Go For the Gold by Linda S. Glaz

Well, it’s been quite the week. Michael Phelps, Gabby Douglas, Ryan Lochte, all with gold medals and that was only the beginning.

Waking up at five or six in the morning, training four hours early and four to six hours later in the day. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. The training doesn’t end. Sweat, hydration, healthy food, good trainers. In between, many of the Olympic hopefuls must hold fundraisers in the their spare time.

Setbacks: pulled muscles, torn ligaments, breaks, strains, shin splints. It never ends. But the goal is always in sight. So elastic wraps, air casts, Icy Hot, physical torture—therapy, and the routine starts all over again.

Before “the competition” there are smaller ones. Local competitions, regional, state, national, and international—World Championships. More pain, more injuries, more challenges and back to square one.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know about the Olympics, but have you ever thought? With their years of hard work, they don’t always win the Gold.

Why should we think as writers that we can sit down without the hours, days, months, and years of sweat, learning, coaches, setbacks and disappointments? Is it really just sitting down and scratching out a story? Or does it follow the Olympic standard of incredible hard work if we want to win the Gold?

Hard work and perseverance pay off.

Go for the Gold!