Editor's note: This is the first of a monthly column musings on the world of soccer. In Part 1, Willow explains the origins of soccer.
For me, 2020 was supposed to be a golden year. A career milestone is in sight. After 12 years of writing superhero comics, I finally got to write a Sandman book and step into Neil Gaiman's gothic shoes. His DC Comics original Sandman series had a huge influence on me as a boy. As a teenager, it influenced a lot of my own storytelling. I've been waiting for this opportunity half my life. But we all know what happened next. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted business as usual across the planet and thrown entire industries into a state of existential uncertainty. My Sandman series has been postponed. DC Comics has switched distribution companies. Comic shops have closed, some indefinitely. A project that had been in the works for months was put on hold. Before I knew it, I had half my day at work and was spending most of my time homeschooling his two kids to fill the void left by the switch to remote learning. In the summer, forest fires rage in waves of scorching dry heat, forcing us to choose between staying indoors with the plague or venturing outside into a toxic, apocalyptic atmosphere. It was done.
This confluence of crap couldn't have come at a worse time for me. Unusually for a writer, I found success early and firmly, and by the age of 35 I had accomplished and won almost everything I set out to do. That included, of course, the co-production with Kamala Khan, which gave me the opportunity to see what it was like to live in the midst of a media storm. (Thrills and scares in equal measure.) But after I left Ms. Marvel, I started to stumble. Everyone expected me to make the same great changes to Wonder Woman. Instead, my running was completely mediocre and I had no idea how to fix it. My creator-owned projects were critically well-received but didn't sell well. The Sandman series was supposed to be my comeback book, and it was the project that helped me stand on my own two feet again. However, when it was finally released after several pandemic-related delays, it struggled with surprisingly low sales. I wrote an entire novel, but I ended up shelving it because I didn't like the ending. My freelance income, which had been incredibly stable for more than a decade, suddenly declined. I had a health scare, which we'll talk about when we got to know each other better, but it seemed to confirm, at least symbolically, that I was in a state of collapse. A year of gold turned into a year of hell.
I thought it was over. I became obsessed with the idea that creative people – artists, writers, designers, inventors – had their decade-long peak, after which they entered a slow but inevitable decline. I had used up his peak decade prematurely, and now there was nothing to do but think of something else to fill the few remaining years of depression. If you're thinking, “This is a somewhat half-baked way of thinking about life at 38 years old,” you're right, but I've noticed it nonetheless. I ran out of inspiration and didn't know where to look. It used to feel like an unlimited resource, but now it's gone.
I need a muse, I asked the Almighty. It felt like a selfish and infuriating thing to ask for when the morgues were full and it seemed like every tree on earth was on fire, but in my defense, it was a high standard story. My ability to churn out helped keep the story alive. My children have a roof over their heads. So I asked, and it wasn't like anything I'd ever asked. In the words of CS Lewis, God likes to catch us before we know it.
somewhere in the middle of this anus of feara co-worker suggested I check out Ted Lasso, which I had avoided until now. not an athlete.
“You should just take a look,” the colleague urged. “It has the same vibe as Ms. Marvel. It's comforting.”
So I did. My colleague was right. It certainly has a Ms. Marvel feel to it, occupying a fantastical middle ground between realism and fantasy. But to my surprise, it wasn't the story that fascinated me the most, but the sports.