A Writer's Journey Part VII
Title: A Writer’s Journey
Part VII
It was 2007 and a girl named Rachel Passaretti had come up to
varsity from modified cross country. She
loved to do speed work, which is unusual because most runners either endure or
dread it. I’ll never forget early in the
season, the first time she did well at the Elementary drill “320 Repeats”. She did twenty of them (or very close to
that). Rachel was pumped! I told her, “Rachel, you are getting MUCH
stronger as a runner!!” She was very
happy. The next week we did 400 repeats
at the high school on the track and I warned her not to get over confident on
the first one. She ran a blistering 1:20
something her first time around and promptly died the rest of the drill. I smiled and told her that was normal. Rachel learned her lesson and soon was doing
speed work like a beast! This was
FANTASTIC, except for one problem. It
wasn’t helping her! At all! Her race times were slow, while her speed
work splits were telling me she was capable of so much more! What to do?
When I say her race times were slow, I don’t mean that
Rachel was a little off where I thought she should be... she was really off!!! Rachel ran a 32 something at a mid-season
invitational (which would be the sectional course at the end of the season). She also ran a 29:06 in the mid-season race on
the county course. Neither of those
scream “This girl has talent”, BUT I knew she did. How to get it out of her? It was a puzzle. Finally, I had an idea and Rachel was brave
enough to try it. On a sunny October day
we were in Addison , New York
The old Addison course let
you watch a good amount of the race in the first mile but the second mile was
obscured by forest. I watched nervous for
Rachel at the two-mile mark hoping this idea would work out. She had been farther up than normal in the
first mile but would she have the confidence to keep running a “two-mile race?” I wasn’t sure. It was frustrating to watch a runner like
Rachel who had excellent work ethic and a fair amount of talent, getting such
poor times. I was hoping I was right and
that she was struggling with a mental issue but if it was, would she be able to
fight through it? Nervously I watched
the front runners fly-by and even though I cheered for my upper two, Lyzz and
Kiersten, as they charged by too, I waited for Rachel. Suddenly she was there and way ahead of time! I got her time but she just kept going! The two-mile point was at the bottom of the
last nasty hill and Rachel ran up it, without flagging! The mental block was broken! Her improvement was amazing that day and it
only got better as we hit the post season.
At the county meet Rachel went from a 29:06 mid-season time to a
24:49!!! That is roughly a FOUR MINUTE
improvement!! That was a hard course but
the competition was tough that year so Rachel didn’t win anything, BUT I was
proud of her:) The sectional course was
in Rushville , New York
at Marcus Whitman High School
Writing doesn’t have a finish line with a large ticking
clock. The clock gives you cold hard
facts. It doesn’t care how hard you
trained or what you’ve suffered. If you
are doing bad it will tell you. At the
end of a race, it can give you a surge of hope or the sinking feeling of
despair as you miss your goal. Writing
is totally different. Whether you “win”
or “lose” is up to other people’s mind’s eye.
People whose life experiences and tastes might be totally different for
yours or similar but you might differ on a few crucial things. What is better? “Marvel or DC?” “Star Wars or Star Trek?” “Spiderman or Batman?” My college creative writing teacher said,
“Oh, I couldn’t get into the Lord of the Rings.” I was like, “WWWWWHAT?????” I was tempted to flee the Philistine's class
but I’m glad I resisted! She was a good
teacher:) My mother likes to read “War
and Peace” or “Gone with the Wind”, not the latest science fictional
novel. Every human brain is so different
BUT in some ways, they aren’t. We all
like to hear stories... just different kinds of stories. Unlike the stop watch in running, in writing the
only gage I have to go on is other people.
Now when I started writing, I told myself the only thing
that mattered was if I liked my own novel.
If everyone else in the world thought it was stupid, as long as I liked
it, then it was good! But like the cold
logic of the stop watch, that is not true.
Like it or not, a writer’s skill is judged by human opinion. A writer’s job is to take a story in his or
her brain and vividly bring it to life for others. There are mainstream books that many like that cause me to raise my eyebrow.
One day at JT, I was helping a student read the Hunger Games, and they
were to the part where the two heroes come out riding a chariot, on fire. I felt it was very poorly written and shook
my head at its style. “This is a best
selling novel?” I thought. Thousands
upon thousands of people loved the book!
You, my dear reader, might have loved it! Am I right? Is it a poorly written book or are thousands
right that it is brilliant? I’ve learned
that is the wrong question. If you
enjoyed the book, how can you be wrong about that? If I didn’t like it, how could I be wrong
about that? You see, there is no finish
line in writing. I am a big “Matthew
Reilly” fan (except for Temple Temple
So how do I know if I’m doing good? If there is no watch or line to cross, how do
I win? I win when someone likes one of
my books:) A teacher once bought my
book, “Life, Liberation, and the Pursuit of Video Games” as a present for her adult
son at Christmas time. I signed it and
handed it to her. Two years later I get
a call. “He just read your book and he
loved it!! Is there a sequel?” “Um,” I said, “no, that is a stand alone
novel, but if he likes that one he might like one of my other books!” She didn’t sound convinced but she was polite
about it. Oh, well, at least he liked
that one!
I think the worse thing an independent writer, like myself,
experiences, is that people are your passport to get into other brains BUT they
don’t always stamp the passport. “Please
put up a review,” I ask adults who really like one book or another. Very few fans will do this, even if they
really like your books. Kids are even
less likely to do so. What they don’t
understand is how important their voice is!
Rachel had to just rely on her legs and training when she ran. A writer can put their heart and soul into a
book, but others will decide if it goes anywhere besides sitting on your shelf
in the study:) Even a poor review is
better than no review! Please nuke one
of my books if you hated it! Sometimes I
think all good reviews looks fake:)
*** Author Adrian Essigmann has eighteen books in print on
Amazon.com, soon to be nineteen! All of
them are $.99 cents on Kindle, with the exception of “An Assumed Risk” which
will be (Lord willing) an e-book before summer.
All of his books are available in soft cover too! Type Amazon Adrian Essigmann and his author’s
page should come up ***
Book list
Fiction
Wolf Hunting – Action/suspense
Wolf Hunting 2: Trick Shot – Military action/ science
fiction
American Fairytale – Colonial America
Life, Liberation, and the Pursuit of Video Games – Dystopian
Asylum Series (Tribulation genre meets CS Lewis meets lost)
Asylum
Killer Robots
Werewolves
Elf Princess
Zero Book – 666
C-3 Series (Pilgrim’s Progress meets Ender’s Game)
An Assumed Risk
Heavy Opposition
A Distant Boom
Two Hearts
The Magnificent Six
Don’t Pass Go!
Two Paths – Coming Soon!!
The Princess of Ashes Series (C-3 Series spin off)
Falling Ashes
Non-fiction
Miracles Can Happen: The Jim Ross Story – Jim Ross was
miraculously sparred from death... twice!
Attack on Girl’s Track – A look at boys competing in girls
sports, from the perspective of a track coach.
The book uses five years of track results from Section V (2012 – 2016)
to prove its point.
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