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Manny Stiles update: A dilemna when writing a book.
AS you may already know or are just finding out - Manny Stiles isn't commenting on this site anymore - he has better things to waste his time on.
Manny Stiles is writing a book (well, actually several books). It is proving easier than I/him/we/us imagined and eerily impossible at times. Jumping into such a large project definitely plays with the psyche.
A lot of the time spent writing is you saying to yourself "This is Awesome, this is gonna be great", "I'm gonna make the bestseller's list" while a lot of the time editing and polishing the writing is "God, I suck." "This is gonna be a miserable failure and utter waste of time" and "I'm in over my head here"
Jeez, the EASY part is coming up with the words.
The tough part is deciding which words won't make it.
I have the framework of chapters assembled and lined up fairly well and a general idea of where each of the chapters are going to be tied together with the theme of the book - and yes, I have decided that I am looting some of my AGM articles and comments for this book - The working title is Babe Ruth did it without Penicillin and it focuses around the idea that nothing really changes in sports or society except how close we put our magnifying glass to it. How we overvalue sports' role in our society and ignore the simplest beauties that causes us to love sports in the first place.
It's kinda already the anti-Kenrick book in that his book was "what's wrong with sports" and mine is more "What's wrong with Us?"
But it's Mannyball in my head, of course.
But I have reached a moral dilemna. So far I have traipsed around my "Rays experience" for this book in the thought that I could pen a future book about the Rise of the Rays: Reason to Ruse the Roses in order to time it better with their impending success. Yes, writing a book based on riding the coattails of a loser franchise into a winning one has been done before - right, Sports Guy? - but NOT like Manny Stiles would do it.
The moral issue comes in here - there is a chapter that the story of being won on ebay to raise money after my brother's passing and family coverup would help me eloquently explain a fine point.
I have asked many people what I should do. My agent replied that "It's your book, I'm just gonna try to sell it. Keep that in mind." My family back East just wants me to shut up forever, pretend like none of this has happened and "let Dru rest in peace". My best friend says I should shadow the story and let it build mystery to the readers but it would enable me to use the "perfect example" from the experience and my wife says "Just write around it, you're going to be editing this thing forever. Stop trying to write 4 books at once."
It comes down to this- How I became a Rays fan is a long, boring drawn out feat to read if I try to explain it quickly (I CAN'T spend a whole chapter it - the book isn't really about me). If I explain it fully (which one day I will, but have only scratched the surface here at AGM), it's a VERY twisted, sick tale with tons of drama, lies, deception, violence, fornication, drugs, illicit actions and 'fringe of society' behaviors that is nothing like the book I am currently writing. BUT, one very particular experience during my time with the Rays would otherwise be a PERFECT fit for my book.
So for the most part I have continued to write the other parts until I make a decision on whether or not to add one part that might foul up the flow of the book. I am leaning to either not adding any of it or writing the experience as a third person view and vaguing it down to save space as to not lose the example and not go too far in depth of how the experience came to be...
For the update: I'm over 20,000 words in and have 14 chapters lined up. I am expecting the book to be in the 75-80,000 word range (IF I can pare it down some) and should be about 250-280 page range. As it is currently constructed, I don't know where they will put it in the Dewey Decimal system as it will be parts fiction and non-fiction, ranging from humor, biography, history, to science and medicine and even a touch of science fiction and fantasy. Did you expect anything less? It will flow with humor and bounce around time and space and attack with (of course) many different styles.
Here's some early reviews by some people who have been given the gist of it or have read parts on their own:
- "A poetic engorgement - one dude's version of a made for TV chick flick; except dedicated to Frank Robinson" - Jamie Strange, rapper
- "Frank Robinson is gonna kick my ass if I don't read this book" - Charles Norris, actor
- "Oddly enough, after reading this YOU might need penicillin" - Sports Shaman, Spiritual Advisor
- "Excuse me. Are you lost?" - Security guard at Viacom
- "It's not even 1/3 completed yet it is already completely shameless. I'm glad there aren't too many pictures of the author. Well done, Mr Stiles." -Joe Joseph, Fictional Reviewer for The Fictional Magazine of Non-Fictional Literature
- "Never heard of him" - Bill James, author/Patron Saint of stat geeks
