Sometimes you can line up with a quarterback after getting traded or going to a new team, whether it’s the draft or whatever, and it not go smooth.
The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying.
My first draft is always way too long; my books start out with delusions of ‘War and Peace’ – and must be gently disabused. My editor is brilliant at taking me to the point where I do all the necessary cutting on my own. I like to say she’s a midwife rather than a surgeon.
On draft day, I wasn’t really nervous at all. Then you turn on the draft, the first five picks go by, and then you still thinking, ‘Oh man, I don’t know where I’m going to go.’ It’s really just, by the time draft hits, that’s when you get nervous.
Everyone said I would be a second-round pick or undrafted guy – that’s all I heard coming to the draft – but I had a higher faith. I knew I was way better than that, better than how people pegged me.
There’s a lot of really good players in the draft and we’re all looking to make a name for ourselves at the next level. I guess we’ll find out 10 years down the road and there’s gonna be discussions throughout time about it, but we can’t control that.
Let go of the idea that somehow you can outsmart a first draft. Because I have never met anybody who can.
A lot of young guys coming up in this league, they’re given the spotlight right away, depending on draft stature or whatever the case may be.
When I graduated from Utah, I was headed into the biggest job interview of my life, the NFL Draft.
I write an actual script rather quickly – a draft will take me two weeks – but I write a lot of drafts. My big thing is I don’t re-read. When I write, I never re-read back. I’ll send it, because if I re-read back, it will cripple me.
I believe an invitation from the Commission on Presidential Debates is similar to a draft notice – a civic responsibility.
I’ve been saying it before the lottery, before the Phoenix Suns even had the No. 1 pick. I’ve just been talking it into the existence. I’m not saying I’m the best player in the draft and trying to be cocky like that, but I was just saying I’m going to be the No. 1 pick, regardless.
I have worked out with the Thunder, Lakers, Knicks, Grizzlies, Spurs, and a few others before the draft. I have worked out primarily against shorter and supposedly faster players in these workouts.
It is crystal clear to me that if Arabs put down a draft resolution blaming Israel for the recent earthquake in Iran it would probably have a majority, the U.S. would veto it and Britain and France would abstain.
The draft is one of my favorite events because it is about football. People are focused on how their teams improve. It’s a celebration of football. And most importantly, it represents a very important time in the lives of these men who are entering the NFL, and their families.
I was just 18 years old, excited about being drafted to the N.B.A. I felt like all of Houston was watching me. My high school was watching me. I think they had a draft party at my coach’s house. I’ll never forget that day, being in the green room with my family and my agent.
Often as a writer, you get your first draft out, and then you look and think, ‘Now, what have I got here.’ You’re really just throwing mud at the wall and then going, ‘Oh, there’s a pattern there.’
For me, when you’re going in the late rounds you just always have that chip on your shoulder. At the end of the day, every team that didn’t draft me – including the team that took me 203rd – everybody passed me a few times. And, for me, that kind of fueled me over the years.
If you look historically at the draft at quarterbacks in the top 10, about half of them flame out very quickly.
I normally keep a series of draft in a catalogue type of book in which I scribble, sketch and draw ideas.
Need always plays into your decisions more as the draft unfolds.
I remember the day I found out my draft status. I was really floored and kind of staggered around in a daze. It just hadn’t occurred to me that I could end up in Vietnam.
I was pretty darn lucky to be selected by the Steelers. A round earlier or later in the draft and I might have been with a team that didn’t make it to the Super Bowl.
Heart had originally relocated to Vancouver because Mike evaded the draft to protest the Vietnam war. We had to deal with a lot at that time – it was a tough period for the band.
It’s still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out.
From watching the draft and following the NFL closely, anything can happen in the draft. But to me, it’s not where I get drafted that matters to me, to be completely honest.
I hate first drafts, and it never gets easier. People always wonder what kind of superhero power they’d like to have. I wanted the ability for someone to just open up my brain and take out the entire first draft and lay it down in front of me so I can just focus on the second, third and fourth drafts.
I was halfway through a rough draft of ‘The Sisters Brothers’ when it came time to start the ‘Terri’ adaptation.
I will take a draft to the Yankees or to the Mets. A draft for president is not conceivable.
Cleveland was the only visit I made. I had a good feeling they were going to draft me, but I was still shocked when they jumped up to the second round.
Six years after I wrote the first draft of ‘Plan B,’ I received my first paycheck as a writer. It included both the $3,000 in deferred option money as well as half the fee for performing the initial rewrite. The amount was scale according to the Writer’s Guild guidelines, but a lot, according to me.
In early draft it never satisfied me, and that was when it clicked into place and it went so well as a diary.
Going to the draft, I took two years off to serve my church and my God. There were no secrets, there was no deception; I didn’t ask anyone to be drafted No. 2.
The first draft of everything, I write longhand. One of the nice things about that is that it makes you keep going. If you write a bad sentence on the computer, then it’s very tempting to go back and fidget with it and spend another 20 minutes trying to make it into a good sentence.
The draft’s crazy. Everybody knows that.
I’m sharpest early, and though I can rewrite any time, day or night, I’m useless after noon when it comes to writing first draft.
The Iraq war was fought by one-half of one percent of us. And unless we were part of that small group or had a relative who was, we went about our lives as usual most of the time: no draft, no new taxes, no changes. Not so for the small group who fought the war and their families.
I listen to a lot of different stuff, from Mozart to Johnny Dowd to Monster Magnet. I don’t listen to music while I’m writing a draft, but I do listen to it when I’m revising.
The draft is like game day on a 3rd-and-5. You have a lot of plays you can choose from. You go with your gut, pick and play and hope it works.
To a lot of people, I might just be the guy who went No. 1 in the draft. Or the guy who lost his job to Colin Kaepernick. Or the guy who helped turn a 2-14 Chiefs team into a back-to-back division champ… but then couldn’t put them over the top.
Like any year, any year with any team, you’re always going to look to the draft to help strengthen your roster and free agency.
After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn’t matter if it’s a story or a novel, I find that when it’s still fresh in my mind I’m either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely blind to them. Either way, I’m unable to make substantive edits of any value.
First, you need to write the script, re-work on lots of things. First draft, second draft, once the final script is ready then you visualize which actors fits the role in that the particular script they’ve written.
There was a story that came out that Jimmy Garoppolo was one of the first guys to text Trey Lance. That’s just the type of guy Jimmy is. He’s not going to shy away from adversity, shy away from a draft pick.
Draft day is a hectic day, especially for draftees and, more or less, for management.
If you’re having trouble finishing a book, it might be that you’re trying to fix it as you go. Just finish the story, no matter how terrible you think that first draft is. Then let it cool off. In other words, don’t look at it for a while. Then you can rewrite it.
It’s a great opportunity to get picked top 10 in the draft. It’s just a dream that I’ve always had.
The main reason why I would even potentially go to the NFL Draft is for my family.
Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them… unless they are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.
I have always had great respect for those who served. In my time, we had the draft.
I was thinking about the NBA after my fourth year, but I also realized I could get my master’s paid for and have another year on the court to raise my draft stock even higher. I felt if I could do those things, I could have my cake and eat it, too.
