I’m gonna continue my recent posts theme of reposting Grantland articles. This is fast becoming one of my favorite websites. on the 60th anniversary of the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” Rafe Bartholomew interviews Don DeLillo.

I love what Don says in regards to a question posed, Is writing a lot like sports?

When the work is going well, it can reach a level of spontaneity and unpredictability that is exhilarating — but it doesn’t make the writer (not this writer anyway) pound the tabletop. It’s an interior sense of satisfaction that’s often so fleeting it can’t be relived (or even remembered) when the writer revisits the page in a more critical mood the next day or six months later.

That really is the feeling of finishing something you’ve poured your soul into. You feel relieved, exhilarated, high, even, but there’s always this creeping sensation that you could’ve done better although often, you’re hard pressed to point to specifics.

Writing is a very lonely past time. I can’t put it any plainer than that. It’s you alone in a room for hours and hours and hours and hours until the hours become days which in turn become years. There are none of the social aspects or interactions you would get playing or attending sporting events. Plus, it doesn’t work well while chugging beers and talking over the asinine color commentary guy.

Sometimes you just gotta make a play

You’ve gotta assert your will on your opponent

They need to put some points on the board in a hurry

They need to get some stops on defense

He’s really in the zone