All Fun and Games

by Joanne Rock

**I wrote this blog post six years ago, and the words are never truer! I hope you don't mind me

sharing an archived piece with you today. I hop back to the present at the end to update you on my life and thoughts today. But first... rewind to Joanne of 2012:

I found myself at a 6^th grade basketball tournament last weekend.  It’s a place I’ve found myself a lot this time of year.  In our house, football season melts into basketball with only a two week hiatus, and hoop turns into baseball with even less down time.  With three boys playing sports, the cycle is familiar and sometimes exhausting.  Most of the time though, it’s fun.

Two of my sons from about the time I penned this piece.

As I cheered loud and long for my son—and for all his teammates who aren’t my sons—I thought about why we as a culture are so passionate about youth sports.  Sure, we all know the horror stories of the parents who yell all game and the coaches who take it all so seriously that practice turns into boot camp.  But that’s not the case in my town.  Youth sports are fun here, and every parent I know gets as hopped up about cheering on their kids’ successes as I do.  The losses… well, we might not cheer, but the lessons there are as valuable as the wins.  No doubt, we all tend to remember the times we failed more than the times we won. 

There are a million and one analogies between sports and life.  My husband wrote about a lot of them during his career as a sports editor, so they are often in the back of my mind as I put my time in at games.  But a new parallel occurred to me last weekend as I cheered on the boys and watched them grin when they made their shots.  Watching the kids play is fun because of the enthusiasm they bring to the game.  They’re not at the advanced level that puts so much social pressure on performance.  They’re at an age where they are allowed to simply enjoy the game.  And don’t we love that kind of innocent pleasure when the stakes aren’t so high and failure isn’t the end of the world?  At this level, you usually get your pizza party whether you win or lose.

I think that kind of fresh perspective and enthusiasm is what makes it exciting to be around new writers.  I get letters sometimes from writers new to the business who are looking for a little direction and those folks are usually pleased when I gab away about the writing life and the business.  I understand that they are getting something out of my conversation.  But I don’t think they necessarily realize what I’m getting out of theirs.  It’s that fervor and eagerness for writing that I remember with fondness.  Not that I mean to suggest I’m a cynical old crone at this point in the game.  Far from it!  I’ve got a Pollyanna streak a mile wide.  Still, my years in this business and my 30-odd manuscripts written (not all of them published) have definitely left me wiser and warier.  That’s a good thing.  And yet—I really miss those days where I’d stop at the end of a paragraph to admire what I’d written, kind of like those 6^th graders smiling openly at a foul shot that swished cleanly through the net. 

There’s a joy associated with any new endeavor, a joy that quiets a bit as you become more of an expert and have been fortunate enough to turn a hobby into a profession.  The well-loved pursuit soon comes with deadlines and expectations of editors, agents and readers.  And the more successful you become, the higher the stakes of failure.  That success is a blessing, to be sure.  But there is always a bit of nostalgia involved in talking to a writer who still regularly takes time to savor the play of her words on paper or who is bursting with story ideas and can follow only her own direction about which idea to pursue next.  So don’t be surprised if you’re an aspiring writer and I quiz you about what you’re working on and how you manage your schedule and what you’ve got in mind for career goals.  I promise I’m not trying to steal ideas and I’m not just making small talk for the heck of it.  I’m just enjoying your journey along with you, and in doing so, I’m also remembering and enjoying my own.

**Present Day: I loved this piece because I just celebrated my youngest son's final season of high school basketball. I cried when it ended, probably more than I'll cry on his graduation day since sports have been such a defining element of my family and my life for the last twenty years. I will miss the tournaments, the young athletes and the fierceness of competing. But at the same time, I'm heartened to remember that this joy doesn't go away. Those memories will fill my books for many years to come.

And so funny to think that when I wrote this I had thirty some books. I just celebrated the release of my 80th novel for Harlequin. Have you read my February 2018 release, For the Sake of His Heir?

For today, I'll leave you with this thought / question- Have you ever acted as a mentor to someone in your business or personal life, or have you been on the receiving end of mentoring?  Did that experience bring similar emotional rewards to the ones I mention? Share with me this week and I'll give one random poster an advance copy of my April Harlequin Desire, Expecting a Scandal! 

PUT UP YOUR DUKES by Jenny Gardiner

I think I owe an apology to my fellow pugilists in boxing class at the gym. My Type A mentality appears to have seeped into the otherwise collegial group and launched a lamentable trend (though I could argue where better for Type A behavior to infiltrate than in an aggressive pursuit like boxing?). It wasn't on purpose. Or I should say it wasn't overtly intentional. Mostly it arose from a purely maternal instinct, if one can have maternal instincts when it comes to hitting something with your fists, even if it is with hot pink gloves. You see, before I got all territorial in boxing, no one ever claimed a bag. People would show up and mill about the room, chatting while wrapping their hands. After warm-up, they'd migrate to a bag, depending on who was in the class. But then I came along. And persuaded my daughter to start boxing too. But she was often late to class, coming right from work, and I wanted to share a bag with her, so I had the brilliant idea to just drop our gloves when I got to class in front of one of the bags, which would indicate that two people would be on that bag. I suppose the fact that the gloves were pink automatically sent the men running to a separate bag. I'm fairly certain the idea of anything but traditional black boxing gloves is anathema to any man worth his salt. Dirty secret: this certainly worked to our advantage, because it's actually harder to punch on a bag with a guy who is pounding the thing with far more power. So pink gloves meant the guys would seek out another bag to reserve. Honestly, I didn't claim the bag in order to be territorial. I just wanted to ensure that she and I could box together. How would I know that people would pick up on the trend and start dropping their gloves first thing on their own bag of choice? For that matter, who knew there even were bags of choice? But now, when the doors open for class, people beeline to the spots where the bags aren't even out yet, at the ready, staking their home for the next 60 minutes, marking their territory, like a good fighter should. So maybe I've done them all a favor. Perhaps I was somehow answering that call of the wild that is deep down in us all, that need to have that fire hydrant with which you can do whatever you damn well please. Damn that reptilian part of my brain! And I'll try not to flinch at the irony of my staking out a bag so that my daughter and I could punch together. Talk about genteel familial bonding! It would probably be wiser to bond over shopping, though that too can become an aggressive pursuit, if a sale is especially good (think Thanksgiving night at WalMart). Now one might argue that this spot-saving thing is rooted in a childhood in which I had to stake my claim or not get it. Growing up with three brothers, well, I'd have been much better off with a nice set of (pink) boxing gloves, frankly. Then I could have put those boys in their place from the get-go, ensuring never having to fend for myself. It's a shame that rears its ugly head in the most unexpected of places. Though it's a little fitting to create a potential battleground in a boxing class full of pugilist wannabes. I can only hope it doesn't come down to fisticuffs to determine primacy on the bag at some point. At least we're armed with the right equipment. For that matter, at least I didn't do this in yoga. Though, come to think of it, attendees can get pretty jabby with the elbows when the yoga doors open, all clamoring to get their mat in just that perfect spot. Maybe I need to bring my hot pink gloves next time I'm in yoga, just in case… I'm just hoping my spot on the bag isn't eclipsed by some young turk who's taken advantage of my absence from the class while I'm away this month. After all, while I've developed a pretty mean right hook in that class, I'd rather not have to actually use it.


  Sleeping with Ward Cleaver

Slim to None

Anywhere But Here

Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who's Determined to Kill Me

Accidentally on Purpose (written as Erin Delany)

Compromising Positions (written as Erin Delany)

I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in this Relationship (I'm a contributor)

And these shorts:
Idol Worship: A Lost Week with the Weirdos and Wannabes at American Idol Auditions

The Gall of It All: And None of the Three F's Rhymes with Duck

Naked Man On Main Street

find me on Facebook: fan page
 find me on twitter here
 find me on my website

Taking a Chance by Jenny Gardiner

Let's talk bracketology for a minute here. Well, aside from the fact that it makes me crazy when sports-types coin annoying terms like bracketology that become imprinted into our national jargon. But that word's a done deal, so let's explore some of the psychology of March Madness picks instead.
It wouldn't surprise many who know me to learn that I suck at picking winners in sports matches. It might be because I pay little attention to sports, and am peripherally aware of athletes only if they date celebrities and I read about it in People Magazine. Not that I'm proud of that shameful truth, but there you have it. Regardless, I have long contended that choosing winners for March Madness can't be far off from the proverbial chimpanzees who throw darts at the NASDAQ page in the newspaper to determine stock picks. My belief was reinforced long ago when my husband yearned to engage our young family in March Madness in order to be able to focus on basketball games for a period of a few weeks' time without major balking from the peanut gallery. So he enlisted all of the kids to "pick" their winners, and much of the selection process involved educating the kids on which teams had which mascots, because when you're a kindergartener, it's all about the Huskies and not the Huskers, or whatever. I mean no kid is going to select a team that's about peeling corn, am I right? Incredibly, that first year, my son — who was maybe all of about six at the time — won. Seriously. He won upwards of a thousand dollars, if memory serves me (of course my memory often cuts me off these days, sadly). Now back then, we were the worst parents on the block because we refused to allow our kids to even play video games, let alone own them. Nintendo was a dirty word around our home, and no way were we going to putrefy our children's brains with that rot. (I know, you laugh now). So after Kyle won far too much money for having picked adorable mascots, he came to us with a brilliant strategy. He wanted to donate some of the money to charity (warmed the cockles of our hearts, naturally); wanted to set aside money for college (ditto); wanted to take the family out to dinner (woot!); wanted to set aside some money in the bank. And he wanted to purchase his very own Nintendo. Dagger to the soul. But how could we deny him this joy? After all, not only did he win, but also he won responsibly, with a fiscal plan. We couldn't say no or we really would have been the worst parents on the block. Suffice it to say he was elated, and had visions of future March Madness wins dancing in his head for the next umpteen years. The following year, however, and for a few NCAA playoffs thereafter, things weren't so hunky dory. If Kyle was out early in the tournament, he'd pitch a fit and mope, which wasn't particularly pleasant to deal with. Worse still, this winning-the-big-bucks thing gave him the notion of getting something for nothing, which is also not a great concept to reinforce in a child. We'd realized too late that we'd created a March Madness Monster. Eventually time tamed the wild beast and he learned to lose with dignity, but for a while there it was not terribly joyful when his teams went down. Over the past few years, my middle daughter has had a tendency to be in the running for much of the tournament, gets her hopes elevated far too high with visions of early college loan paybacks, only to have them dashed dramatically by some lame team that chokes big time. She's devised a whole superstitious nature around this, much like the major league pitcher who won't wash his underwear or shave his beard while in the playoffs. She's convinced that if she watches the game, her team will invariably lose. This doesn't trouble me terribly, because it's that many less basketball games that are on in our house. (I mean really, after thirty or forty in a few-week period, it gets old). But it bears a hint of great irony around it, as now my husband can't watch the games live if she's in the house. Which kills the whole point of originally getting the family involved in the first place. Best laid plans… Now I, on the other hand, am a gargantuan loser with March Madness. Actually one year I think I came in second or third place and won a decent pot of money, but it only served to embitter me for the years in which I lost and lost big (every year since for probably two decades), and reinforces my ambivalence about the tournament (go ahead, call me a sore loser). So I can relate to my kids. This year, I named one of my selections "Mascot Crapshoot", harkening back to the family mascot picks of yore. I decided to choose teams based purely on their team emblem. I figured if it worked for lesser primates…Well, newsflash: you don't pick a bottom-seeded team just because you like Tigers, over a number one seed, regardless of your distaste for Cardinals. Teams just don't win based on cute mascots, darn it! I had the shameful distinction of being bottom-ranked after the first round finished up. Which I think should get some sort of booby prize, don't you agree? I for one am glad that March Madness has given way to April showers (although maybe we can bypass the showers altogether and just have pleasant spring weather). As much fun as the promise of March Madness offers us all during the tail end of our winter doldrums, the reality of it isn't much better than a late-season blizzard, that leaves us yearning to get away from it all. Stat. Like those loser Tigers she bet on, Jenny Gardiner is licking her March Madness wounds and gambling on a more reliable income writing books. You can find her and her books at
Sleeping with Ward Cleaver

Slim to None

Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who's Determined to Kill Me

Accidentally on Purpose (written as Erin Delany)

Compromising Positions (written as Erin Delany)

I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in this Relationship (I'm a contributor)

And these shorts:
Idol Worship: A Lost Week with the Weirdos and Wannabes at American Idol Auditions

The Gall of It All: And None of the Three F's Rhymes with Duck

Naked Man On Main Street

find me on Facebook: fan page
 find me on twitter here
 find me on my website

Donna Alward: It's sports season again

My first deadline is met, my next is in progress and it's sport season again in my house. Sport season translates into volleyball - and before I go further, may I just say how in awe I am of the commitment so many parents put into sports like hockey and swimming that happens at ungodly hours, and of those of you who do all the league play. Y'all are way better than I am at this stuff.

My eldest plays volleyball on the school team, which at least means practices are after school and games are in the metro area (which means within a 40-45 min drive at most). I admit it does mean I have to be creative about dinner time some evenings but I do like going rather than having her travel with someone else and me miss it. The funny thing is I always take my e-reader or a book in my purse, but I never get more than a few pages read.

I played sports when I was in school. Unfortunately my mom didn't enjoy them as I did (and do) and so I often caught a ride with friends. And volleyball was my favourite sport. So this past summer I shared driving with another mom while my eldest did a volleyball camp at the university, and I cheered her on when she went for tryouts again this year. Now I get to watch her play and I love it. I get so invested in the game, proud for the efforts of the team, deflated when it doesn't go as well as they'd like. I love watching her make a good play! The worst thing is I think I make her a little nervous. I don't think she gets that I know sometimes you make a bad play and that it's okay. You shake it off, and move on.

That's life.

And that's what sports can teach us. Playing with a team, trying our best, the great feeling of coming out on top, the let down of loss, the pride in playing a good game no matter what the score, and pushing yourself to achieve more than you did before. The days of me playing competitive sports are long gone, but I do feel some of those same things in my daily workouts (especially pushing through when you don't wanna!).

My youngest is hoping to play this year in an afterschool club, so that when she switches schools next year, she too might get a chance to play.

And hey, when Christmas break is over, badminton starts. And my nerves will be shot once again!

Did you play sports as a kid? Do you now? Do you have kids in sports?

You can check out my latest releases and excerpts and all that jazz on my website at www.donnaalward.com.