I started writing for a friend's sports blog back in February. In my posts, I always tried to inject some of my own humor/personality, to try and set myself apart. For Thanksgiving, I wrote something completely off the beaten path, that was more focused on humor than sports. I wasn't sure if my friend was going to post it, but he did, and it became the most read post that week. We decided to create a weekly column, inspired in part by espn's page 2, where I would have a lot more creative range. So far, we've done 3 posts in that section, called the 11th Inning Stretch, that are getting a lot of readers (at least compared to our other posts - we'll still under 1000 unique IP addresses per week).
I sent the Thanksgiving post to the dj of a local morning show, hoping he'd like it enough to link it to his facebook or something, but he ended up emailing me back and invited me to come on the air in January. I'm hoping that boosts the number of readers we have, but at this point I'm fully aware this is more for fun and there's a 99% chance nothing ever comes out of this.

Since OT is very diverse in taste, and a lot of you are part of the audience I'm trying to write for, I would appreciate it if anyone would take a look at my latest post and offer some feedback. I've already been told that the posts are kind of long, and that I'm going to lose potential readers because of this, but I'm hoping that those who like this style aren't going to care about the length. By the time I go on the air, I will have 4 or 5 more posts in this column, and I want to make them better each week.

Here's the first few paragraphs - I'll post a link to the rest at the bottom.

Writer�s Exercise: 4 Historical Authors Discuss Brett Favre

One day, in a Cre­ative Fic­tion class I took in col­lege, my pro­fes­sor gave us an exer­cise. He set a scene � a guy and a girl, wait­ing out­side a build­ing, with a car approach­ing them. He turned us loose, and 15 min­utes later we all read out loud and saw how we had all gone in com­pletely dif­fer­ent direc­tions.
Being a writer, I�ve had a chance to meet sev­eral other very suc­cess­ful writ­ers, and have main­tained con­tact with a num­ber of them. I had been want­ing to try an exer­cise like this again, and this week, as the entire world is wait­ing for the most com­pelling sports story in the last 34 years to unfold, I decided that this was a great oppor­tu­nity to do it.
So I reached out to some of my clos­est writer friends � Shel Sil­ver­stein, who was my first inspi­ra­tion as a child, Stephanie Meyer, who guided me through those awk­ward years as a teenage girl, Edgar Allan Poe, who taught me that it was okay to rhyme repet­i­tively, and Hunter S. Thomp­son, who I dis­cov­ered in col­lege, coin­ci­den­tally just before I went from being on the Dean�s list to being in dan­ger of fail­ing out.
So I wrote to all of them, explained the exer­cise, and set the scene with the two most impor­tant words in the his­tory of sports: Brett Favre.

If you made it this far and want to continue, here's the rest: http://www.goodshotatlosing.com/2010...%99s-exercise/

 

Originally Posted by El Burro

Good stuff. With all that pie, there is a 132% chance that you ate some of Bri's poop.

don't remind me

Excellent. Very high-quality writing and definitely imaginative and entertaining. Two thumbs up, brah.

This thread needs more love. The Brett Favre shit is Gold.

For those of you that hate links. Cont... from OP:

Shel Sil­ver­stein

I don’t think I’ll be able to play
Said lit­tle Brett the other day
My knee is bruised, my ribs are sore
I’ve got bro­ken fin­gers; 3 or more

My wrist is sprained, my retina’s scratched
My whole left foot’s no longer attached
With just one foot I’ll have poor trac­tion
They’d be bet­ter off with Tavaris Jack­son

I’ve suf­fered 8 con­sec­u­tive con­cus­sions
I won’t be able to focus dur­ing team dis­cus­sions
Ooops, there’s one more – oh my poor head
Any­one not as tough as me’d be dead

There’s noth­ing left in my bag of tricks
I won’t throw touch­downs, only picks
With all this bleed­ing, all this bruis­ing
I give my team a good shot at los­ing

No use of ears, no use of eyes
I’m pretty sure I’m par­a­lyzed
I’ve got ten­donitis and arthri­tis
Aids, can­cer, and gin­givi­tis

Call the sur­geon, doc­tor, and chi­ro­prac­tor
But still this tun­nel vision will still be a fac­tor
There’s blood when I spit, blood when I cough
My fin­ger­nails are falling off

I can’t sleep at night, I sweat and shake
There are no bones in me left to break
I won’t be able to move any­more
With­out a visit to the scooter store

My neck is bro­ken, and my back is…
What? What’s that you speak?
I’m in dan­ger of end­ing my streak?
I think I’m going to play this week!

Stephanie Meyer

That all-too famil­iar feel­ing swept over me: short­ness of breath, rapid heart­beat, the old weak­ness in the knees. I couldn’t see him yet, but I knew he was here. He had come for me. Would he come through the win­dow? Once per­haps, long ago. These days, he used the front door, and took his time com­ing up the stairs.

A quiet knock, and the door opened slowly, reveal­ing my Brett. Per­fect Brett, with that per­fect gray buzz cut and rugged match­ing stub­ble beard. Per­fect Brett, rugged good looks and a per­fect body, per­haps slowed down by years of play­ing with his kind, but still per­fectly per­fect in all its per­fec­tion.

“Bella,” he said to me, in that sweet drawl of his. “I’ve come back to you.”

“Oh Brett,” I gasped, run­ning to him, embrac­ing him, my lips search­ing for his, know­ing full well that one kiss may very well destroy me, but not car­ing, not at all. After his kiss, which seemed to last an eter­nity, as had his career, I with­drew and gazed into his per­fect eyes. “Are you really done? Done for good?”

“Yes Bella,” he said, step­ping towards the win­dow and into the light. A com­mon mis­un­der­stand­ing about aging quar­ter­backs is that light is harm­ful to them. Instead, they sparkle. Beau­ti­fully. “I’m done for good. It’s the only way we can be together. Together for­ever.”

“Oh Brett!” I said excit­edly, and in that moment would have fallen down had the wall not been there. “I love you so much it hurts when you’re not here. I’m so glad that’s all behind us!”

He frowned. It was a per­fect frown, but it scared me. “Oh Bella,” he said sadly.

“What is it Brett?” Not want­ing to know what was to come next, but com­pelled to ask.

“I think I’m going to play again. This whole retire­ment thing isn’t nat­ural. Not to my kind.”

“But Brett! You’ve only been retired for 4 min­utes.”

“Yes Bella,” he said in that sooth­ing voice that could con­vince any­one of any­thing. “4 min­utes to you. But to me and peo­ple like me, 4 min­utes is for­ever. I’ve made up my mind. I’m going back.”

He kissed me one last time with those per­fect lips, a per­fect kiss from a per­fect quar­ter­back, one that I loved no mat­ter how much it hurt. Things would be so much eas­ier if I could have fallen for Aaron Rodgers instead. Lovely Aaron, who was such a good friend to me, but much to his dis­may noth­ing more than a friend. Brett was my quar­ter­back – it was meant to be. I would wait.