In the late 2000s, Dave Mishkin had an idea for a novel.
A minor-league hockey player, whose parents died in a car accident when he was a boy, struggles with his mental health. The player possesses uncanny hand-eye coordination, but after being hit with a puck in the eye, he is forced to retire. Then, the player begins his recovery.
Excited by the premise, Dave started writing. Before long, however, he became stuck, unable to advance the story. Frustrated, he left the fledging manuscript on his computer’s hard drive, thinking he'd return to it at some point. Or not.
The years passed. In the spring of 2022, the Lightning were on the brink of elimination in a first-round playoff series. Facing the prospect of a longer offseason, one in which Dave had no projects planned, he wondered how he might occupy his time. His wife, Dulcie, suggested he revisit the novel.
Over the next several weeks, the story came together in Dave's mind. As it turned out, the Lightning survived their first-round series and advanced to the Stanley Cup Final. At that point, he was ready to restart. Keeping only a small portion of what he had produced earlier, he began again. He wrote the entire novel in three and a half months.
