For forty years, I’ve been trying to write a fictional tennis story about two sisters. My first attempt, in college, received kudos from my creative writing teacher and fellow classmates but was never published. It wasn’t good enough. But I kept at this story, often changing points of views and genres – another try as a short story, then a middle grade novel, then a YA novel and eventually an adult novel. Nothing felt right. Nothing worked. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to say. I put it away for years before returning to it. Again.
Part of the problem was that I was trying to write about real people. As a kid, I was a tournament tennis player and fascinated by the dynamics of the other players and their parents (perhaps if I’d spent more time worrying about my game, I’d have been a better player). Most fascinating were these two sisters and their larger-than life dad. But I didn’t know them personally and kept imagining their lives and that tangled me up. It wasn’t until a few years ago when I ditched writing about these people, put distance between me and the tennis in the story and changed everything – the setting, the POV, the sister combination – that the story finally came together. It took me 40 years to follow the advice I often give my students: don’t be afraid to take something from a story that isn’t working (a character, a theme, a plot) and plunk it down in a completely different world.
To read the story, click on the blue link below. Thanks for reading!
