Baseball and Been Very, Very Good to Me

I have been spending a lot of time watching baseball. It's that time of the year and I can't go without my dose of October ball and the brilliant pitching that usually goes with it. In fact, as I write this post I am watching game 3 of the NLCS. The Dodgers are winning (thank God, I can't root for St. Louis, too much Cub in me) but are down two games to none. So far all the games in both the American League Championship Series and the National League Championship Series have been real nail bitters. I'm rooting for a Dodger versus Tigers series (sorry Marty) so I can see Kershaw pitch against Verlander. In the baseball world that would be like having the opportunity to see Joe Montana play against Tom Brady (when it comes to rings these two are the best of all time; they just know how to win) or Tiger Woods go head to head with Jack Nicklaus. FYI - I usually root for the National League in the World Series unless, of course, St. Louis goes.

My passion for baseball has inspired my writing. Today I finished writing the first draft of the flash fiction story I'm writing to enter in a writing contest through Writers Digest (I fear I have overused a form of the word 'write' in the last two sentences, please, forgive me). It needs to be 1500 words or less so I have some revising and cutting and rewriting (there it is again) to do. The shell is good and I hope to make it even better between now and the deadline of November 15.

November is national write a novel month and I hope by then to be deep into revising and editing Welcome to Utopia. I should be getting back the manuscript within two weeks. There have been some minor issues that have come up but we are still moving forward. Everything is just going a bit slower than originally anticipated. I'm now looking forward to climbing back into it. The time away has been good and I have been doing my best to keep on writing. As some of you know there are times when all the balls one must juggle as a teacher needs your full attention just to keep from letting one of them fall.

I have become the assistant coach for Oral Interp and this past weekend was our first meet. I can't express in words (and I'm supposed to be a writer) how proud I am of all the kids we took to the competition. We had three individuals take first place and one of our duets took first place. Awesome. It really is a blessing in my life to be able to do what I do for a living. In the words of Jean Valjean... Now I am blessed.

I must do a shout out for a teacher at Douglas High School here in the Rapid City area for his brilliant performance of Thenardier and the rest of the cast that brought to life what my wife calls my obsession of Les Miserables. Yes, I love the story, I love the music, I love the play, I love the book, and I love both versions of the movie (the latest being in my top two movies of all time - Casablanca is first). I loved the play they put on here so much I saw it twice.

I hope you all had a wonderful three day weekend. Thanks for reading and... God Bless!