How Writing a Book is like a Hockey Season

As a lot of you know, I took the month of August off from heavy writing. I did do some editing and wrote my blog posts, but that’s about it in the writing department. Now I’m back in the game and it feels great.

I’m going to make a really bad analogy, just warning you...

Fall is just around the corner which also brings hockey season, my favorite time of the year, as well as the holidays and NaNoWrimo. I have the same excitement right now for my current WIPs as I do for the new hockey season. Here is how I’m going to spin this to compare hockey to writing…again, stick with me.

When I sit down to write each day, I don’t know what is around the corner, even if I have an outline or synopsis written. I always make sure to let the story flow and the characters to lead me down the right path. I personally think that if you try and stick with your outline/synopsis to the letter, your work can come out feeling stagnant and lifeless. So may not agree, but for me I never know exactly what my characters will say or do until I’m in the scene and literally writing their next moves. Writing a book is like an 82 game season of hockey, you have to take each game or chapter as it comes and not think about the daunting task of writing the whole book. Editing, you can compare to the playoffs. You get to see your hard work polished. If my “team” or the cast of characters in the stories take it all the way to the finals and Lord Stanley’s Cup, writing ‘The End’. Will I finish telling their story? Will it end in victory with an agent or a book deal? I guess I’ll never know unless I dive in and play each game, or in this case write each chapter the best I can. Not knowing how it will end (and maybe you DO know how your story will end, but can never predict how far or successful that book will become) is always the fun of it.

I hope that my favorite hockey team, the LA Kings will make the playoffs this upcoming season, but I won't know until they hit the ice and play the grueling 82 games. Maybe if I time it right, I can see them go all the way as I type my final words, The End.