What do writing and sports have in common? For The Millions, Tracy O’Neill suggests that both writers and athletes are in the “business” of constructing “narratives,” and likens the experience of writing fiction to the competitiveness of sports:
It’s easy to fantasize about the published book or the championship victory, and it’s easy to believe that whatever handicaps we suffer, whether the blocked mind or the swelling sprain, are too difficult to circumvent. Yet, I didn’t start writing to publish a novel, even if that’s what ended up happening. I started because I liked the late-night game of turning sentences, plowing clauses to the top or bottom to vary effect, whispering paragraphs to listen for the caught rhythm and assonant glide.
