A Cubs Fan Writes

I am a Cubs fan, as much as I hate to admit it, especially on a day like today. Waking up and remembering that the long, fantastic, 97-win season is over. I feel sick and depressed. Discouraged and frustrated. And I know these emotions well, because I’m also a writer.

Writing (novels), is just like being a Cubs fan. I work so hard for so long, and nothing comes of it. Then a friend or relative jabs, “Writer, huh? Ha. You published?” No, damn it! And the Cubs didn’t win either, you fucking Sox fans.

My hopes were dashed, like they always are. It’s like winning a playoff game-- I’ll get a story published, and I’ll feel elated, or maybe an agent will reply to a query, and I’m spinning. But then the success—poof!— disappears. The agent decides, no thanks. The website that published me, reboots. I didn’t get the major publication, I have to start all over, and the World Series is impossibly out of reach, once again. I’m sick of it!

Will I ever see the big game? Will the trophy ever be mine? Some say there’s another Cubs fan trait: blind optimism. I’m a fucking dreamer. I do believe that anything is possible. What one man has done, another can do. Right?

Maybe not. You know what else Cubs fans do? Even if they are up, they wait for something to go wrong, and then they fixate on it. Maybe my writing sucks and I don’t deserve to win. Or maybe I was only one shitty paragraph away from publication. That one awful little paragraph totally fucked my chances. But here’s the question, when is my next chance? Next year? Really? But my writing improved so much from last year. I thought this was the one that would win!

Nope. Shit! Not even close. A humiliation, actually. Now what?

The kicker is, the Cubs never quit. They come back every year.

I know Cubs fans that lived and died and never saw a win, but they kept cheering. Compare that to the thousands of unpublished novels, masterpieces, tucked away in some desk drawer or hard drive, discovered during an estate sale and tossed away, or deleted, without even a glance. But that author’s time was not wasted. Those writers spent hours doing what they loved to do. Right?

No! They wanted to fucking win! They wanted to get published! They wanted to feel the high, the euphoria. They wanted to show everyone, that yes, things are difficult, but if you keep trying you’ll eventually succeed.

And that’s what sucks about the Cubs. They never fucking win! They work so hard! So hard! And every fucking time they fail.

Oh well. So what. Another season is over. Another novel is garbage.

But the funny, perhaps stupid part is… I’m not rooting for the Cardinals next year. Fuck the Cardinals, and the Sox, and especially the Mets. I’m a Cubs fan. I don’t give a shit what you think. I will reach the ultimate goal. That one hero will come along. A character brimming with intelligence and virility, with the power to overcome all odds, to lead his team, to win it all! It will happen! Damn it! It will happen!