  Action/Adventure
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Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjack
What do Frank Sinatra, Liberace, Stan Musial, Harpo Marx, LL Cool J, Harry Caray and Carly Simon have in common? They’ve all recorded baseball’s anthem, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” the third most frequently played song in American culture, after “Happy Birthday” and “The Star-Spangled Banner."
For a fabulous adventure back in time, visit a sports Hall of Fame museum. One such museum is the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a place to honor the game. When it opened on June 12, 1939 in Cooperstown, N.Y., the Hall of Fame officially became the home of baseball by serving as its cornerstone and housing the stories honoring the greats of baseball's past. With over 38,000 three-dimensional artifacts in the Hall of Fame's collection, each visitor can get a glimpse of what makes baseball special to them. A writer visiting can immerse himself in the sights and sounds of the game from the beginning of the sport. What better way to pull up authentic facts and details than to see them in person?
The National Baseball Hall of Fame Library collection also includes books, team documents, newspaper clippings and an individual file on each of the 17,000-plus men who have played one Major League Baseball game, plus files on most Negro leagues and women's leagues players, and most major league owners, umpires, broadcasters, executives and baseball personalities. Cooperstown has two seasons, deep snow and baseball. It's a family oriented town with plenty to do and interesting places to eat. And for those who might not be interested in the sport, it has some wonderful shopping.
If there is a sport or a hobby that you love, visit a landmark honoring that activity. It's a great way to learn more about your interest, immerse yourself in the history of the hobby and learn more facts than you'll probably ever remember. But bringing home those details will help hone your skills, even if you don't use them to write about the sport, the facts can help authentic other writing. Take a little time away and enrich your life...and your writing.
This month's question: Do you like learning the details of something new?
Send in your reply below!  Editors love feedback! |
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Excerpt: My cousin Billy really wants to be a pitcher. He has been working at it for years. They wouldn't let him pitch in Little League so he settled for the outfield, but when he got to the junior high level he thought he was ready to pitch. He had practiced on the back lot every day using me as his catcher. Actually I had other things to do but he made me get out there and work with him.
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Excerpt: Gone are my washboard abs, striated calves and rippled forearms that once adorned my sinewy frame. No, today I’m just a shell of my former self pushing 40 years of age, drinking too many pints of Guinness and eating 4 slices of pepperoni pizza at midnight and thinking to myself about starting that new workout program. Tomorrow.
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Excerpt: As a boy of 14 in 1959, baseball was my life. My summer was devoted to the game. I ate, slept, and drank of the sport. It was the National Pastime. I collected and traded baseball cards with my friends. It was that summer that I gained the right to play with the small-town American Legion Team. I was the youngest of 18 teenagers to make the squad. I was plucky, for my age, though somewhat plump. I was a left handed outfielder/pitcher. Don Page, the manager, stimulated me to try out for the team that summer. It was a thrill for this dark, curly headed rookie, to represent the hometown nine, knowing well, my playing time would be sparse at best.
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Excerpt: “I was lucky. Jimmy give me fastball sign but I say no. Dolan, he can't hit the change when he pinch hit.”
“Skip might gig you for shakin' Jimmy off like that. You got a little rattled and almost beaned Dolan. You gotta buck up. If they see you're scared, they’ll get the upper hand. I mean they'll figure they can beat you.”
“I am not afraid.”
“Yeah, yeah. I seen a dozen of you guys. The pick of the litter. But this is only triple A ball. You wanna get to the bigs? You gotta get a stone face so they can’t read you. Even when you ain’t got nothin’.”
“Sí. I dream of this in El Salvador. I promise to build a house with a wood floor for mamacita. Now I make her more proud. She prays I go to the Dodgers.”
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Excerpt: Thunder pealed from the swollen clouds and rebounded like ping pong balls off of the closely set high-rise buildings. In the countryside rain brings with it the sense of renewal. Colors are brighter and cleaner and everything smells refreshed. However, in the city the rain mixes with the grime and smells of soiled concrete filling the streets and gutters with a murky runoff.
He watched the steam rise from the hot concrete as the rain beat incessantly against his window. He checked his watch again. Cassidy had received the phone call, hurriedly grabbed her coat, saying only, “I’ve gotta go!” She left over two hours ago. Cassidy’s erratic behavior and the rain did not help his mood. At the same moment he was flashing “Where in the world is she?” through his mind, the phone rang. The shrill ring competed with the booming bass of a thunder clap.
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Excerpt: A small bead of sweat formed on my forehead as I stepped to the plate. Baseball games like this were exciting, but nerve wracking. Carefully I stepped to the plate and eyed the pitcher. Dread ensured that my heart would beat straight out of my chest. Either I would become a hero or a goat in this one at bat.
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Excerpt: Bobby put the baseball on the tee and took a swing with the bat. Whack! The ball flew over Stevie's head and out of the yard. It kept going until there was a loud crash.
"Oh no!" cried Stevie. "That went through the window of the house across the street! What are we going to do?"
Excerpt: "Hi Grandpa!" I closed the screen door behind me and shut it tight, so that the bugs would not get in. It was too hot to shut the door all the way. Sweat trickled down my cheek as I poured a glass of milk from Grandma's old glass pitcher. Drinking it in one gulp, I waited to hear footsteps from Grandpa's bedroom, but they didn't come. I waited and waited for the familiar sound I heard everyday when I got home from school, but nothing happened.
Excerpt: The sky had changed from black to faint gray when a large hand gently shook the boy huddled under the blanket. “Ryan, get up. Come on, we need to leave as quickly as you can get dressed,” his father stated with another shake. “You need to move.”
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This month's question: Do you like learning the details of something new?
Last month's question: Have you ever had a secondary character create their own story?
Here are just some of the great responses sent in to last month's newsletter. 
StephBee - House Targaryen  responded: In my novel, "TheHungarian," my secondary characters were Anton and Amelia - who through a spark, became the lead characters for a sequel "The Count's Lair" rather origanally. It was a nice surprise.
percy goodfellow  replied: As a matter of fact my supporting characters often turn out more interesting than my main characters...I am watching the HBO series Deadwood and the supporting characters are continously being introduced to the point where it was hard for me tell who the protagonist and antagonist were. My wife held up the box and said "You can always tell because the producers shows them as bigger on the cover art than the supporting characters....sure enough Bullock and Swearington are shown in the front and larger than the rest.
Ԝ€ß☆ԜiʈCH  said: Thank you for the highlight of ""I Hate Early Morning Visitors"" , I enjoyed your Newsletter!  This story is the second entry of three in the series. My secondary characters have returned as needed, moving the plot smoothly. They need a purpose and a resolution by the end of the story or they tend to become "cheap fillers." Your Newsletter makes that point clear.
webrider  sent: That seems to happen to me a lot! There I am writing quietly about my main character and then out of the blue, my muse slips in information about the life of my secondary character! Suddenly a minor character, comes to life! What is a writer to do, I swear she must drink,(the muse I mean), the old lush!
Fi commented: I have had many secondary characters create their own stories as we move through the manuscript together and sometimes, sadly, I have to fade their pasts right out so they don't interrupt the flow. Other times I bring out their past strongly (for various reasons). I find a fascination in the past of my characters and those who have no past, such as the characters in my unnamed war novel.
Shanachie  relates: I have! In my novel, Blood Oath, Tony Randazzo created an entire back story for himself and kept inserting information into the novel. I kept having to go through and delete it. It was extremely irritating especially considering his story was not that pertinent to that particular novel, but his skills were. I did intend to later write his story, but never got around to it. Every so often, he taps on my skull and asks if he's ever going to get his novel.
31245bob answered: Did I ever have a secondary character spin off their own story? YES! I wrote a novel about interdeminsional space travel. My prime character was the focal of the story but had a common thread with three other guys who were also members of their car restoration club. He gets them involved in his discovery and they all have to evacuate a radiation poisoned Earth through different portals to pioneer new planets with what refugees they gathered. This in essence was a set up for four completely new novels. Isn't this fun?
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Product Type: Kindle Store
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Amazon's Price: $ 12.99
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Action/Adventure: March 09, 2011 Issue [#4278]
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