Muscle Memory
Late last century I was on a competitive volleyball team coached by a maniac.
Okay, maniac is probably too strong. Coach B was intense. He'd played on the Men's National team and was obsessed with the sport in a way that frankly alarmed the teenage girls he was coaching. We just wanted to play. He wanted to win.
Coach B made us march into the gym to the Indiana Jones theme while presenting our startled opponents with gifts. He made us wear black uniforms for every game because dark colors are more intimidating — never mind that home teams traditionally wear white. And we were the only team in our conference, our region, possibly our entire state wearing bun huggers — those bikini-cut bottoms that later became de rigueur for volleyball champions everywhere. This was back when most teams used their basketball uniforms for volleyball.
I didn't appreciate Coach B at sixteen. At sixteen, I wanted longer shorts and a normal entrance. But he taught us a lot, not just about being intimidating. He taught us that you have to work until you’ve mastered a skill, not just until it’s time for practice to end. He taught us that winning is fun, but it requires sacrifice. Coach B taught us that the world doesn’t care how charming you are, or how pretty you are, or what you are wearing, when it gets right down to it –it only matters how good you are. And the only way to get good at something is by putting in the work.
I think about Coach B when I'm on my fourth pass editing a chapter where I’ve mangled the dialogue so badly that even I hate these characters. Or when I've written a scene I love that does absolutely nothing for the plot and all that word count needs to be deleted.
Building a fictional town that readers want to revisit for ten books — characters they'll miss between installments — that's not charm or talent. That's craft. And craft is just muscle memory: doing the thing again and again until your fingers type the right thing before your brain realizes it. I’m doing the work, Coach B, and I’m happily not doing it in bun huggers.
