The Writer's Life 1/24 - Players

RIP Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub, 83, a first ballot Hall of Famer and great ambassador for MLB. He played his entire career for the Cubbies, starting out as a shortstop, where he won a gold glove, then moving to first base. He hit 512 home runs. He was the epitome of positivism and frequently espoused “Let’s play two.” He never made it to the World Series. His best chance was in 1969, when Chicago led the Mets by nine-and-a-half games in early August and wilted under the Amazin’s incredible run. He was named NL MVP in '58 & '59. He also had the distinction of being the only player to have multi-homer games vs. two of the game's greatest pitchers, Warren Spahn and Sandy Koufax. Heaven awaits. Well done, sir. (Facts culled from  articles at Yahoo Sports)

A record was set late last night in California. Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors experienced a rare hot streak. He scored 37 points in the third quarter alone, a league record. He hit all 13 of his field goal attempts, including nine threes, and both of his free throws. He scored 52 points in all, despite leaving the game with more than nine minutes remaining. The Sacramento Kings were the victims of the onslaught. Thompson has averaged 21.9 points per game this season. The Warriors have the most wins in the NBA. After last season, management canned its coach, former Knicks point guard Mark Jackson, and hired Steve Kerr, also a former point guard. Does Jackson share credit for the team’s emergence, or has his firing made the players freer to reach their potential?

I’ve hit my first area of concern in my second effort to finalize the publication of my rock n roll epic, Rising Star. The physical structure of the book looks fine through the first 184 pages. I’ve spotted seven of my own errors, an unnecessary apostrophe, an unwarranted space between words, stuff that might go unnoticed by most readers. I eliminate them because there may be others I miss. I want the novel to be as clean as possible. This morning I came upon a phrase, "He gave her a once over", that I used twice in a brief period. I wanted to replace it with "He looked at her." I’m keeping three files. The most important one, Adobe, scrunched two lines together, leaving no space between them, and I could not figure out how to correct it. I eliminated the sentence entirely and added "Miss" to the next as clarification. Now the spacing is more than it’s supposed to be. I’m worried it might throw a wrench into the upload to Create Space. Since the forecast is for wintry weather beginning Monday, I anticipate finishing the latest round by mid week. The floating book shop was rained out today.

Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh

Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3

Vic's Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
Vic's Short Story Collection: http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tiny.cc/0iHLb Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kx3d3uf
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/rP7o9

Vic's Rom-Com Screenplay: http://tinyurl.com/kny5llp

Vic's Horror Screenplay: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3f

Vic's Blog: http://vicfortezza.blogspot.com/

Vic's Web Site: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/