Don’t look at the scoreboard — just write

Both of my sons are competitive hockey goalies, and I’d say about 80–90% of goalie coaching is mental. It’s such a tough job.

Everyone knows who you are, there’s a ton of weight on you shoulders, and the position is inherently negative. When a player scores a goal, everyone jumps and shouts and celebrates. It’s a party!

When a goalie makes a save, all he’s done is prevent something negative from happening. If something goes wrong, even if it’s a great shot, people are like, “sheesh, could have used a save there.”

Making matters worse, everyone thinks they’re a goalie expert even though, in reality, they know nothing about this unique and specialized skill.

One thing you have to teach young goalies is to forget about the scoreboard. Whether you’re winning or losing, you have to stay laser-focused on the game in front of you and just make the next save. If you fixate on the score, you’ll be distracted and your performance will deteriorate, eliminating your team’s chance of mounting a comeback.

I think there’s a lesson here for writers too, and it’s one I admittedly need to heed myself.

I have an audacious plan to write 700 articles on this site this year, and one week in, I’m already finding myself a bit discouraged. I’ve had some decent pickup on some of my stories, this one in particular, but others that I thought were really decent and interesting have fallen a bit flat (so far).