new jersey devils, part 2

I haven't heard from you in a bit...

<<< enclosed picture >>>

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Love the picture Beth, very cute. I had a busy weekend. I also don't know exactly how to use you for my website. It's a sports news site so fictional stories don't really fit into it. I am still brainstorming to try and figure something out.

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Maybe a side feature could highlight it?

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What do you mean by that? I am open to at least listening to your ideas.

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Well I don't like to put any context around my work. I'm sure that if you published it as a news story people could draw their own conclusions.

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I can't publish something as news if it is completely a fiction story.

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But isn't most of sports reporting just fitting narrative to events with inherent randomness? In fiction, the only difference is the source of the randomness.

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The articles on my site refer either to fact or opinion.

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Take this paragraph from the posts on the Jets' win over the Pats:

<<< paragraph from G_____'s site >>>

Most of this is not just opinion but opinion about what storyline best fits what we saw and did not see. For some writers, half of their material seems to come from somewhere else -- like someone else writes it. And they just weave some kind of narrative into the parts that come from external sources.

Plus, don't you respect your readers enough to let them distinguish between fiction and non-fiction? Even the 'World Weekly News' does this.

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Beth -

We could go back and forth on this all day. I am not trying to argue with you. I do completely enjoy your writing, I just don't think it's a fit for my website. I think you could definitely have a future in writing, even in sports. Maybe start up a fictional sports blog site based on stories like the one you sent me??

I do enjoy working with you and speaking with you. It is just my preference to not go in that direction with my site at this time.

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Yes I've been thinking of starting a fictional blog but I'm not sure how to attract sports fans. We'll see. Maybe I'll try doing a sports opinion piece?

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Beth -

Are you looking to do a fictional blog just on sports? Or in general? I am the Director of Operations of a sports blog network. If a fictional sports blog site is something you are truly interested in, I can run the idea by the other board members and see if they think they would want that on the network.

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Hmm. Maybe run the idea by them. I'm interested in a fictional sports blog site but I would have to write about more of the material first.

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Ok I threw him an email letting him know you are interested in possibly starting a fictional sports blog on the network. What exactly do you mean when you said you would have to write about more of the material first?

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Well I have to think up the interviews and events and see how they go. That is the material. Then I have to write about that.

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Ok, we'll I passed it along and will let you know what they say.

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Okay. I'm thinking of doing a behind-the-scenes thing on the 2006 ESPY awards.

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ok :)

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Do you have blog-ring requirements for the number of posts per week or something like that?

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They normally like to have each blogger write at least three articles per week. However since your site would be completely different then the normal sports site, it may be different. Once I get the info from the guys, I will let you know more details.

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How many entries do you think you need to kick off a blog?

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You can do one at a time, as long as you write consistently.

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So you can start one with just one entry? Maybe I will build up a few before the big release so that people will be able to look at more than one piece on their first visit.

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Beth -

The guys that run that site are intrigued and interested in seeing a sample of what your writing on the site may be like. Can you please put together an example? Maybe something like, your first experience at the US Open? Or something like that.

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Good idea, I have begun a story about my first experience at the US Open.

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Great. Thanks Beth

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I have enclosed my first draft about a first experience at the US Open.

The First Experience at the US Open
by Beth M______

<<< Many years later, as she faced the human-resources consultants, Michelle Spurlock was to remember that distant afternoon when her father took her to discover tennis.

But today she practiced ice hockey for the first time. Her paternal grandfather, Magnus Spurlock, had dominated the sport decades hence and now his son and her father, also Magnus Spurlock, showed her the game.

In modern hockey, players glide on bladed shoes attempted to shoot a stubby cylinder into a net. Genetics and family secrets bestowed on Michelle a Tracy-Austin-like virtuosity with respect to (for short: wrt) the game of hockey, one whose traditional balance of power favored her male counterparts.

And her game wasn't girly either -- it reeked of a musky masculine aggression seldom seen outside of the towel-snapping confines of the proverbial locker room. She fought, she bit, she cross-checked. Magnus couldn't have been prouder.

But as she aged something happened. Boys treated her differently, like a wound caused by the bite of a rabid dog. And, although she had always been smaller than the players she was pulverizing, adolescence widened that gap. She could still compete, but she wasn't dominating. The opposition no longer feared her. The meanest boys teased her, calling her the type of player who had to change her pads several times every period.

So she went to her grandfather. She sat before Magnus, a great metaphor of a man who stood six feet and seven centimeters, even with the stoop his back had taken on due to decades of supporting shoulders like similes. He smiled and told her that, although he loved hockey, she may find herself more suited to another sport -- one where women had already won the battle of the sexes. And so he took her to a tournament.

A gust of wind foreshadowed their entrance to the World Tennis Association's august August tournament, the US Open. Watching tennis greats like Steffi Graf, Gabriela Sabatini, Wilfred Johnson, and Jim Courier, she was awed by the majesty of the sport. After the tournament, she spent days training her forehand and backhand and all of the hands in between. She set matches and served seconds and broke points and learned the ins and outs of the game. She developed a wicked lob shot and started winning tournaments.

But then as often happens something happened. Going to shake hands with her beaten opponent, hockey instincts took over. She grabbed the opponent's shirt's back and pulled it over her head. She tossed down her racket and gloves and started beating the poor tennis player like a pinata stuffed full of Pentium processors, which are incredibly valuable for their size and weight. Blood splattered out through all the relevant steradians and Michelle's tournament ended because of an esoteric rule infraction. Magnus, her father, smiled and he remembered with nostalgia his thirst for blood.

The next day, Michelle laced her skates up again in a local men's league. She had lost some of her quickness, but against the spotty competition there she fared well. That game she performed a hat trick. But sitting on the bench during the third period, she knew she would never attain the sport's highest honor of getting so drunk after winning an NHL title that she urinated in the Stanley Cup and she longed to go back to tennis. The coach soon would whistle her back onto the ice.

Before reaching that final line change, however, she had already understood that she would never leave the ice rink, because families condemned to one hundred years of hockey did not have a second opportunity in tennis. >>>

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Beth -

I've passed along your story. What are you looking to get out of starting your own blog?