I must confess that I’ve been somewhat lax in my writing the past four weeks. Blame it on basketball and the NCAA men’s tournament in particular.

   I live in Kentucky and this year the commonwealth was represented by four teams – Kentucky, Louisville, Murray State and Western Kentucky. For those of you who don’t follow the sport, the Kentucky Wildcats won their eighth national title on Monday night, defeating the Kansas Jayhawks 67-59 in New Orleans.

   I told myself that I’d stay up until halftime and then head off to bed. I’m not a night owl anymore so staying up past 10 o’clock is a big deal for me. At the half, I decided to stay up until the Wildcats went up by 20 points. The lead grew to 18 points, and as I was about to turn out the lights and turn off the TV, the Jayhawks rallied like they had in their other tourney games. They trimmed the lead to five points before Kentucky recovered in the final 90 seconds to secure a hard-earned victory.

   With the tournament over I plan to get back earnestly to my short story collection. I’ve completed eight stories so far and intend to write two more in the next two weeks. Then I’ll go back and go over all of them with rewrites, edits, and everything else involved in polishing them for publication.

    One thing I learned is that the next time I begin a writing project I’ll try to avoid doing it during the NCAA tournament.