What's football got to do with any of this?

Notre Dame has a new football coach. That's big news around these parts.  His name is Brian Kelly and he came to speak to a group of our freshman this week.  During the Q & A, one of the students asked his thoughts on recruiting players who were interested in playing for the NFL.  His answer was something to the effect of "I recruit players who want to play for Notre Dame.  And if they come here and work hard, they may have the opportunity to play for the NFL one day.  But I recruit players who want to play for Notre Dame.  That's the experience I'm focused on and that's where they should be focused." 

I think I may have lost my focus.  When I first started writing, I wrote because I had ideas and stories that I needed to put on paper.  It was fun and I kept the stories to myself mostly.  After about a year of mucking about with them, I felt ready to share and all the positive feedback made me think about publishing.  With the help of my critique group, I've whipped at least one of them into great form and have been focusing lately more on the path to publishing than the writing.  I'm "showing off for the scouts, instead of working on my game."  Perhaps this is why I've been feeling somewhat disgruntled about the process.  I need to take a page out of Coach Kelly's playbook and write and revise because I enjoy it and want to keep improving.  If I work hard, one day I may get published, but I've got to keep my eye on the ball.

I imagine Saturday's SCBWI conference will be like the Blue Gold Game last weekend here at ND.  No winners, no losers, just lots of excited folks who love the game.  It will be good to part of the pep rally!