A chipmunk falling off a log is more athletic than I am.

However, I’ve always admired athletes. I even make sports analogies about the writing life. I tell people—hey, don’t let rejection slips or failures get to you! After all, if you were playing baseball and you batted .300, you’d be doing well—even though that batting average would mean you “failed” 70% of the time.

Never mind that I couldn’t bunt my way out of a paper sack.

Somehow, though, I ended up with athletic kids. (Maybe it has something to do with their father having been an athlete all the way through college… and beyond? Hmmm…)

The other day, I took my 12-year-old daughter to the University of Dayton “Count Me In” program. It was an event where young girls could meet the female athletic teams. My daughter was thrilled. She practiced drills with basketball team members, passed a ball back and forth with a volleyball player, and worked out on the rowing team’s rowing machine.

While my daughter was merrily “rowing” (the kid logged a half mile without breaking a sweat), I asked one of the rowers how much the team practiced. Off season, she said, about 10 hours a week in the gym to stay in shape. In season, 20 hours a week… plus weekend competitions.

I asked her how she managed to juggle that with the full academic load of a college senior. She just shrugged and said, “We try not to think about that too much, otherwise it would seem impossible. We just do it.”

(I don’t think she really meant to mimic the old Nike saying. After all, I don’t think you wear tennis shoes while rowing, do you?)

So, now I have a new sports analogy to use as an answer whenever someone asks, “so how do you schedule in writing with family life, ‘day job’ work, and so forth?”

I can tell them I—like most writers—just row, row, row my (writing) boat gently down the stream… of life!