The Pride of Vallekas

I feel like I've said this before. By before, I mean the 6th of October - the last time this happened. A breakdown of the machine that helps keep this blog, this daily dream alive. There's this battle, this struggle, between wanting to write everyday, and having to write everyday. Between quality and quantity. A lack of energy is surprisingly never the problem - a lack of inspiration is surprisingly always the problem. I can see something starting to build. There is a certain repetitive nature that creeps in. There's always a default "back-up" option. Ex-Rayo players, or players who are born in Vallekas, or the underdog story of a Segunda B player struggling to rise to the top. And, more recently, Spanish players moving abroad. There is a machinery that is neither fully invisible nor sustainable. And perhaps more than the stories themselves, this blog is about building that machine. One that can be both redundant to sustain inspiration, yet rigid enoug...

The ideas don't come quickly. When they don't, every website, every Twitter feed, every incomplete draft saved is visited again. When all else fails, previous blog posts are revisited, hoping to create a continuation, a spin-off, a new miniseries - anything. And finally, the idea manifests. The fingers on the keyboard work faster and faster - a machine is whirred into action. The research turns into words. The words then become sentences, and those sentences flow. A blog post is created, then edited, formatted and tagged. The golden button that converts drafts into blog entries is clicked. But that machine never shuts down. Every day, once again, an idea, a thought, a passing observation hums it to life again. That machine, that process, is, to put it mildly, highly flawed. Sometimes the ideas that gear the machine itself don't come by easily. Sometimes the imagination that oils the machine takes time to work. Sometimes the energy that stirs the machine to life feels ...