My storyline consultant and I finally got together at camp after over a year of isolation away from each other. I started telling him about Team Manager: SWISH! He sat there with his mouth gradually dropping open. I knew he was from Iowa and thought he'd really get a kick out of the story being set near his hometown. But as I watched his face, I began to doubt myself and wound down.
"You won't believe this," he said. "My three older brothers were all athletes. Me, not so much. But, of course, I had to go out for the team. Got injured playing football my sophomore year. I kind of liked the athletic department and wanted to keep my hand in, so to speak, so I volunteered to manage the girls' basketball team. You would not believe the stories I could tell you. Those girls were the raunchiest bunch I have ever known. Way worse than the guys. I'd sit on the team bus kind of pretending to be asleep and just listen to them talk. Oh, my God!"
"Did you date any of them?"
"No. I was completely invisible to them. I learned more about girls than I ever imagined. When basketball season was over, I volunteered to manage the girls' track team. They loved having a guy to cart the starting blocks and shot puts around. And they were just as raunchy as the basketball girls only there were more of them. There is nothing you can write about them that would be unbelievable to me!"
Okay, so he hasn't actually read the book yet. We'll see if he pronounces it all believable.
A reader sent an email to me speculating that I must be from Iowa or be a coach as I knew so much about girls' basketball. Either that, or I did a lot of research. Then he casually asked, "How much time a day do you spend writing and researching?" Oh, boy.
The answer is that I spend an average of eight to ten hours a day writing and researching and editing and formatting. No, as a matter of fact, I don't have a life. In preparing Team Manager, I've researched the entire history of girls' basketball in Iowa, dating from 1924 forward, the creation of the IGHSAU, 6-on-6 basketball (abandoned in 1994), corn production in Iowa, hog production in Iowa, the Omaha District of the DEA, the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, the relevant state and national laws on moonshine, the tournament schedules and results of the state basketball and track tournaments, eye surgery, corrective lenses, makes and models of AR15 type rifles, school year schedules, weather patterns, Title IX, driver's license qualifications, hay production and process, various tractor types and manufacturers, stretching and warmup exercises, SPARQ fitness testing, shared education programs with local community colleges, drug trafficking and sex trafficking, cheerleader competitions, sizes of basketballs, weights of shot puts, how to become a referee, Child Protective Services, athletic taping techniques, residential mental and behavioral inpatient centers, jobs for the handicapped, lethal doses of fentanyl and alcohol, wood chippers, Family and Consumer Sciences, sports management responsibilities, personal training vs. athletic training, choroidal folds, slang for female masturbation, and Old Mother West Wind stories. Just as a sampling.
It's not over. I'm nearly finished with the first draft of Team Manager: SPRINT! Twenty-eight rough draft chapters are currently available for my Sausage Grinder tier ($10/month) patrons on Patreon.
And in the meantime, I'm writing three other stories. The list above doesn't include my research for them!
Why? Because I really love to write and share my stories. With close to fifty published books, I'm often asked if I write for a living. The answer is, "No. I write to live." It's a passion and may be one reason I can't keep a relationship going for more than twenty-five or thirty years. A domestic partner would frown at my not taking the garbage out or vacuuming the floors.
All so I can provide entertainment for you and other old men around my age. Okay, and some women, too.
What's been great lately is that the weather has been so good, I've been able to sit outside and write part of the time. Feet up, coffee or soft drink in hand, and life stretched out in front of me.
Sometimes, I make people cry at what I've written. Let me tell you, there is nothing that will make you bawl more than going through the list and listening to the possible music for the father/daughter dance at her wedding in August.
Enjoy the stories!