From Pitch to Page…

So the last couple of months have been pretty eventful to say the least. The amount of time that I’ve been able to dedicate to my writing has fluctuated significantly from day to day and week to week. In many ways, it has been this exact premise that has streamlined my thought processes to the similarities that exist across the two worlds that I inhabit.

In sport, failure, doubt and uncertainty are played out in a public forum. There is no hiding from a loss, a failure or a missed opportunity.

In writing, every failure, doubt and uncertainty is agonisingly played out in the forum of your own mind. It’s private. It’s personal.

You delete, rewrite, question and restructure based on a hunch that contradicts what you felt weeks, days, hours or even just minutes ago. There’s no crowd. There’s no objective score as to how you’re doing other than the monotonous turnover of a word count.

The more I’ve written, the more I’ve begun to appreciate these differences and similarities between my life as an athlete and that of a writer.

Both require you to show up when it would be far easier not to.

Both are perfect platforms through which to witness the rewards of the quiet discipline of repetition.

Both require a mind-numbingly defiant belief in what you are doing.

And both begin long before anyone’s really watching.

From Pitch to Page is an acknowledgement of the bridge that connects the two worlds that I inhabit and a series through which I can share the mechanisms that fuel them.

The Training That No-One Sees

One of the biggest adjustments in my writing has been the environment in which you perform. The rhythm of a training session and the social build-up of time around your teammates brings its’ own unique energy. That narrows towards the turf as your physical exertion provides the vessel of progress from session to session and match to match.

Before a piece of writing, there’s a mental preparation that replaces the physical. The headspace required for creative fiction isn’t as consistently occupied as a training slot with teammates. It can ignite in its’ own unique way at any hour of the day. This space provides the platform from which the creativity can flow.

Training with a structure has been prevalent throughout my playing career. Alarms, session plans, coaches. There’s a comfort in that framework that can allow a guidance for a player that can sometimes require minimal mental exertion.

This framework turned my ambition into a process.

When I started writing, that structure vanished.

The page doesn’t provide the structure. I have no one checking on my workload. Imagine no coach or session plan. Now try it with no pitch or no equipment. Now imagine the entirety of the world in which you wish to train whatever skill you wish to improve being conceptualised from nothing more than a blank white canvas.

There’s a freedom to it. But a daunting one if not controlled.

It took a while to realise that the same discipline is still just as relevant, only this time I don’t have the rewards of a coach’s feedback or another 3 points in the bank.

Writing, like solo training, rewards the ones who turn up quietly.

Sometimes this can manifest itself with flow, where my fingers never stop moving for hours at a time. Other times, every sentence can be a battle to complete.

Just like imperfect training sessions; it might be a little bit slower, but I’m still moving forward.

The Patience Between Drafts

In sport, progress has metrics. Fitness times, flicking speed, goal returns, points accumulated. So much of the game can be measured and the mind can be conditioned into chasing these objective successes as a means of reward.

On the page, progress hides. The growth of a draft lives inside the edits before its’ existence. It can lay dormant for weeks until a chance re-read spurs a new dawn of fuel into a previously plateaued concept.

It’s a strange form of patience. It’s a contradiction to much of what I’ve known throughout my career and that which has largely shaped my own thought processes in similar matters. In an age where instant validation is sought on a far too regular basis, the patience that is required in my writing has been a refreshing challenge to consume.

Quite often, I’ve found that, much like my training, the best writing sessions can inspire a new wave of energy.

I’ve spent so much of my career in this way of thinking that I spent almost the entirety of my first manuscript measuring progress as output. I meticulously studied the turnover of my word count in the hope of reaching my target of 85,000-95,000 words. Within this, the truest form of progress came in the scenes and chapters that flowed; the ones where the words were pouring out quicker than I could structure them.

Now, I view progress as presence. It’s about staying the course and staying present in the moment. Allowing myself to be immersed in the environment in which I’ve created allows for the truest form of creativity to occur.

The Rhythm Of Routine

To me, creativity used to be about inspiration. In many ways it still is, however it has become more about rhythm.

The inception for any creative writing that I’ve done has always come as a moment or thought process that I’ver tried to cultivate into a bigger picture. It’s always a unique moment that allows me to trace backwards and build a projection into which I can allow that moment to be lived out.

When building this projection, I’ve come to realise that it’s not creativity that proves the driving force; it’s rhythm.

There’s a pace to consistency that keeps the wheels turning. In a previous post, I’ve described the early parts of building a manuscript to the wheels turning on a locomotive. The weight and power required is so great that it can often be a slow process to get moving. However once you do, the momentum behind those wheels makes it pretty tough to stop.

The metronome of consistency can slowly chip away at what can otherwise look like an immovable boulder to free up a track on which the momentum can begin to race.

In all honesty, there are so many times where I haven’t prioritised my writing. It’s a luxury of a hobby to be able to do and therefore an easy one to put to the side when other things are so prevalent in my life.

I’ve wondered why I do it more times than I care to admit. I’ve questioned whether it’s worth the time that I’ve already given to it.

I’ve learned that the rhythm of consistency and discipline isn’t about the passion that fuels you every time you take the pitch or sit down at a desk. It’s about the passion that ignited the promise you made to yourself. The mind-numbingly defiant belief that what you’re doing is good and worthwhile. That promise is what drives the rhythm of consistency and sometimes that means turning up when you don’t necessarily have the passion.

I feel that same energy when I write as I have done countless times as an athlete. As an international athlete, it’s okay to admit that I don’t always have the burning passion to train. In my writing it’s exactly the same.

However, I still feel that same muscle memory of repetition and the rhythm of practice whenever I sit down to write.

The same engine is running, it’s just on a different surface.

The Relinquishing of Control

When I’m training or competing, control is a constantly sought after objective. In such a subjective and variable environment as competitive hockey, you train hard to gain an element of predictability.

I know how we’re pressing. I know where I need to be. I know my touch in this situation is strong. I know my opposition likes to play in this particular style.

But writing doesn’t obey control. I learned pretty early on that structure and planning only gets me so far. There’s an objectivity to a structure that can remove the subjective creativity that is required for a piece of creative fiction. It can feel colder, more void of emotion than a truly creative piece of work should do. More than anything, there’s still every chance that the words refuse to go where the structure demands.

I used to fight that process at the beginning. Throughout my first manuscript I had countless occasions where I would completely rewrite are simply remove portions of my story on account of it not conforming with the structure I had provisionally outlined. I now understand that succumbing to a lack of control is simply part of the process.

The page, like the game, rewards instinct. There’s an emotional investment that allows my words and story to flow in a manner that guides me, not the other way around. I’ve done the training and the groundwork to allow me to consume that space. I now just have to trust myself to move in that manner.

Literature, is an art-form and subjective integrity from an objective foundation will always find itself shackled by those very chains that keep it rooted.

It’s strange how often the two concepts blur. There are countless times in which all manner of plan and structure has been discarded because of an emotional belief in the mannerisms of my characters. They, and the words that bring them to life, steer the plot in a way that no previously dictated structure can account for.

Maybe that’s what writing really is; simply the training of thought. Maybe it’s the space where instinct and flow can intertwine whilst utilising the skills of its’ training.

The Balance Between Two Worlds

I don’t hide from the fact that there’s a pretty contrasting stance in the worlds of a professional athlete within a team sport and creative writing. There are undoubted parallels but irrefutable differences that make it a rarely inhabited space.

There’s a reflective element in the quiet solace of writing that is rarely afforded within sport. So much of the reflection is shared within the team environment or simply told to you by a coach. In my writing, I can cultivate every aspect of it and, for better or worse, that includes my own evaluation of how its’ going.

Writing will never replace sport for me, it simply provides an extension of it.

At 32, this is by no means a transition. Following my return from injury this year, my body feels good and I know I have so much more to give to this game. I’m not leaving one world for another, I’m learning to live between them.

Both demand a patience and resilience that has served me well in my career to date.

From Pitch to Page is not a change of direction or focus, it is a continuation of the same story.

Credit: Graeme Wilcockson - www.gmwsport.com