SLASHLINE

I read a lot of sports stuff. One reason is because sports writers tend to be really, really good writers… Bob Hammel, Frank Deford, Gary Smith, Mitch Albom, Rick Reilly, Jim Murray, John Skipper, Dave Revsine…

Also, I like sports. A lot. It’s a sickness. I don’t bet. I don’t do fantasy leagues. I’m always for the underdog, except on those rare occasions when the IU football team or the Cincinnati Reds are considered the favorites. My love of sports has no redeeming value. I do not think of sports as metaphors for life, or as training for other realms. I just like sports.

Also, I like new words. Sports writers try never to use a conventional word when they can find or invent a more “interesting” one. A basketball is a rock, or a globe, or an orb. A pitcher is a hurler. A home run or a touchdown is “taking it to the house” or “taking it downtown.”

I have read so much in sports, however, for so long, that I am always surprised when a new word appears in my reading. Should I not know all these words already? No, that’s the fun of it.

So it is with the “slashline” in baseball. For instance, Joey Votto’s 2009 slashline is 322/25/84, .322 batting average, 25 home runs, 84 RBIs [runs batted in]. I have seen those slashlines ever since I started reading the sports pages, but I have never heard them called that before. “Slashline” communicated immediately, though, as soon as I read it, because I’m familiar with the genre.

How should we use new phrases in writing, though, understanding that not every reader is up to date or familiar with the peculiar argot of the?

I read a lot of quantum physics and brain research. I’m not a scholar in either field. I have no background. So I can tell quickly which authors are trying to write for novices like myself, as well as readers more conversant in the field, by how they illuminate and illustrate the new terms as they arise.

It’s important, even as a fiction writer, to write for the novice, the new reader, as well as for the readers who are familiar with the ways of Miss Marple and her ilk.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…

THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of questioning the call.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0

If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml