My book is out.

Writing a story is like raising a child.

At first it grows inside you, whether you planned on it or not. Eventually, you have to get it out of you. Getting the story out is a long and painful process. Sometimes it just ends in tears. I have lots and lots of one page attempts at stories that will never be finished. These are my miscarriages.

But push and push and push, and you'll have a rough draft. What started out as a glimmer in your eye is now your baby. You can't quite send it off into the world yet. You have to groom it and mold it through editing. You either have to hire an editor or entrust it to friends and family. Trust the wrong friend with your baby and you'll see him on Pirate Bay.

But with enough care and love, your brain child will become a readable manuscript. You might keep adding to it, but at some point you need to get it to leave the house. Submitting it to a publisher is like trying to get it accepted into college. There are the Big 6 publishers, which are like Ivy League schools. A Big 6 publisher tends to care more about who the author is, rather than the story itself. An Ivy League school cares more about who your dad is more than who you are. It's great to try to get into these storied institutions, but it's like trying to join a country club without the right connections.

There are independent publishers, which are like community colleges. At least your baby is going somewhere, even if it isn't very far.

And then there is self-publishing. Self-publishing is like online courses. Anybody can attempt it, but very few can succeed. It's the absolute last option. You are always going to try one of the above options before settling for this. Just don't get suckered into paying out the nose for it.

Vanity presses are like the Trump University of publishers. Don't even go there.

My first novel was just too special and unique to get accepted into a prestigious institution. It's as ready for the real world as it will ever get. So I sent it out onto that notorious website appropriately named after a famous jungle. Let's hope it makes a lot of friends along the way.

I don't go to Tincaps games.

I do not go to Tincaps games. I do not ever want to go to a Tincaps game. I will never voluntarily go to a Tincaps game. No amount of monetary incentive is enough to make me go to a Tincaps game. Do not offer me tickets to a game. The Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Allen County has banned me for life from attending any Tincaps games. You would get a more positive response from Carrie Nation if you offered her a shot of whiskey than if you offered me a Tincaps ticket. Amish people have a higher opinion of Oculus Rift than I have of the Fort Wayne Tincaps. To buy your own mother a subscription to Hustler is a better gift idea than to offer me a Tincaps ticket.

One of my goals in life to is never attend any Tincaps games. Perhaps I should start a Tumblr blog in which I announce that I sexually identify as a Tincaps Game Non-Attender. Maybe I could start a college fund for fellow TCGNA's. We already have our own bathrooms, but none of them are at Parkview Field. I have always been a TCGNA since birth. There are over six billion of us around the world, and I wish this part of our identity would bring us closer together.

Just as Lee Greenwood is proud to be an American, I am proud not to attend Tincaps games. I'm going to guess that Lee Greenwood hasn't been to any Tincaps games either, so maybe he should do a song about that too. All he did to become an American was continue to breathe after the umbilical cord was cut, so if he can be proud of that, why not be proud to be a TCGNA?

When my novel is published, I'll lobby to have this fact put in my author bio. "Robert M. Enders is some fat guy who does not go to Tincaps Games. Out of over 6 million primates with computers in the state of Indiana, he was the primate who banged out this novel on his keyboard. He lives in New Haven with his life partner Marty."

For me, baseball is a sport based on tradition. Teams should remain in the same city, in the same stadium, until the sun expands to absorb the earth. Instead teams are building new stadiums so they can have a competitive advantage at home field. If we're not going to tolerate players using performance enhancing drugs, we shouldn't tolerate performance enhancing stadiums either. The sport should be about skill and teamwork, not about whether or not the team conned their city into building yet another ballpark.