THE AUTHOR AND HER SPORT

I think we writers need sports. We can sit at a computer just so long, building characters and plotting, crafting worlds and words for ourselves…and for readers who aren’t even in the room. The sport should pull us out of our chairs, get us outside, involve real people and provide a more tangible goal than writing does. I’m pretty pleased with my choice: golf. I play eighteen holes at least once a week and I’m active in my local women’s golf group. With my club, I’ll whack (with all my might) a small, dimpled ball, ninety to one hundred times in five hours. Note two more beneficial elements of golf…getting rid of pent-up aggressions and seeing a goal met immediately: getting the damn ball in the hole in the least strikes possible. (I didn’t say the sport you have to pick is easy, did I?)

Sure there are similarities between golf and writing. Both are challenging. I pick a club, align the ball and calibrate my swing as carefully as I choose words for my novels. I love playing with great golfers as much as I’m inspired when I read novels by fabulous writers. Practice? Vital to a golfer as it is to an author. Have I written a novel about golfing? Absolutely. And here’s the cool part…my heroine (in BAD LIES, a novel I haven’t released yet) plays great golf. Now you see the advantage of being a writer who also golfs…through my character, I can be the outstanding golfer I want to be!