Hello there! We haven’t spoken in a while. 2020 has certainly been an eventful year, but it has also been a non-event year for the volleyball world. The FIVB tour shut down after the first tournament in Qatar, which Stafford and I were happy to make it home from. (We disembarked after 21 hours of travel to find out the world was on fire!)
However, the lack of volleyball this year hasn’t been what’s stopped me from writing this blog. There are still plenty of stories I could share: home quarantine workouts, training on the beach without a net, the AVP’s Long Beach bubble events, moving to Idaho…
I haven’t blogged because all my writing time has been spent finishing up the sequel to Good Blood. And I’m happy to report that I’ve finally finished! It was a lot more work than the first book (more hours, more drafts), but I’m happy with how it turned out and excited for you to read it.
But mostly I’m proud that I stuck with it. It would have been easy to mope in quarantine with volleyball tournaments disappearing in the middle of Olympic qualification (and all playing and coaching being outlawed in LA), but I shifted my focus to writing and made the most of the time off. I’ve been competing for a long time, and my off-seasons have always been pretty short—even during AVP bankruptcy when we didn’t know if we’d ever have a tour again, I trained through the winter, hoping there would be something come spring. This year has been the longest break I’ve had from the sport since I was fourteen. As hard as it was to have volleyball suddenly stop, it helped to have a project to focus on in its place.
In addition to spending more time with family, trapped together in our tiny apartment, quarantine gave me more time to write. In the past, I mostly got my writing done in the cracks of the day—early mornings, quick stops at the library, airplane rides. Now, I suddenly was able to spend big chunks of the day working on my book. In between cooking and kettlebell swings, I got to pretend to be a real writer.
But writing this book was still a long, hard process. And there were plenty of times when it felt like a waste of time. When the little voice in my head said, “Are you crazy? You’re spending a year and a half of your life on this! What’s the point?”
Though it might not make financial sense, I’m glad I kept showing up at the desk and chipping away. I’m glad I listened to the other voice, the one that said, “It’s important to you!” and “Hey! You wrote a book!”
Besides, I’m a volleyball player; I’m used to dedicating my time and effort to something that doesn’t make financial sense.
I’m not sure if I had a harder time writing this book because the story was more complicated or because of the expectations that come with writing a second book.
Nobody knew I was writing Good Blood. And though I worked on it steadily for two years, it felt like a hobby. Something I tinkered on in my spare time with no sense of urgency. But this one people knew about. I’m not saying it mattered—I’m aware of how important a beach volleyball player’s fantasy novel is to people’s lives—but still, I felt pressure. The “When’s the new book coming out?” questions I heard on occasion may have just been a substitute for “How’s it going?” or “What’s new?” but the expectation was still there. I felt pressure to finish the book and share it with the readers who’d taken an interest in my work.
Because sharing your work matters. Volleyball is fun to play on its own, but there’s something special about playing in front of fans. The spectacular plays, the come-from-behind wins, and even the crushing losses become bigger when you experience them with others.
So while I didn’t get to play much volleyball in 2020, I did write a book. And I’m looking forward to sharing it with you.
