It’s been a long time since we’ve had a sports analogy around here, so — lucky you! — today’s the day.

In honour of blog reader Sarah (and because it’s the only sport I’ve ever played), today’s analogy is all about ultimate. Here goes:

Once you’ve thrown the disc, you have to run. You can’t clasp your hands and hop up and down on tiptoes and lean to the left hoping to psychically nudge the disc into your teammate’s hands.

No, you have to let it go.

You have to assume your throw is going to be a spectacular success, and run. If you don’t run, the whole play moves on without you, you’re too late to contribute, or your check has sprinted free of you and is now catching the disc in her own end zone while you stand there looking like a clasping, tiptoeing, leaning idiot. (Not that this has ever happened to me or anything.)

With me so far?

I’m thinking that this is a little like sending a manuscript into the world. It’s tempting to track its progress. Check the mailbox (electronic and otherwise) daily, wonder about its progress, send it psychic nudges. But really, it’s better just to run. Get ready for the next play. Move on to a new book. Assume that your manuscript is going to be wildly successful without constant monitoring.

Easier said than done, in both writing and ultimate. But the best players manage it.

I haven’t written much in the last couple weeks. I have some manuscripts floating around out there… somewhere. I’m expecting editing changes for one. My writer’s group is reviewing the other. And while those two hover in uncertainty, I haven’t felt motivated to begin anything new.

Every once in a while, it’s okay to descend into a fallow state. I tell myself that I’m garnering ideas. Recharging. Inspiration will strike eventually.

This afternoon, I watched an episode of Sister Wives.

Um… did I just say that? This afternoon, I watched an episode of Sister Wives?

Now that’s a sign that a fallow state has gone too far. Sometimes you wait for inspiration, and sometimes you have to start writing and assume it will come.

I finished The Borrowers Afield last night, with 24 hours to spare before my daughter has to return it to the school library. I loved it — somehow, as a child, I missed the fact that there were Borrower sequels. My daughter gave it a thumbs up, too, but she only likes the little-people parts of these books. As far as she’s concerned, Kate and Mrs. May can go jump in the pond.

I also read Norma Charles’s new book, Run, Marco, Run over the weekend. If you have a 10- to 13-year-old boy on your Christmas list — particularly one who lives in Vancouver — this is the book to buy. It’s the story of a Columbian boy who escapes from the kidnappers who capture his dad. He stows away on a freighter bound for Vancouver, then attempts to find a long-lost family friend who can help save his father. There is constant action, which is why I think the boys will like it. Personally, though, I loved the druggie on Wreck Beach and the UBC student pulling an all-nighter.

The other book I’ve been reading is called For Us Surrender is Out of the Question, the story of a slightly innocent democracy activist who kinda sorta accidentally ends up living with a group of Karen refugees on the Thai border. She writes in a casual hipster voice completely out of keeping with the serious subject matter and juxtaposes Burmese history with her own pit toilet and cold shower experiences — all of which allows one to read the book without descending into clinical depression.

I was chatting on the phone with my publisher last week, and she asked if I was writing.

“Oh, a few things,” I said.

She groaned and said, “That’s what writers always say. You like to be mysterious.”

I’ve been thinking about this, and I’ve decided: I’m not mysterious; I’m superstitious. Especially when speaking with a publisher. If I talk about what I’m writing, the muse might disappear. Or I might get sidetracked. I’m very easily sidetracked.

I have good reason for this fear.

Here are three hypothetical conversations. (My publisher is more kind and tactful that this hypothetical publisher, but you’ll get the gist.)

Conversation 1
Me: I’m working on a young adult novel about a pregnant teen.
Publisher: Oh, did you read My Big Fat Teen Pregnancy by Super Famous Author, released last week?

Conversation 2
Me: I’m working on a picture book about pigeon poop.
Publisher: Ha! That’s hilarious. Yeesh, picture books have been an impossible sell lately, though. And the pigeon market’s glutted.

Conversation 3
Me: I’m working on an early reader, and it’s going really smoothly.
Publisher: Great! Then you’ll have time to write this wonderful project we’ve thought of, The History of Eyelashes, which we’ve scheduled for fall release.

Do you see the problem? There is not one of these scenarios in which my original book idea gets written. Thus, we writers are “mysterious.”