author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Behold, another Friday Fictionette getting posted the following Wednesday. You can read an excerpt of "The Fourth Miracle of Emmaline Gray" at Patreon and, if you are so moved, become a Patron at $1/month to read the whole thing right now this second. Audio will be going up shortly after I finish this post. Wattpad... I'll probably catch up on Wattpad excerpts tomorrow.

Again, raise your hand if you're at all surprised here. I was so very optimistic--I'd do my writing in the car! And also when we arrived in Bloomington on Friday! And also after all tournament events and/or team outings on Saturday and Sunday! Which was not exactly how things went. It was kind of the exact opposite of how things went--as I would have expected had I possessed an ounce of realism during my planning stage. While John took a shift driving, I either read to him, or conversed with him, or napped, or played on my computer. While not actively doing something with my team during our time in Indiana, I was flat on the hotel bed, recovering from the drive or from the day's activities. Or cleaning my bearings and then putting my skates back together. I even failed to get my Sunday AINC reading done, because we had a 9 AM bout that morning and it didn't seem wise to sacrifice sleep and thus performance for it.

Lesson one about tournaments is this: Don't budget for anything else in the weekend other than the tournament. And allow for a day's recovery time when the tournament and all associated travel is over.

Lesson two: Mathematically, someone's gotta lose all three of their bouts and take last place. Sometimes, that someone is you. It doesn't make you a loser. It makes you a competitor, same as everyone else. The only thing that would have made you a loser is if, after the heartbreaks and mistakes and foul-outs in the second bout, your team had decided to give up and not show up for the third bout at all. But you did show up, darn it, and you fought through your best bout of the weekend. And the tournament hosts gave you mad props for tenacity in the face of adversity. And now you're home with the entire rest of the 2015 season still in front of you, and you're ready to study the footage and learn everything you can and make yourself into an even better team that'll perform better and play smarter and hit harder and earn fewer penalties and score more points next time.

Lesson two is kind of long, but that's only because it's so important.

Meanwhile, tickets are now on sale for BCB's double header season opener on Saturday, May 23. Get 'em online, at the door, or directly from your favorite Boulder County Bomber!