At some point, I'm going to have to turn off my internal critic, and with the deadline coming up two weeks from tomorrow, that had better be pretty soon. Sometimes "good enough" is the enemy of the best, but I think in this case, an unattainable perfection is the enemy of "good enough"---especially if I'm ever going to get anything else done!
During the business of formatting my Holy Bull manuscript to meet University Press of Kentucky submission standards, it seems I can always find one more little tweak to make. On the one hand, I do want to turn in the best piece of writing possible. On the other, absolute perfection isn't possible, at least for a project in which the beauty of a particular turn of phrase or the best wording of a paragraph are often in the eye of the beholder.
At some point, I'm going to have to turn off my internal critic, and with the deadline coming up two weeks from tomorrow, that had better be pretty soon. Sometimes "good enough" is the enemy of the best, but I think in this case, an unattainable perfection is the enemy of "good enough"---especially if I'm ever going to get anything else done!
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I seem to have joined the "Hurricane of the Month" club, with Debbie hitting in August, Helene in September, and now Milton in October. Can I discontinue my membership?
Actually, Milton proved to be no great problem here, though it was a far different story for folks along the I-4 corridor and south. My youngest brother has checked in safe and sound from his home in Port St. Lucie, although his county got hit by a Milton-generated tornado swarm. I'm still waiting to hear from a couple of cousins who were riding things out in Orlando, but they're among the millions minus power at the moment. The one good thing about this latest storm is that it pushed me to finish my Holy Bull manuscript, which is now off to the readers at the University Press of Kentucky. I still need to finish up the fully formatted submission, but that shouldn't take too long. Then, it's off to developing a proposal for my next project! If there's one thing a writer doesn't need as a deadline closes in, it's a major interruption. One week ago, Hurricane Helene slammed into northern Florida on its way to a destructive rampage through Georgia and the Carolinas.
I'm going to put things into perspective quickly. I was without power for four days, without Internet service for five. I have one trunk of a shattered water oak down in my front yard. I lost the contents of my refrigerator and freezer. Inconvenient? Yes. Extra expenses involved? Yes. Big deal. My loved ones are accounted for and all are well. My pets are safe. My house and cars are intact. And I will make my deadline, though I'll have to push a bit harder to get there. (A shout-out to Bill Denver, BTW, for agreeing to license some of his beautiful photos of Holy Bull and friends that are part of his Equi-Photo collection.) Those of you who can, please pray for those who are still awaiting word on whether loved ones have survived, those who are grieving deaths, and those who are now homeless or living in homes that need major repairs that many cannot afford. Pray for the volunteer organizations---the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Samaritan's Purse, the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Organization, and others---who are on the ground in the worst-hit areas and helping to provide basic supplies and recovery services. Pray that the volunteers will avoid injury and sickness as they clear yards; remove mud, soaked carpeting/flooring, and damaged drywall from homes; tarp roofs to prevent further damage; and provide evidence to storm victims that they are not forgotten. If you are able, please consider providing financial support for storm relief as well. Times have been getting harder for most of us; for some, times just went from hard to horrible. (That being said, look out for scams; if you want to donate money, do it through a reliable organization, not something that you never heard of before that suddenly sends you a text or email.) No money to spare, but you're healthy? Blood banks are in great need of donations, and the process isn't all that painful or time-consuming. If you're in or near an area where power is still down and you have power, offer to let friends or neighbors who are still doing without come over to get a shower and do laundry. Small kindnesses mean a lot. God bless and help us all. Those who go into the business of writing with the intent of making a lot of money are more often than not going to be disappointed. The cold facts are that the Tom Clancys and the J. K. Rowlings are few and far between; in fact, the people who seem to be making money most often are not talented artists but celebrities and politicians who are cashing in on fame that they already have by selling their autobiographies and their formulas for fixing whatever they see as wrong with the world. The fact that most of these books are at best unmemorable and at worst self-serving drivel matters not a whit to the publishers who put them out; they know that they will sell a ton of books regardless based on name recognition. They're in the business of making money, after all, not producing great art or even good reading; that some truly excellent books get put out anyway is more or less incidental.
That being said, there are still some perks to the writer's life that may not put much money in one's pockets but are of value nonetheless. You get to meet some pretty interesting people along the way, and if they share your passion for a particular topic, the conversations you have are both enjoyable in their own right and good for adding fuel to your fire. Even better, sometimes you make a real friend, which is always worth cherishing. And you get the chance to become part of cultural and social events that broaden your own horizons and give you an opportunity to enrich others' lives. Tomorrow, I'll be off to the Dunnellon Public Library in Marion County, Florida, for "Cooks and Books," a program that celebrates literary, performing, and culinary arts in North Central Florida. Now, for those of you who haven't heard of Dunnellon, it's a tiny town about 24 miles southwest of Ocala, sitting on US 41. Its economy is centered on the local springs and rivers, which offer a variety of outdoor activities as well as some truly scenic places for dining experiences. As in much of Marion County, the surrounding area is decidedly horsy, with a good many farms dotting western Marion and Levy counties. I'm looking forward to a unique experience that will let me share my own passion for horses and learn more about the area's music and culinary scenes. Should be a blast! Pushing to get a book written can be hard on a writer's health. You tend to stay sedentary for long periods of time; you often let yourself get dehydrated; and the temptation to snack at your desk is pretty high. If you're truly in the throes of creativity---or pushing a tight deadline---you may also be shorting yourself on sleep.
I've fallen prey to all these temptations, and the result has been packing on a lot of pounds I don't need and am having a lot of trouble shedding. If you'd like to avoid the same fate, try these tips:
If you're young, start proper habits now and you'll never regret them. If you're older, it's never too late to change. Happy writing! This week's journey alongside Holy Bull led me through Jimmy Croll's decisions not to enter him in either the Preakness or the Belmont. Obviously, this annoyed the dickens out of Triple Crown purists, especially when the Bull bypassed the Belmont after demolishing older males (including four Grade 1 winners) in the Metropolitan Handicap.
Whether the Bull could have won the Belmont, I don't know. His entry would certainly have changed the complexion of the race, as Go for Gin and Tabasco Cat went 1-2 around the Belmont oval, exchanging their positions in the final quarter-mile. Would either of them have pressed Holy Bull through the early pace, probably a suicidal task that would have set things up for whoever stayed out of the duel? Precedent had certainly been set that a gifted miler could see out the mile and a half if allowed to cruise unmolested---Conquistador Cielo had done just that in 1982 after blowing away the Met Mile just six days earlier, so it's entirely possible that if no one engaged Holy Bull, he could have run off with the race at a distance that he did not "really" stay. We'll never know what might have been. Croll chose not to risk "squeezing the lemon dry," to borrow from fellow Hall of Fame trainer Horatio Luro's dictum, and the result was a colt who went undefeated through four more races during the season and was ready to go again at 4 before injury cut his brilliant career short. It's hard to argue with that kind of success, even if it meant traveling a road less taken. I've just finished writing what may be the most difficult part of Holy Bull's story, at least to me---his unexplained flop in the 1994 Kentucky Derby (USA-G1). Obviously, he did redeem himself spectacularly, but it was very clearly a painful experience for owner-trainer Jimmy Croll, who at age 74 was unlikely ever to have such a horse again (and never did).
Two parts of the tale stand out for being ugly. One was Jimmy Croll's suspicion that Holy Bull had been drugged with a tranquilizer after he (and others) observed that Holy Bull was acting uncharacteristically quiet, even lethargic. Since Churchill Downs stewards did not order the colt to be tested (which they had the authority to do), there was never any proof of this. The other part was the rush to judgment on the part of many journalists, who seemed overly ready and even gleeful to write Holy Bull off as a horse who had "stepped on his pedigree" because of his sprinting bloodlines or who was a faint-heart who couldn't handle a race in which he couldn't grab an easy lead. Obviously, those familiar with Holy Bull's record know that the Bull thoroughly disproved both of those assertions in the 1994 Travers Stakes, but the "see-I-told-you-so" attitude is one that journalists---and too many of the rest of us---are still all too prone to today, whether we're talking about horses or humans in the public eye. Perhaps if nothing else, Holy Bull's story can serve as a warning against cavalierly writing someone off on the basis of one well-publicized incident combined with personal bias without getting further evidence. I'm pretty happy with progress this week for the Holy Bull bio. At this point, I'm getting ready to take a trip into the pressure cooker that surrounds a high-profile colt during the pre-Kentucky Derby runup and examine the Bull's Derby flop. It was a race that was simply too bad to be a true bill on his ability, but what led to his turning in such a horrible performance? That's the question I have to try and answer, or at least to present enough evidence on to allow readers to draw their own conclusions.
Pictures are probably going to be more of a headache than the writing. So far, the Keeneland Library has been able to supply some material, but I'll need more, and at a cost I can afford since I have to pay any licensure fees myself. Those who have read my previous post, "Picture This" (October 26, 2023), know that this isn't exactly a new gripe, but I'll say it again: tracking down photographs for books is a pain, and often an expensive pain. Like most writers, I'm far from rich, which leads to a dilemma; I want photographers to reap a fair return for use of their work, just as I'd like to receive a fair return for mine, but I do have to consider whether my personal budget can handle the required fees, especially given that there's no guarantee that I will ever see a profit from a book no matter how much effort I put into writing the best book I can and then marketing it. Those of you who are already published authors know very well what I am talking about. Those of you who aren't, consider yourselves warned. Just as I was starting to really get back into the swing of things in writing about Holy Bull, Hurricane Debby walked in. That meant three days of being mostly offline due to power and Internet outages.
If you live in Florida, hurricanes happen. If you live anywhere else, other things happen---weather things, family things, pet things, work things. That's life. The question is, what do you do about it as a writer? The simplest answer that I can give is this: plan for flexibility. Not planning out writing time and not keeping track of deadlines will take you straight to failure. If you don't make writing a priority---if it's something you get around to when you've gone through the rest of your to-do list---you probably won't do it at all. But creating such a rigid or time-crunched schedule for yourself that you have no room for life's invariable twists and turns may just take you straight to a meltdown. As in most other things, you need balance---enough discipline to make plans and then stick with them on a day-to-day basis, and enough built-in flex time that when life happens (as it inevitably will), you'll still have enough time to pick back up when the other necessity is dealt with. That being said, a lot depends on your relationship with your editor. Ideally, yours is good enough that when you get absolutely steamrollered by circumstances over which you had little control, you can work something out. (It helps when you don't make a habit of pleading for extra time due to poor planning or procrastination---when your editor starts thinking that maybe the issue isn't unexpected events but poor time management skills or a poor work ethic, you probably won't be with that editor or that publishing house long.) Nevertheless, you can work in more relaxed fashion and head off a lot of crises in advance by building a bit of extra time into your schedule when you can. You'll never be in trouble for submitting a piece or a manuscript early, and if it turns out that you really need the extra time, you'll be glad that you gave yourself some wiggle room. Three finalists were announced for the 2023 Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award on July 26. Alas, Dream Derby: The Myth and Legend of Black Gold didn't make the cut.
I can't say that I'm not a little disappointed. At the same time, it is an honor to have been considered alongside finalists Kim Wickens (Lexington: The Extraordinary Life and Turbulent Times of America's Legendary Racehorse), Kathryn C. Mooney (Isaac Murphy: The Rise and Fall of a Black Jockey), and Curtis Stock (The Turcottes: The Remarkable Story of a Horse Racing Dynasty). I've read the first two with considerable pleasure, and I have no doubt that Stock's work is up to the same high standard. 2023 was simply an outstanding year for horse racing literature in North America, and I am looking forward to more of the same in years to come. Congratulations to the finalists! Whichever title wins, it will be a worthy addition to any horse lover's bookshelf. |
AuthorI'm Avalyn Hunter, an author with a passion for Thoroughbreds and a passion for writing and storytelling. Archives
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