Writing, competition, golf and basketball: a response to Chris Jones

I'm really enjoying Esquire writer Chris Jones' Son Of Bold Venture blog and his take on writing. There isn't enough dialogue about the art and importance of writing out there, and Jones adds a lot to the conversation, particularly with his interviews (notable recent ones include ESPN's Wright Thompson, the Boston Globe's Charles P. Pierce and Glenn Stout, series editor of The Best American Sports Writing. With that said, though, I have to take issue with his two most recent posts, on awards and motivation.

To be clear, this isn't to say that Jones is wrong or that his arguments are invalid. Both of those posts deal heavily with his own feelings and his own approach, and that approach has obviously led to a lot of success for him over the years, so it can't be all that bad. It's not necessarily bad advice for young writers, either; everyone's different, and Jones' approach, involving writers "keeping score" and competing will undoubtedly work very well for some people. The only reason I'm writing this is to express my own feelings that while those may be valid ways to succeed as a writer, they aren't the only ways out there. That may not fit with Jones' avowed attraction to black and white, but it's reflective of one of the things I feel most strongly about; the shades of grey.

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Campus Corner: Congrats to Sterling and Byers...

It was an impressive week for Queen's sports, which resulted in two Gaels taking OUA Athlete of the Week honours. I've already covered defensive tackle Dee Sterling's superlative performance in Saturday's football game against Laurier both here and at Out of Left Field, and will have more on his win in tomorrow's Journal, but his stats deserve repeating again: five solo sacks, one assisted sack, six solo tackles, four assisted tackles and six tackles for a loss, leading to a net loss of 37 yards. He broke the all-time Queen's record of four sacks, jointly held by Jim Aru and Marc Mitchell, and there's a good chance he'll earn CIS Defensive Player of the Week.

I didn't write about Jackie Byers yet, though, so she deserves some play here as well. The first-year lacrosse player turned in an incredible nine-goal, two-assist performance in Queen's three games over the weekend, leading the Gaels to a 3-0 record with wins over the University of Toronto Varsity Blues, the McMaster Marauders and the McGill Martlets. Very impressive: we should see great things from her this year.

This is a pretty rare accomplishment as well. The last time a university swept the OUA male and female athletes of the week was in November 2007, when Nick FitzGibbon and Jaclyn Butterworth of the Guelph Gryphons both took home the honours. It's nice to see some Gaels get recognized for their superb efforts, especially when those individual performances also translated into team success.