{"id":1752,"date":"2020-11-05T16:52:05","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T00:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/?p=1752"},"modified":"2024-08-28T22:57:57","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T22:57:57","slug":"2020-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/?p=1752","title":{"rendered":"2020 Update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello there! We haven\u2019t 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!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stafford showing his dancing skills in Qatar.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the lack of volleyball this year hasn\u2019t been what\u2019s 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\u2019s Long Beach bubble events, moving to Idaho\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t blogged because all my writing time has been spent finishing up the sequel to Good Blood<\/em>. And I\u2019m happy to report that I\u2019ve finally finished! It was a lot more work than the first book (more hours, more drafts), but I\u2019m happy with how it turned out and excited for you to read it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But mostly I\u2019m 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\u2019ve been competing for a long time, and my off-seasons have always been pretty short\u2014even during AVP bankruptcy when we didn\u2019t know if we\u2019d 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\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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\u2014early 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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, \u201cAre you crazy? You\u2019re spending a year and a half of your life on this! What\u2019s the point?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Though it might not make financial sense, I\u2019m glad I kept showing up at the desk and chipping away. I\u2019m glad I listened to the other voice, the one that said, \u201cIt\u2019s important to you<\/em>!\u201d and \u201cHey! You wrote a book!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, I\u2019m a volleyball player; I\u2019m used to dedicating my time and effort to something that doesn\u2019t make financial sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody knew I was writing Good Blood<\/em>. 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\u2019m not saying it mattered\u2014I\u2019m aware of how important a beach volleyball player\u2019s fantasy novel is to people\u2019s lives\u2014but still, I felt pressure. The \u201cWhen\u2019s the new book coming out?\u201d questions I heard on occasion may have just been a substitute for \u201cHow\u2019s it going?\u201d or \u201cWhat\u2019s new?\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Some random fan reading my book in Sydney.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Because sharing your work matters. Volleyball is fun to play on its own, but there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So while I didn\u2019t get to play much volleyball in 2020, I did write a book. And I\u2019m looking forward to sharing it with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Coming Soon!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello there! We haven\u2019t spoken in a while. 2020 has certainly been an eventful year, but it has also been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-volleyball","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1752"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4681,"href":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions\/4681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billyketchallen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}