The Brain
Jumpstart your thoughts and dive into the writing of Robert J Ray.
Tools For Your Novel Rewrite
Congratulations!
You’ve made it this far—you’ve created a rough draft!
You’ve written 200-331 pages—maybe more—and it’s time for a break.
And an intense intuitive scholarly peek at what you’re done.
Where you are with your story.
What you need to do now.
So you can keep going.
The Last of Six Lessons for Lester
Lester has always had a problem with high balls.
He loves to lob, but when someone lobs him, he gets the jitters.
The Fifth of Six Lessons for Lester
The serve plus one drill is good for practicing on your own. To start the Coach uses two balls. One ball in his hand. The other ball in his pocket.
The Fourth of Six Lessons for Lester
By now, the Coach had figured out Lester’s hitting problem—he was always late to the ball—something he couldn’t fix—because of his bad knees.
The Third of Six Lessons for Lester
Lesson Three started with a refresher course on the Backhand Chip shot—with the focus on arms separating.
The Second of Six Lessons for Lester
“In doubles, which court for the stronger player? Ad court or deuce court?”
The First of Six Lessons for Lester Elder
Lester fell in love with tennis. His bad habits were ingrained. He kept taking lessons. Three decades earlier, before his knees betrayed him, Lester had the good luck to work with three top tennis coaches—Dennis Van Der Meer, Vic Braden (at the Tennis College), and Timothy Gallway, of Inner Game fame. When teaching the game Lester liked small groups, kids and old people. As Lester’s strokes got better, his knees got worse.
22 Steps to Starting Your Novel
Write 100 pages. Don’t stop to think. Don’t write too fast. Don’t waste time crafting exquisite paragraphs—they will perish in your rewrite. Write short lines, short sentences down the page.
Blame the Ball
warmup with used balls
marked with dollar signs
as used warmup balls
but Player CH keeps missing
I’m giving him a lot of spin
dink balls, slices, wobbly topspin
so he blames the balls
Queen Spot
Queen Spot Doubles
Coach MB gives me a place to stand
when my partner is serving
when the enemy is serving
he calls it the Queen Spot
