How Squash Powers my Writing

I’vSquash Writing, How Squash Powers my Writinge been touched by the way my squash community has supported the launch of  EDEN: A Novel (and my new writing life, for that matter).  I’m also extremely grateful for the thoughtful review James Zug wrote in June’s Squash Magazine and the support of Ivy Pochoda and Louisa Hall, world class squashers who played for the Crimson in the 00’s, for reading advance copies of EDEN and writing its first endorsements.

Squash Writing, How Squash Powers my Writing

Besides that demonstration of support, and the fact that I’ve approached this publishing journey with the determination of an athlete, I thought I’d use this blog to describe the other ways my new writing life has been shaped by the sport I love.

Squash and writing can both be solitary pursuits, but to approach them as such is a shame. Both are done better with the support and encouragement of community. My experience with US Squash taught me to seek out a writing community and to get involved. Thank goodness for the comradeship of Grub Street, or I’d still be puttering away at a draft of EDEN, alone in my house, wondering if it would ever be good enough. And without the feedback and challenges of fellow GrubStreet work-shoppers, it wouldn’t have been!Squash Writing, How Squash Powers my Writing

Excellence in athletics requires a consistent practice and desire to improve. Not that every time I go out and play, I play my best, but it’s knowing the potential exists, that my talent can be summoned, that keeps me going. Same with writing, sometimes I feel like a day’s output is no good, but it’s the knowing that cleverness and insight can be summoned in future drafts that pushes me along.

When it comes to squash, I’ve lost way more matches than I’ve won. Nevertheless, I am a highly ranked player and have won two National Championships. Still, it is the knowing that, in the arenas in which I choose compete, I will face very tough competition, which drives me to practice.

I’ll equate all those squash defeats with the multitude of rejection I faced trying to get my book published. Thankfully, squash made me relatively immune to taking set backs personally. I treat rejection like feedback which can dictate what my next course of action should be. Rejection is not a judgment on my worth as a person, but makes me rethink and improve my writing.

In squash you learn to never give up, because it only takes a couple of smart, well-executed shots to win a series of points. Those points can result in the momentum of a entire match swinging, and maybe an unexpected win. And it only takes a couple of great wins, strung together, to win a tournament.  Similarly for all the rejections I experienced during the publishing process, it only took a few well timed “wins” to change everything, shift momentum, and create some buzz around my book.

Even though I am a good squash player, I enter most tournaments as a huge underdog. As the great Canadian player, Jonathan Power, likes to say, “There are lots of levels of good.” In other words, you can be good and there will still be somebody better, and then somebody better still. Sometimes I’ll be reading one of my favorite authors before bed time and the writing can be so moving, so spot on, I’ll close the book and start to think, “What right do I have to even try?” I gather up my courage again by remembering there are a lot of levels of good, and just because I’m not going to “win” a Pulitzer prize doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be part of the field which colors the landscape.Squash Writing, How Squash Powers my Writing

Squash has taught me courage and how to be a positive inner coach. I guess this is why the sport has been such a powerful tool for teaching our SquashBusters students life lessons, and why junior squash is a great training ground for mental toughness. Its lessons are transferrable in myriad ways – a satisfying writing life is really just the least of them.

0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *