Writing Process: Am I Any Good?

Every once in a while, it occurs to me that I’ve been writing for a long while, over 36 years now, writing my novels and screenplays, short stories and articles, and I have yet to get it anywhere of import, nothing but meaningless articles published in community papers.

It has dawned on me that I might not be that good, that, as much as I pretend to deny my desire for vainglory, I crave it as much as the next. It may also be that my writing is bilgewater (my father’s expression), that I drivel on because I am on immature autopilot.

However, my extreme subjectivity understood, I don’t think so. I believe that I understand what’s in a character’s head, what moments mean something and what others do not, what this experiment of ours, humans that is, might or might not be, and that I can express that in words and phrases. My thoughts burn ahead. (Which might explain why I always get fired.)

Midsommer’s Dani looking for truth or something like it.

Anyway, that’s the trickery inside that pushed me on here, ready to take on the big bloggers like Gala Darling and Heather Armstrong and say, well, you know, I might not know marketing and key words but I do know something about…uh, not so sure what that is, but, fucking hell, I have Zake’s Orchestral Studies Collectanae looping in my head, and that has to be worth something.

The Spirituality of Sport

As mentioned previously, I once had a sports column with four different publications over a span of eight years (1989-97); only The Vancouver Courier is still in print. The Spirituality of SportI covered everything from hockey and curling to basketball and bull riding and threw in the occasional vaguely philosophical piece, such as the following much-abridged Spirituality of Sport from The Voice in January 1997:

Professional sport is much maligned these days; popular thought intimates that it has become nothing more than a soulless business that devours athletes and fans alike. Championships are no longer won; they are bought. That’s what the Yankees, Bulls, Avalanche and Cowboys did. The Spirituality of SportMoney has spoiled thousands of athletes, embittered millions of fans and laid waste to entire seasons. Indeed, for many, it has permanently scarred the game. And yet this greedy, gold-toothed face is not the only visage of professional sport. in 1988, Orel Hershiser pitched a complete game to win the World Series and become the World and National League MVP. He was asked how he was able to perform so well under pressure. The Spirituality of Sport“Hymns,” he said.” I was listening to hymns in my head.” There was no gloating or Disneyland, just the hymns. While this idea can be much obscured by the commentators blathering illiticisms and sponsors hijacking triumphant moments, somewhere in between is something pure, almost divine. We only have to fill our heads with music. The Spirituality of SportThat’s when we will truly see Barry Sanders dance through the line, Hakeem Olajuwon loft the soft jumper, Paul Kariya tuck it in the open side and Orel Hershiser look for the sign, check the runner and let it fly.