Change my Shot?

I've played organized basketball since the age of ten. Oddly enough, that's also the age I started writing stories. I got a lot of confidence from sports, and learned many life lessons. How to win and lose gracefully. How to work with a team. How to lead a team. How to prepare, plan, and implement--and how to change course midstream.

My jump shot was weird from day one. If you remember an LA Laker named Jamaal Wilkes, my shot looked like his. Kind of a one-armed over-the-head python maneuver that looked plain odd. But it worked. I used it through two years of college ball, and even became the team's reliable three-point shooter.

Then I started coaching. With my weird shot. Trying to teach the players how to do things correctly suddenly made it priority number one that I (finally) change my shot. I'd fought changing it all those years, and then it dawned on me. I didn't have a choice. I had to practice the proper mechanics, or my players would never trust me to work with them. I had to change my attitude before I could change my shot.

How does this apply to writing? The business has a way of making you want to...adjust yourself. Write for a line, rather than the story. Write what's selling. Change your voice. Lose your voice. Those are all the wrong reasons to change your shot. To make yourself something you aren't.

What about enhancing the things that you are? Tightening up your weak spots--getting the mechanics right? Finding creative ways to make up for your shortcomings or the proper venue for your work. It's difficult in the face of reader feedback, sales numbers, editorial comment, and even blunt critiques to remember the basics and not get lost.

My new shot works just fine, thank you very much. But I've realized that had I been doing it the proper way all those years ago, I probably could have played another two years of college ball. I would have been that much better.

What did I tell my players? I'd never be disappointed in the score if they worked hard, played hard, and gave it everything they had. That's what I tell myself as a writer, too.