Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Arthur: At least there's only one more week of calling losses

Writing a novel looks kind of easy. You figure out what you want to write about, come up with an outline, and then just do it. Especially when, as I'm trying to do, it's about your current line of work; there's not quite so much research to do. There's still plenty, though - a murder mystery has to be absolutely flawless in its details, or the fans will absolutely crucify you.

So, I've been spending a lot of my free time lately doing research, and feeling like I should be doing more; it seems like each new thing I discover about sports, broadcasting, crime, or any of the other things in the book makes me rewrite . I'm starting to think that if this book winds up three hundred pages long, I'll have written something like fifteen hundred, which is daunting.

Spare time is not something I've had a whole lot of lately, though. I'm doing anchor duty two nights a week, which means being around all evening for cut-ins, and working on writing my material. As much as the novel isn't my forte, apparently neither is voiceover work. George says otherwise, which is nice of him, but I don't know if the way I announce the scores and recap that no, Barry Bonds didn't hit a home run tonight is really noticeably different than what some other guy does.

The other thing is that the last couple of weeks have been away games - L.A. two weeks ago, Chicago last weekend. It was cool to go back to L.A.; I got to see Cassie again. She at least seems really excited by the book, begging to let her proofread it or something. I told her I would, and she thanked me, saying that if I got it published, it would be just about the coolest thing anyone she knows has ever done. Drew kind of gave me an eyebrow after that, since this wouldn't really be something done by someone Cassie knows, although when Cassie caught it, he said that hosting the show was pretty cool, too, wasn't it?

Drew does like coming down to L.A., though. I think he's kind of star-struck by it, having grown up in Michigan, which I'm sure is nice, don't get me wrong... But you come to San Francisco and Los Angeles, and you see things that you remember from movies and TV practically every time you turn a corner. Sometimes you'll see a movie star eating in a restaurant a few seats away, and it's like it's no big deal. He's spending about half the week there, right now, signing a few would-be actors and models to beef up R.J.'s roster.

Cassie teased me about that, but I told her I was cool with it. I was tempted to make a joke about not being used to having one guy doting on me all the time, based on Ray and Stewart, but I figured there was a good chance of her finding that really inappropriate based upon something in Nell's past.

I don't think I'd be too terribly upset if he found some new girl down in L.A., though. I get the feeling that Drew is becoming less and less interested in returning to his "real" life, so if he wants to settle into something, I guess I wouldn't blame him. Do I enjoy going out (and then going back in) with him? Yeah, we have fun, and there's no lying to it. But I won't even begin to kid myself that we're in love, or that I'm looking for anything permanent so long as I look like Nell.

-Art

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I announce the scores and recap that no, Barry Bonds didn't hit a home run tonight

Well, I sure jinxed that, didn't I?