How I became a writer Part XXII

Title: How I became a writer

Part XXII

Have you ever had an expectation that was crushed?  One day I had a sub in elementary who promised us if we were good for the WHOLE week, we would get a special surprise at the end!  We were all on our absolute best behavior that week, in anticipation of the special surprise!  My friend Marc was excited, speculating what it could be!  At the end of the week, the whole class got the special surprise... a single tootsie roll (or maybe we actually got two)!  I don’t know what we were expecting but that was not it!  As humans we have times when expectations are fulfilled and other times where they are crushed into a million pieces!

This year I expected that two girl track athletes that I have had for years now, would have a great year!  You might say, “but coach, outdoor track hasn’t even started in New York yet, has it?”  That is correct, my dear reader!  Track starts on March 4^th this year, so how do I know what kind of year they are going to have? 

Allyson.  Allyson is a force of nature on the track and can do many running events on the track!  In her career she has helped set a school record in the shuttle hurdle relay, has been a distance unit hero, has been an effective member of the 400 relay, but last year she won sectionals in the open 400 with an eye popping 1:01.06 FAT!!  (She is also an excellent triple jumper and a solid high jumper!)  Allyson went on to state qualifiers and represented our school well!  Before she left state qs, I talked with her about the 2019 track season, and we were both excited!  Allyson was ranked last year in the top 25 athletes in all schools in the open 400, that includes the huge A and double A schools!  Just to give you an idea of how impressive that is, there were 80 schools in small school track last year... yeah, 80!!!!!  Add to that 23 large to huge schools (the top school is rated over 2000 students to JTs 118 student rating!!!)  She was top twenty-five on THAT list!  Yes, 2019 was going to be awesome!!!!

Then in soccer season I heard she was hurt.  I never like it when a JT student gets hurt but as a coach my heart stops when a track athlete gets hurt:)  When students fool around by wrestling with each other, I say to the one with the upper hand, “Hey, you can’t hurt them, I still need them:)”  Everyone smiles but I believe for jokes to be funny there must be a grain of truth in them.  I have learned that any athlete can suddenly surprise you, and that human potential is amazing, so I am very serious when I say, “I need them.”  Allyson had a concussion which effectively ended her soccer season.  As you know, I was a soccer player (if you follow this blog).  What you might not know is that I broke my foot once my freshman season in college, so I understand what it is like to lose a season.  I talked with her and was pleased she would be better in time for basketball!  “I hope your team does well,” I told her with a smile.  Taking my kids into school one day, my heart skipped several beats when I saw Allyson hobbling across the parking lot.  As a coach you begin to lie to yourself fast.  “I’m sure she’s fine!”  “I’ll bet she’ll be back to normal after a little rest!”  Nope.  It looks like Allyson’s 2019 track season will not be happening:(  I told her at least it’s not her senior year but I’m sure that’s small comfort.  When I missed my freshman year of soccer, I think that’s why I found Gail.  God had to slow me down... way down, and what a blessing that was!  My wife is awesome!  I can only hope Allyson gets a huge blessing out of this dark time!

Kiersten.  Kiersten was going to be a potential secret weapon for me, that I hoped to unleash on the unsuspecting league and section.  You see, I felt like she had incredible hurdle talent and that it could manifest itself at anytime!  I have once had a senior high jumper struggle through the season and then out of nowhere, tied the school record in the high jump at SECTIONALS!!!  Morgan’s two best throws of her career in discus happened in the last two meets of her career!!  Brooke’s pole vault skills came together her last meet, to have her vault to a school record and a sectional patch!  I thought Kiersten had an excellent chance too!!  Why do I say “had” you wonder?  Well, Kiersten might be able to compete in the 2019 season but the doctor has already ruled out hurdles and high jump... any jumping really but those are her two BIG events!  This story might have a very happy ending as a human being has unlimited potential to surprise you BUT whatever happens... it looks like I’ll never get to know if she would have shocked everyone in the 100 hurdles.  That’s disappointing.  I was really looking forward to that last journey with her! 

My expectation as a writer was that once I wrote a book to be published that would be it:)  The book would be out, millions would read it, and I would be an official author!  Don’t laugh too hard, I think a lot of aspiring writers think that writing a book is the end of the race, when really, it is only the beginning.  A book is like a long distance race.  You can’t be winning in the first mile and expect to win the whole thing.  Getting the book done is promising but you still have a long way to go!

I’ll never forget the day I finished “An Assumed Risk”!  I told Gail, “I’m really close!  Please let me write until it’s done!”  She sighed.  I begged, “How about until 1pm, babe?”  Gail slowly said, “Alright.”  I think I finished at 1:30pm but I was done!!  I had a huge pile of notebooks with over 200, 000 words in them but I was done!!!  I had written a book and it was GOOD!  Score!!!!  Oh, poor foolish me... the battle was only beginning.  Like many writers, my expectation was that if I wrote a good book I was done!  An aspiring writer just finished his manuscript this week and facebook’d me excitedly.  “I’m done!” he crowed.  Like a grizzled vet I asked a question that I felt I already knew the answer to.  “Is your manuscript edited?”  My heart sank as he typed back, “I’ve read through it several times!”  I read “An Assumed Risk nine times getting it out and that book is HUGE!”  Sternly I typed back, “It needs to be edited by a professional or at least someone with strong English skills.”  “Can you help me?” came back the plea.  My English expert Mrs. Foos would get a good chuckle out of that:)  I gave him his five options as an aspiring writer to getting his book in print.  All of them included editing, either by a publishing house, a pay-to-play company, or a good friend who excelled at English.  He was daunted to say the least.

It had taken me six months to write “An Assumed Risk,” stealing snatches of time from my life here and there to do so!  Typing it with my son, Matthew’s help, would take months too!  Then would come the editing phase and I had no idea how painful that would be!  Take a mother’s baby and have a doctor take the baby away.  The mother asks where the baby is going.  “Your baby needs a lot of help but we can rebuild him!  Better, stronger, faster!”  It is cool watching Steve Austin become the 6 million dollar man but I don’t think many mother would enjoy watching their newborn son have a risky surgery to enhance them!  That’s kind of what editing is like but much more painful... and even that is far, far from the finish line.  But I didn’t know that!  My son and I faithfully typed away on the manuscript.  Matthew was my first fan!  One day he was yelling down the hall.  I ran down and asked what in the world was going on?  He was mad at a character named M. Major Graves!  That meant the world to me!  Little did I know that very similar to Allyson and Kiersten, my expectations of what was coming next would be very different from what I imagined!

(Author Adrian Essigmann has a page on Amazon where all eighteen of his books are listed ((soon to be nineteen:)).  Type in Amazon Adrian Essigmann and click on the link that says, “Adrian Essigmann – Amazon.com” which should take you to his author’s page.)