Score One for the Uncos of the World!

Hi and welcome to my maiden blog (meaning first blog, not old-fashioned girly blog!).

So this month Glenn Maxwell 3: State Showdown and 4:World Domination were published becoming my 7th and 8th book for kids about sport.

Amazing huh? Here I am, a lowly English teacher, writing books with champion sports stars Glenn Maxwell and Billy Slater!

But you don't know the half of it because when I was a kid myself I was a total and utter...

                 unco.

Embarrassing but true but that's literally what I was - hopelessly uncoordinated despite all my best efforts.

I did love sport as a kid. I watched footy (I'm a die hard Sea Eagles fan - go Manly!) and I loved the cricket but when it came to actually playing both games - well, it just wasn't pretty. I dropped passes, missed tackles completely, swung pathetically at the ball and got bowled for a duck - and that was just against the kids in my street. 

I do remember winning a few races in Little Athletics (mainly the 200m and 400m) and my friends and I won the local Tennis comp one year (though because we were first-timers we were 15 year olds playing 10 year olds and boy we really had to collect our trophies quickly on Grand Final day as there was a mob of angry parents after us!)

My biggest sporting victories though were always in the backyard commentating in my head as I took a classic catch or scored the winning try for Manly in the Grand Final.

I don't do the fantasising much anymore (just when I go for a jog and imagine winning the Olympic Marathon) but I have maintained a love of competitive sport despite being highly uncompetitive at it. I guess I just love the drama and tension of competition - it makes for great stories and while I might not get to live out my sporting fantasies in my head, I've been able to go one better - recreating them when writing the Billy Slater and Glenn Maxwell Series. 

And now I am about to begin a new project for Random House writing short stories about sport for kids, this time without the help of an expert. Scary but I'm looking forward to it. After all who doesn't love a good sports story. 

So if you have any suggestions about what sports I should include make sure you email me or give me a tweet. 

You can also check out a very early short story I wrote about my own experiences on the footy field on my Bits and Pieces page. 

Until next time dear reader....

Read on.

Pat

P.S. You can catch Glenn offically promoting the books at the MCG. If you have a time machine and can go back to 4pm January 5 2015.

Or you can catch me promoting all my books in random Big Ws around the country. I'll be the guy holding up the books and shouting 'I wrote this!' and generally looking like a big dorky 'unco'!