I was born and raised in Southern Indiana, which means I was born and raised on basketball.

For a better part of a decade, my existence was spent bounding up and down the maple hardwood floors of the state’s gyms –– gyms as diverse and as abundant as churches.

Some of these gyms were stadiums-in-miniature, like the New Castle Fieldhouse where the legendary Indiana University Phenom, Steve Alford, played in front of 7,829 basketball fanatics.

Others were much smaller, seating as little as 100 or so spectators.

But, regardless of the terrain, the game was always the same: score more points than the other team.

Because of this, players who had a real knack for putting the orange ball through the hoop always had a place on the court –– especially those that could do so from a distance and behind the arch where points were rewarded in 3’s versus 2’s.

These players were what we called “shooters” and some of them were so deadly that your team winning (or losing) the game could come down to whether or not they were hitting or missing.

Being that shooting a basketball is just as much a mental feat as it is a physical one, it’s easy for shooters to get on tilt (or in their head) when they start missing.

They miss once and then twice and then thrice and, all of a sudden, they’re so out of sorts that they couldn’t hit water if they fell out of a boat.

There is a line that coaches often shout from the sidelines to “shooters” when they sense a waning in confidence.

“Shooters shoot!”

“Shooters shoot!”

“Shooters shoot!”

The idea is that if you’re a shooter, you keep shooting, regardless of whether or not you’re making your shots.

Shooters get out of a “shooting slump” the only way they know how… by shooting their way out of it.

In my life as a writer, I try and apply the same metaphor when I find myself in a writing slump.

I don’t question it. I don’t hang my head. I don’t set down the pen.

I write.

I write because writers write.

But, I digress.

By Cole Schafer.