From early 2010 until about February of last year, I practiced playing darts anywhere from 10 to 20 hours a week, in hopes of one day becoming a professional darts player; I logged nearly 1000 practice hours, and walked around 800 miles back and forth across the oche in the process.
Yes, I'm serious. And I took it VERY seriously.
It was only in 2012 that I kind-of-but-not-officially stopped, and this was because, in a roundabout way, of the whole book writing thing. Obviously, when you set aside four hours a day for practice, it doesn't leave a huge amount of time to get everything else done; and so, after a period of about two weeks during which I'd been laid up with the 'flu, I decided to have a week or two off the practice to get caught up with other things (like getting The Stone Man written.)
Weeks became months, and I haven't done a single hour of home practice since. The weirdest, craziest thing is that I haven't really, apart from a few brief instants, felt any urge to do any either, and this is after a time when the idea of stopping--even when I thought about it--was horrifying, the concept of wasting all those sore-back-and-neck inducing hours being just too much to even think about.
I haven't given up on the idea totally; it's something too close to my heart, and something I'm too proud of to ever dismiss. The blog drew in quite a lot of readers (especially from Belgium, for some reason) and I really need to update it if only so it doesn't seem like I've suddenly stopped caring. I'd hate it if regular readers who'd taken an interest felt like I just didn't give a shit about their support, and they're owed a state-of-the-darts-career address...but that to me would also feel like I've given it an ending, and I don't want to do that yet. Or maybe I just don't want to admit it, who knows; but it's also funny how you can slowly ease in or out of something and not really realise--or again, admit--that you're doing it.
Either way, the blog covers about two years of my life, and is an interesting (and, I'd like to think, funny) account of one man's obsession. There's triumphs and tragedies along the way, visits to a hypnotist, arguments with players at tournaments, purchases of every dumb gadget under the sun, self-doubt, injury and other nonsense. And technically, it's not over yet. Even if you're not interested in darts, it's worth a look. Click the link below.
PS The Future Of Darts World Championships (FOD) is a tournament that myself and my friends partake in amongst ourselves; click on the youtube link on lukesmitherd.com to see some of the 'montages'. It gets ugly.
To learn more about MY books (Woo!) visit www.lukesmitherd.com where you can buy them for Kindle.
To learn more about MY books (Woo!) visit www.lukesmitherd.com where you can buy them for Kindle.
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