Here we are in Boston with Mark St. Amant, author of Just Kick It: Tales of an Underdog, Over-Age, Out-of-Place Semi-Pro Football Player. The Sox (not White) are in town and while I’ve seen Fenway Park, I’ve never been to a game there. So, Mark and I got scalped tickets and are sitting up the first base line. While we watch for stray foul balls, we chat about two of my favorite topics, football and writing.
Steve Prosapio: Mark, in your first book, you quit your job in order to win your fantasy football league. You managed to top that feat in your second book by becoming a semi-pro football player! What were you thinking???
Mark St. Amant: My wife often asked me that same question, fearing that our HMO probably didn’t cover being blindsided by an angry special teams player on an errant field goal snap. But I felt that the book would be that much better if I chronicled a season in the life of this team from inside the huddle, as it were, versus from the sidelines or the stands. Basically, I had to satisfy my “inner Plimpton” and fully immerse myself in this strange (to me, anyway) new world of semi-pro football. And while I had never in my entire life worn a football helmet—
SP: Never???
MS: Nope. Never. I didn’t even know how to strap on shoulder pads, was almost 40-years-old, and was relatively small, I still said “Screw it, I’m playing.” Guess I had a death wish. I mean, this level of football is full of both college-level players still trying to get a shot at the pros, and grown men -- working men, guys with families and bosses pissing them off -- just looking to take out life’s frustration on the field and crack some skulls…often taking potshots at hapless kickers in the process. In short, I quickly discovered that semi-pro/minor league football is no joke. The level of play is very high. Still, I secretly hoped that, due to all my soccer experience, the skill set would at least translate enough so that I wouldn’t make a complete jackass out of myself while trying to hit an extra point. Luckily, it went OK and I never ended up in a full body cast, and made a few nice kicks. And, hopefully readers agree, it made for a better, more fulfilling read.
SP: Awesome. Without giving away too much of your book, how did playing for the Boston Panthers go?
MS: It was great. Just an incredible experience. Though not without its bumps and bruises (I lost a toenail while being tackled on an errant punt snap; yes, I punted, too), and uncomfortable moments (like when I tripped and wiped out on my very first practice kickoff in front of the entire team). But the kicking itself went well. I found that, having played soccer through college, I could actually kick a football with some degree of distance and accuracy. To my shock, I found that I could hit from 50-yards in practice, and hit a 45-yarder in a game. Yes, that’s without HGH!
That said, my favorite part of the experience was off the field, getting to know guys that I never would have known if not for the great game of football. Because the team was based in the inner-city, I got to see parts of Boston – some of the more dangerous/crime-ridden parts of the city, truth be told -- that many people, especially a suburban-raised, pep school white boy like myself, wouldn’t normally have willingly ventured into. And it’s not a one-way street: many of my teammates had never been to Beacon Hill or the more “whitebread” areas of the city, either. People just instinctively stay within their comfort zones and operate their daily lives where they feel safest and most familiar. So this book, this football season, turned out to be, whether intentional or not, a look at what can happen when people step outside their comfort zones. Playing for the Panthers expanded my horizons, and expanded the boundaries of the city that I’ve called home most of my life. And not to get all “Kumbaya/We Are the World” on you, but it showed me that a simple game like football can knock down barriers and bring people together who may never have otherwise given each other the time of day.
SP: Some authors experience a moment where unequivocally he/she knows they are going to follow through with their desire to write a novel. Did you experience this or was it a slow and gradual process? Tell me about your process.
MS: It might not have been in terms of a novel, but I started writing/creating “stuff” early on. When we were about 8- and 5-years-old, respectively, my older brother Doug and I made up a fictional rock band called, for some reason, “The Bengals” (odd since we lived nowhere near Cincinnati), and basically created a comic book around them. Story lines. Illustrations. Being chased by their rival girl rock band, “The Dalbys” (three real-life sisters who lived on our street upon whom we apparently had pre-pubescent crushes) -- think your basic adventures and misadventures of a rock band a la the Beatles “Hard Day’s Night.” Looking back, it was completely bizarre and, well, it was written in crayon, but it’s the earliest indication that I can remember that I had some sort of creative urges. That, and I failed math in fifth grade and almost every year thereafter, so a career as an NASA engineer was out of the question.
As far as novel/book-writing, it wasn’t until a creative writing class in high school (I went to Westminster in Simsbury, CT) – thanks, Ms. Edmonds -- that I thought about writing a full book of some sort. The closest I’d come was a (oxymoron alert) long-ish short story about a kid who traps Santa Claus one Christmas and keeps him in a cage in his room. And I dabbled with short stories and false start novels in college, but they all admittedly sucked and went nowhere. It wasn’t until I had the idea for Committed that the full book came pouring out of me, perhaps because I finally found something I was passionate enough about – fantasy football -- to put the time into it, if that makes sense, and for which I was willing to risk a lot . . . in Committed’s case, I was risking my livelihood and our financial security, i.e. my advertising career, which I abruptly abandoned to write the book.
As far as my specific process to writing Just Kick It, obviously I couldn’t keep a pen and pad I my uniform pants to jot down notes or conversations. So I’d keep a pen, pad and a tape recorder in my car and, after practice or a game, I’d jot down notes and ramble into the tape recorder while driving home, giving myself a rough, audio version of how I planned to write that night or the next morning, when I’d transcribe my notes and fit them into wherever was most appropriate in the ongoing manuscript. Sometimes I’d push Play and hear utter babble like “Fourth down QB sneak…President Rutherford B. Hayes…popsicles….grasshoppers” and, even as soon as the next day, have no idea what I was talking about.
SP: Do you write indoors or out? Handwriting or on the computer? Do you do one rough first draft or rewrite as you go?
MS: It sounds clichéd, but I did a ton of my writing while all hopped up on caffeine at the local Starbucks amongst the bloggers, freelance web designers and the occasional muttering homeless guy. We lived on Beacon Hill at the time and, no joke, there are eight Starbucks within like a quarter-mile radius, so I had plenty of ‘em to choose from. It got to the point where I was as obsessive-compulsive as Jack Nicholson in “As Good As It Gets,” on the verge of a furious outburst if someone was sitting at “my” table, especially if I’d had a good day of writing at that table the previous day. I’d strap on the Bose headphones, crank up some music – unlike some, I don’t like writing in total silence; I think I create better when I’m listening to good music, i.e. another form of creativity. If memory serves, I remember writing to a bizarre iPod stew of Jeff Tweedy, Jay-Z, Tupac, Bright Eyes, Lloyd Banks, Ray LaMontagne, Ben Folds, and Neil Young. (Like my writing schedule below, my Just Kick It soundtrack was all over the map.) And I write on my iBook…which is good because if CIA profilers ever decided to analyze my handwriting, they’d conclude that I’m either a deranged serial killer or I write with my feet like Christy in “My Left Foot.” It’s that bad. So, yes, a computer is a must.
And while some writers have set schedules -- up at 6 a.m., write for three hours, have a power bar, write for three more hours, have a grilled cheese, etc. – my schedule was, as I said, all over the map. Some days, I’d be up at 5 a.m. and would write pretty much straight through until dinnertime with only coffee and the occasional snack to tide me over. Other days, I’d start at 7 a.m., write an hour, discover that everything coming out of my brain was total shit, so I’d go for a run, clear my head, start again in the afternoon and write until midnight. Some days three hours. Some days fifteen. It really varied from day to day depending on what kind of roll I was on. Different approaches work for different writers. Mine is a bit…schizophrenic, admittedly.
Regarding how many drafts, I typically try to write one draft all the way through, but it never works up that way. One of my problems, and one that a lot of writers have, is the urge to edit as you write, and this can cause the stalling you asked about. I sometimes got into the evil cycle of finishing a chapter and then, instead of thinking how it best transitions into the next chapter, or what game/subject/character I’m tackling next (bad football pun intended), I’d foolishly think, “Hmm, wait, I could have opened that last chapter more strongly, or used that joke here, or written such and such a line better here, bla bla bla”…next thing I know, I’m back at the start of the chapter I’ve just supposedly finished. It’s the literary equivalent of struggling in quicksand, which only bogs you down more, and trust me, this happened (happens) to me all the time. But it makes it that much more rewarding when you finally have that, “Ok, this reads/sounds great...now I know I can move on” revelation.
SP: How long did it take you to write the book? Were there any periods during its writing that you stalled?
MS: All told, it took a little over a year. After a few initial weeks of early research --interviews with players, coaches, semi-pro experts and historians (stuff that eventually made its way into the prologue), I started the actual story writing right around the time I joined the team, in June of 2004 (a couple months before my first book, Committed, came out.) I wrote throughout that first season – June through October – turned in a first draft to my editor in early spring, if senile memory serves. We then edited throughout spring and summer as I began my second season with the team, and I turned in a final draft in September of ’05.
But the end was a little bumpy. In late summer ‘05, when I was playing my second season with the Panthers – I assumed that I’d only play the one “book season,” but I loved it so much that I ended up playing two subsequent seasons, only stopping when we had a baby -- I was making some revisions based on my editor’s feedback. I thought I was just about wrapped up, couple tweaks, done and done. But after looking at the manuscript more closely, we (my editor and I) discovered that the last couple chapters just weren’t...well, they sucked. And here I was thinking that I only had to dot some I’s and cross some T’s before delivering the final manuscript. In reality, I had some significant re-writes to do, and there were two problems with this: (1) My deadline for turning in a final revised draft was in about two weeks and, (2) Ten days of those two weeks were already booked for a “I can finally forget this damn book and relax for a bit” trip to Italy with my wife and some college friends & spouses. We’d rented a big villa for about 14 of us, and I was supposed to have spent those ten days carousing around Tuscany, touring vineyards, drinking great wine, having giant meals and generally chilling out after several grueling months of writing and re-writing and editing and more editing. I hated the stupid book by then, if I’m being honest. Just sick of it. Wanted it done. But while our friends did all the aforementioned carousing around Tuscany, I remained holed up in the villa re-writing those final few chapters.( Granted, if you’re going to be under house writing arrest anywhere, it might as well be in a Tuscan villa, so my bitching isn’t totally valid. But still, it wasn’t the idyllic Italian vacation we thought it was going to be.) All that said, I delivered the manuscript on time and it was better for those last minute revisions, I think. At least the end didn’t suck.
SP: What are your top 3 sports books of all time?
MS: Can I list six, or will this get me thrown in literary blog jail? Screw it, I’m going to risk it, because that’s just the type of flyin’-by-the-seat-of-my-pants guy I am:
(1) Paper Lion, because Plimpton is the “godfather” of immersive journalism, if that’s even what you call what I do, which is debatable. I pulled a quasi-Plimpton with Just Kick It, I suppose, but let’s be honest – it’s no Paper Lion. Nothing ever will be.
(2) Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch is also one of my favorites, even if Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore did eventually fuck it up for all of us.
(3) A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exley is what Committed (my first book) wants to be when it grows up, but never will be.
(4) Among the Thugs, by Bill Buford, which was about English soccer hooligans who absolutely fascinated me with both their twisted devotion to their football club(s) and their “pillaging-Vikings-on-steroids” savagery.
(5) I thought I already knew a lot about both Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell, but Sound and Fury by one of the all time greats, Dave Kindred, proved that I simply didn’t.
(6) Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis. Scrabble might not be a “sport” per se, but this account of tournament Scrabble competitions and those who compete in them, was one of my models for Committed (also a story of competitive obsession, when you get down to it), and, in the words of Elaine’s doctor crush in the Seinfeld “Hamptons” episode, was “breathtaking” in its simplicity, irreverence and pure entertainment value.
SP: What are your top 3 sports movies of all time?
MS: Not counting “Youngblood” and “Air Bud” of course…my faves have to be “Hoosiers,” “Caddyshack” (yes, it’s a sports movie), Slap Shot, and both of the “Bulls” – Durham and Raging. But if they ever make a movie out of Just Kick It, I’ll have to vault that to at least #3 on my list. We’re talking to Bernie Mac and Jet Li about playing me in the movie version. And yes, I’m kidding . . . the part of accidental semi-pro football kicker Mark St. Amant would obviously go to Mary Kate Olsen.
SP: What writer had the most influence on you?
MS: Anyone who ever started a letter “Dear Penthouse Forum, I never thought these stories were true…” because, let’s face it, how would the world ever know what two bi-curious Swedish exchange students are willing to do with/to an unsuspecting college professor to get an “A” on a their term papers.
As far as writer writers who’s influenced me, there are too many to count. The earliest books I remember reading were the “Great Brain” kids’ series by John Fitzgerald, which taught me what to do if I ever got lost in Skeleton Cave. But the first writer that truly struck me as a prolific, otherworldly genius, yet was somehow approachable, honest and, for lack of a better term, real, was Stephen King. I started reading him in about third or fourth grade, with his book of short stories “Night Shift” after which I moved on to “Carrie,” “Salem’s Lot,” “The Shining…I even devoured his not-so-good works ones, like “Cujo” and his admittedly coked-/boozed-up nonsensical “Tommyknockers.” While it was probably too early for an impressionable young boy to be reading about mutated, man-eating rats (“Graveyard Shift”) or homicidal, corn-worshiping teens (“Children of the Corn”), it was an incredible, early lesson on how to simply, conversationally tell a tale while, at the same time, grab your readers by the throat and dare them to stop reading, something that I’ve always tried, and probably failed, to do. And, oddly, I never had nightmares from reading Stephen King because he also made me laugh, which is another great lesson: there’s always room for humor regardless of your subject, even if -- hell, especially if – your story is about industrial laundry machines that develop a taste for human blood and devour their operators. If you have any writing aspirations, you simply have to read King’s “On Writing.” Among a thousand other things it shows you is that Stephen King wasn’t born Stephen King the multi-zillionaire author…he was just a hairy, lumbering young guy with a wife who worked at Dunkin’ Donuts and two baby kids, supporting them on $6,600 per year between teaching and working in a local laundry (washing lobster slop and other horrific refuse left behind by Maine’s tourists). He had to work his ass off to become the Stephen King we know today. A good lesson for all of us.
SP: King is by far my biggest influence as well. I loved “On Writing” and you’re right, he might be the hardest-working, famous writer out there. At a writer’s conference last year one of the writer/presenters joked about King claiming that he writes every day except his birthday and Christmas. Of course King’s wife outted him on the lie…he works his birthday and Christmas! Any other writers influence you, Mark?
MS: Many. My favorite works by them, are, in no order: Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany), Philip Roth (Goodbye Columbus), Tom Wolfe (Bonfire of the Vanities), Jonathan Ames (Wake Up, Sir!), David Sedaris (Naked), Nick Hornby (Fever Pitch), Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods), Chuck Klosterman (Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs), Truman Capote (In Cold Blood), Michael Lewis (The Blind Side, Moneyball), F. Scott Fitzgerald (Great Gatsby).
And as far as daily cyber fixes go, I usually can’t go without Deadspin, the Onion, the Sports Pickle, Salon.com, Slate.com. And you’ll probably notice that I don’t list a lot of sports-related writers/authors here aside from Plimpton, Lewis (and Deadspin or SportsPickle…and come to think of it, I always enjoy when Klosterman writes about sports). Frankly, I don’t go searching for sports-related stuff too much because it’s all I do every day, either at my “day job” (a creative director for an ad agency, working on the ESPN.com account) or with my other writing. Yes, I write the sports stuff because it’s a field I’m familiar with and have had some small degree of (cough) success in, but it’s certainly not where I want to, or plan to, reside for my whole writing career such as it is thus far. And honestly, sometimes I get burnt out on the “all sports, all the time” lifestyle. It’s kinda like being a hooker and having to go home and have sex with your husband after a long night of having sex with strangers, when all you really want to do is just sit on the couch in your sweats, eat Oreos and zone out to Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares.” Or something like that.
SP: Opps. Sorry about the sports burnout and all the sports questions! What’s your next book about? How far along are you with it and when do you hope to have it completed?
MS: Honestly, not sure yet. I’m working on a screenplay (not sports-related…back to that sports burnout thing) and busy at my ad job lately, so book #3 is on hold for the time being. But it’s out there somewhere. Just have to find that great idea again.
SP: What has been the most fun part of being a published writer?
MS: Why, all the groupies, of course! Truth be told, most of my “groupies” are face-painted dudes with giant foam “number one” fingers who only want to talk about whether or not Cadillac Williams will ever return to his rookie fantasy stud form. Which is fine by me, actually, because I love talking fantasy football. The best part, I’d say, is getting emails from these readers either asking me questions about their teams, or, even better, telling me that my book(s) either made them laugh, or think, or even cry – yes, there were a few tear jerker moments in Just Kick It – because hearing directly from readers is instant validation that all the blood, sweat and tears were worth it. That, and actually seeing your book on shelves. That’s a cool moment. And, of course, doing fun stuff like this…whether it’s radio, print, TV, online interviews, just chatting about writing, sports and having fun with the subjects. Bottom line, all of this should be fun for both me and the readers. When/if it’s no longer fun, I’ll bag it and move onto something else. Life’s too short.
SP: Mark, thank you for taking me to the ballgame. Red Sox win and the Detroit Tigers are 0-7 to start the year. Two of the four ESPN Baseball Tonight guys picked the Tigers to win the AL this year. We know more than those blokes!
MS: Thanks, Steve, this was fun. Great site and best of luck!
Hey all – Mark has agreed to raffle off a copy of his book on Friday. Leave a comment or question and you get an entry for a FREE BOOK!!!
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