August 2, 2024

Wow. Finishing this one and saying goodbye was a lot harder than I anticipated it would be. Jo and Reid hold such a special place in my heart, and they have truly become one of my favorite romantic couples I've ever written. I'm not a sequel/series person at all and yet here I am trying to figure out if I can extend Jo and Reid's story any more. Maybe a few bonus chapters here and there. I've truly found joy in writing again because of BIG SHOT, and that cannot be understated.

So that being said, here is my VERY long-winded anecdote on all that. This is your only warning that I'm about to ramble on a lot, so strap yourselves in.

I finished OVERDRIVE in November of 2022, and afterwards I went into a slump. I had terrible writers block, I couldn't come up with any new story ideas that I genuinely liked, and everything I tried to write I couldn't bring myself to continue. I was trying to force out a certain kind of story that I eventually realized I no longer have the capacity to write. I haven't really spoken about this at all (mostly because there hasn't been a need to), but I was diagnosed with PTSD in late 2022, right around the time I finished OVERDRIVE. Shortly afterwards, I just thought okay now I'm gonna write a story about my experience - not just as a means to cope, but because of my life experiences, I felt that it was sort of my duty and responsibility to do so. All of that stuff about drugs and addiction is still very important to me, but the more I tried to write about it, the more I realized how much of a toll it took on me. I'm still living with and recovering from my PTSD experience, and I think I just no longer have the willpower to share these kind of things in writing. At least not right now.

Fast forward a few months and I ended up turning to fanfiction for a bit - some of you might even remember I was pretty inactive on this account for a while, just chugging along with my silly little Eddie Munson fanfic (RIP). Believe it or not, it helped me tremendously. I had a side account with almost no followers, found a little group and got to interact with people who had the same niche interests I did, and it forced me to detach from the external validation and constant impostors syndrome that writing on this account embedded in me. But, the most important thing that writing my silly little fanfic taught me was that sometimes you just need to have fun writing a story, and it doesn't have to be any more than that. In a kind of backwards way, it helped me cope more than anything else I could have written. Not a week goes by where I don't miss Cass and Eddie!!!

A little while later (this is now summer 2023), I was given the opportunity to potentially pitch something to Wattpad as a creator. This one was for any type of contemporary adult/new adult with a focus on romance, and I noticed that sports romance was one of the subgenres listed as a suggestion. Aside from my lovely little co-writing entry for ONC that year, I had absolutely no WIPs, no ideas, no nothing going on at this point for myself, so I said fuck it why not take a crack at it. I hadn't written anything football-related since BLIND AMBITION, and it was just around the time that college football season was starting, so naturally it was already like 75% of what was going on in my head on a regular basis. It required more direct and concrete planning and plotting than anything else I'd ever written, but I came to find out that the planning part of it was not only rewarding but extremely fulfilling and fun for me. And then the lightbulb kind of went off, and here we are. I ended up not pitching it obviously, but that's okay.

I took the fun and experience I had writing my fanfic (as well as the detachment from comparison and external validation) and tried to bring it into my process for BIG SHOT. I had to remind myself constantly while planning and plotting the story that something terrible doesn't need to happen. That it can really just be about finding love, women in sports, and all of the things I love about college football, and it can still be a great story. Simple as that. This was the kind of thing wanted to write now, and this was the way I wanted to do it. I've never been a pantser per se, and I've always done a bit of plot outlining, but now I've become an obsessive planner for everything I write, in the best way possible, and I now try and approach all of my new stories the way I did for BIG SHOT.

BIG SHOT has also made me realize how much my mindset when it comes to my writing has really changed over the last few years. I came to realize that OVERDRIVE was sort of my transition book into this mindset - it had the mental health representation I felt was important to include at the time, while also doing a fairly standard sports romance in my own way.

So, no, I don't have a responsibility to educate people about addiction or share my traumas if I don't want to. No, it doesn't make my writing skills lesser than just because I'm not writing something sad and angsty and poignant. Yes, I can write about things that are deemed "popular" in my own way, without feeling like a sellout.

This is also the first story of mine that I genuinely made an effort to include more explicit sexual scenes in. I used to hate smut on principle, because stories of mine that do not contain smut or explicit sexual scenes would often get degrading comments on fade to black scenes like "where's the rest of it???" and "that's it???" and other comments that would make me feel like my story genuinely wasn't good simply because it did not contain explicit sexual scenes. I was very petty about this for a while and adamantly refused to write or read it. Well, we've matured now (and you can also thank the fanfic for that). I think in reality, I was just scared of doing something I never have before, worried that it wouldn't be good, and worried how I would be perceived. I am still worried about being perceived (as most of us are) but the pros outweigh the cons now. I'd like to think I'm pretty decent at it now.

Thank YOU for making BIG SHOT a fun and rewarding experience for me, and I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it <3

Now then, some acknowledgements and appreciations and such that will also be word vomity:

I'm always thankful for my husband, who although is very into football as well doesn't share the nerdiness factor of it like I do, but lets me blab at the dinner table and ask a thousand niche questions about cover 2 defenses nonetheless. Anything Clemson related is all because of him, because shockingly enough I actually did not go there (even though I think a lot of you think I did lol) - I simply married into alumniship.

Sar (w1ldflow3r): The day I don't thank her for her involvement in anything I write is the day y'all should be worried. The trust I put in her is unmatched - not just for writing, but for life itself. Both of our birthdays have recently passed, and I remember texting her saying "wow we've been with each other for four birthdays!" and so to many more birthdays and stories and life events as my literal creative soulmate (and the gem to my sav, ifykyk).

Syd (sydney_e98): Thank you for fielding all of my hyperfixations with far more interest and excitement than you ever needed to, for allowing me to spiral via voice memo on a weekly basis, and for not doubting me even when I sometimes did. You are such a great friend and I'm very lucky to have you. PS; Fuck the birds, you're spiritually a Bills fan now, BET.

Now then, for my mother. This is a funny thing for me to say and some of you might find this very surprising, but my mother has been with me throughout most of the process for this book, and I don't think BIG SHOT would be what it is without her. It's not really the first thing of mine she's ever read, but it's the first time I would be sending her weekly chapter updates much in the same way y'all got weekly updates, and if I hadn't sent her something for a bit she'd get testy with me and ask me where her chapters were. Yes, she even read THOSE scenes and I would have to tell her before I'd send her those chapters "I DIDN'T WRITE IT, PRETEND ITS NOT ME" and she'd laugh. She loved them, in case y'all were wondering.

My mom and I find a way to talk about football pretty much every time we have a chat, regardless of what time of year it is. I mentioned it very briefly in my intro authors note, but my mother is truly where I got my love of football from, and she made it feel so normal in my house for us girls to love sports and talk about sports 24/7. So, it had become kind of a shock to me when I went to university to study sports broadcasting and journalism that I was basically one of 2 or 3 girls in each of my classes (one of those girls is still to this day one of my best friends, and yes we call each other regularly to yell about formula 1 and football and all kinds of related nonsense). And when I was told that I couldn't be a college football analyst because that wasn't a role for women, it was less shock and more anger. I still hold a very serious grudge against Mike Francesa to this day for saying that to me in the middle of a conference and I hope he gets hit by a car :)

Things never really worked out for me for a variety of reasons, but I can never thank my mother enough for instilling in me a love for sports, and instilling the normalcy of seeing women involved in sports. (and also my love of designer shoes and handbags and sports cars but that's another story entirely).

To Reid: the ultimate football book boyfriend. I don't know that I can really ever top Reid Donahue in terms of male athlete protagonists - he truly was every single thing I wanted the love interest of this story to be, and even exceeded my expectations by the end. I am so proud of him for so many reasons, and I will miss him dearly.

And finally, to Jo: she is sort of everything I wished I'd been in college. That's not to say that I didn't do what I thought was right for my career at the time - in fact, I did A LOT - but in 2013-2014 it was a lot harder than it is now. I thought going to a smaller school would help me more because I had to compete with less people (that was a miscalculation on my part and sometimes I wish I'd gone to Ohio State like my mom wanted me to lol). Social media was virtually nonexistent back then, nor were there whole digital media teams and specialized personnel like there are for big time football programs now. Women were in general not as widely seen in sports, and in particular football. Even now, in 2024, I will come across men that are shocked that I can hold a very high level conversation with them about football. Jo is very special to me because she allowed me to live out some of my dreams. Here is very young me as a sideline reporter for our very bad football team.

So, to wrap things up (finally) - I'm not writing about themes of addiction and drugs and recovery for the time being, and even though at the time it was important for me to do so, I've learned it's okay to move on from that too. I'm still writing about things I think are important. Female representation in sports is important. Portrayal of healthy relationships (both romantic and platonic) is important. Being a young adult and understanding that you don't have to have your life fully figured out is important.

I think we're all capable of much more than we realize, and I think characters like Jo and Reid are a good examples of that. So that's where I'm at now. I want us all to feel like that, and hopefully reading about my little crew of dinguses can help a bit.

The thing I want readers to take away from my stories now is a good reading experience. I want you to smile and laugh, and to lose yourself in this world I've created of very real, relatable people without feeling like you're waiting for something terrible to happen to them. Sometimes it really does all work out in the end.

Love, Taylor <3