Back to the baseball diamond

My writing career did not start with novels and fiction stories. I was a writer for the Harrisburg Patriot-News (and later its website, PennLive) for 17 years.

I covered high school, college and other amateur sports for the newspaper. The sports ranged from football to track, golf to field hockey, ice skating to archery.

Even after I left the Patriot-News to homeschool my son for a few years, I continued to write about sports for various newspapers, ranging from local outlets like the Lebanon Daily News and Lancaster Intel, to more distant markets like the Pittsburgh Tribune and the Providence Journal.

Yes, over that time I have published my two novels, The Pride of Central and The Jewelry of Grace. But it was still important to me to continue covering sports, especially my favorite.

Baseball.

I mean, there are other reasons why The Pride of Central follows a baseball team instead of a basketball or football team. But given the option to focus my storyline and allegory around any one sport, it was never a question of which one I would choose.

Even after becoming a freelancer - and thereby having the opportunity to turn down assignments if I found them inconvenient - I don't remember ever saying "no" just to have more time to work on a novel. I continued to cover week-long baseball tournaments in the summer for whatever paper or website was interested.

Then COVID and shutdowns hit.

Assignments disappeared. Events were cancelled. I had more time to work on The Jewelry of Grace, but by wintertime, my novel was my only outlet for writing (I didn't even have this blog up at the time).

Though I was still excited to finish and release The Jewelry of Grace, not having sports to report on took some of the energy out of me. I don't mean it made me lethargic (my lousy sleep schedule already does that). I mean that whatever degree of passion I had for writing in general in February 2020 was cut in half by February 2021.

Sometimes, you need to go back to what gave you your energy, even if that source is not as high-profile as your current work.

I am still receiving congratulations about releasing The Pride of Central over two years ago. I am sometimes asked if I will stop writing for "small-time" newspapers now that I've "made it" as an author.

I wouldn't want to. I enjoy writing my novels, but there is a spark about writing the story of a local baseball team winning a state playoff game with a walk-off hit that fiction writing doesn't provide for me. I probably could have continued writing my third book late this year without a boost from sports journalism, but getting the chance to cover games would help.

Fortunately, I got that chance. I was able to write for five different newspapers this past month as summer baseball returned to Pennsylvania. I spent four days covering a regional tournament, and four more days covering the state tournament.

No one congratulated me on covering baseball. No one asked if I would stop writing novels because I could cover sports again. It's not as high-profile in the eyes of most of my readers.

But that's okay. It is my source of writing energy. And that is what I need right now.

Next week: Taking chances