to root for the
underdog?
What odds do our
characters face? If they are not steep
enough lets ramp them up to NCAA tourney heights!
Bracket Busters
My brackets need to be blown up! Seriously, I can't pick a game to save my life.
But you know what? Despite the fact that my bracket has more red marks than my old physics exams I still had a blast.
So when that story you are writing takes a sudden and unexpected turn... take a deep breath... sometimes we don't quite know where we are going but the results are fun none-the-less!
One Horrific Leg Injury
After Sixty-three
games of the basketball tournament you would think there would be very little
that could surprise me. But that is when
the unexpected tends to jump out and grab you.
I wasn’t much
into the Louisville-Duke game the other night.
In fact, I was fairly indifferent toward the teams and was pretty
detached from the whole game. You could
say I felt no attachment to the characters.
That is until
about half way through the game when one of the Louisville players contested a
jump shot, landed wrong and suffered one of the most horrific leg injuries I
have ever seen in a basketball game. But
it wasn’t the injury that captivated my attention as much as the reaction of
his teammates. The game came to a sudden halt and several
Louisville players dropped to the ground in a heap, tears streaming down their faces and eyes
wide with shock. Teammates and coaches tried
to lift them to their feet but the players appeared inconsolable. As the injured player was being wheeled out on a
stretcher the coach tried to huddle his team together as he himself fought back
tears.
I was immediately
hooked. The characters that for the past
hour I had viewed with indifference now took on a whole new light. I cared about these characters! More than anything I wanted to see these
characters succeed. It was no longer
just a story playing out before me. This
story now had emotion.
I felt this game
in the depths of my heart.
You must not come to the blank page lightly
After witnessing
their teammate withering in pain on the side of the court I expected the Louisville
team to quickly cave to the mighty Duke Blue Devils. But I was completely surprised when
Louisville did just the opposite. They
did not appear timid or afraid… just the opposite. They attacked their opponent
with smothering defense and aggressive drives to the basket. They bombarded the Blue Devils with powerful
moves to the hoop and long range three pointers.
I was reminded of
Stephen King who once said, “You must not come to the blank page lightly.” To be successful writers we must attack the
page no matter what obstacles or hardships we may face. Rejections, insecurities, bad critiques or
stalled stories must not deter us from our goal.
Always push
forward.
Write on my friends…
write on!
