Through an author friend of mine, I made the acquaintance of Mike Pagliarulo, who is a pickleball star. We haven't met in person, but we talked on the phone, and he was gracious enough to share the story with me. I think he's a star, not because he took the gold at a recent tournament (although he has tournament medals to his credit), but because he was the guiding light and driving force behind bringing pickleball to the Trilogy at Vistancia development in Peoria, AZ. 

When Mike moved to Arizona in 2008, he enjoyed playing tennis, but he was sidelined for many weeks with an Achilles tendon injury. After healing and later injuring his tendon again, a friend suggested he try pickleball when he was well. Mike was skeptical, but he agreed to try it. He visited his friend at Pebble Creek in Goodyear, AZ, and they headed to the courts. Like so many of us, Mike says, “As soon as I picked up the paddle, I was hooked.”

Mike began to plan a way to get pickleball at Vistancia. It began as most start-up pickleball endeavors do: he chalked lines on a basketball court that didn’t see much use, obtained a portable net through the USAPA’s Grant Program, and began recruiting players. Soon there were ten to sixteen regulars who played at least once a week.

Mike approached the HOA Board and asked for approval to paint semi-permanent lines on the basketball court. The HOA was receptive, and the pickleball players now had a place to play, as long as they shared it with the basketball players.

Mom's Choice, one of the groups that gave my books an award, is a great organization because they help parents select toys, books, and other products that meet their criteria of excellence. The group is also good to their awardees because they help with marketing in various ways. Yesterday, they posted a topic on their blog asking, "What do you love most about marketing?" 

"Ha," I said, with a wry smile. (I'm very good at smiling wryly.) "Is that a trick question?" Nevertheless, I wrote a reply, which I thought I'd share with you.

"What do I love about marketing? Besides being an author, I'm also a decent salesperson, so I don't hate marketing—but I do hate having to do it. Like most aspiring authors, I hoped to live the dream of having people flock to my book signings and clamoring for my next novel to come out. Sadly, that dream rarely materializes.

"Sometimes, marketing seems like trying to put together a puzzle without all the pieces. With the advent of affordable and easy self-publishing, the market is now quite saturated with books of all kinds, and it's hard for one novel to rise above the rest. I'd much rather be writing than selling, creating press releases, posting blogs, or sending email newsletters, but I keep doing it, because every person's name added to my mailing list is potentially many more contacts who will not only buy this book but perhaps all my others, past and future.

"You never know where the best contact will be found. My greatest one came when I sent a book to a friend, who shared it with her friend, who gave it to a teacher who was currently unemployed, who sent it to another teacher who loved it so much she now starts her school year language arts program by reading it aloud to her class—and she shared the book with teachers in other schools, all of whom invite me to come and speak to their classes and sign books. You just have to keep plugging. 

"I don't love marketing, but I love my books, and I know children do, too. If I want the books to become known and loved by more children and their parents, I have to keep selling."

It is a lot of work, all this marketing stuff. I'm not one who would just keep pouring the words onto the screen if I thought no one would ever read them. I don't write out of a compulsion to bare my soul, and I don't want to be recognized posthumously for works I never published. I'm a storyteller, and I write for you. Without you, the stories have no life. When you (or the child for whom you chose my book) read my words and communion occurs—along with the joy of discovery and of sharing in the lives of the heroes they care about—then the words come to life. That's why I write and, therefore, why I market. 

And since it's been a while without an update: I was away from active writing while I took on two editing and typesetting projects for author friends. One of those projects is now complete, and the other is nearly so. Meanwhile, I've still been working on The Rift, and the readers in my critique group tell me they still like it. I've also come back to work on Bruce and the Road to Freedom, which is turning out to be more challenging than I anticipated. Freedom is not an easy concept, and it has different meanings for different people and depending on context. I think it will be an interesting and fun story, and I'm happy to say that some of the earlier characters who haven't been seen in a while will reappear.

I hope those of you in the southwest are enjoying this great "winter" weather. To those in the east: remember, spring is coming soon, and shortly thereafter, you can all point at us in Arizona with our 110° heat and put on a wry smile.

Earlier this year, my doctor advised me to try yoga to alleviate some joint aches and muscle pains. It wasn't the first time someone suggested it, and I'd even tried it a couple of times without success. But I decided to go to a local yoga class again and see how it went.

I learned that there are many types of yoga, and I'd probably tried to do things in the past that were too difficult or that weren't suited to my ability. This class was hard, but I could feel the benefit of the stretches and poses for the first time. I signed up for more.

I soon discovered that my body responded more favorably on the pickleball court, too. The changes were subtle but real: my "bad" knee didn't hurt as much anymore; my shoulder pain was gone. My breathing capacity increased, and I generally felt much healthier while I played. I think I was becoming faster, too, although I can't say that was the result of yoga, but perhaps. 

One of the most interesting things I discovered recently was when my partner and I were being beaten badly. I lost my focus and found myself concentrating on everything I was doing incorrectly. I sighed and, without thinking about it, started deep breathing, as if I were doing yoga, trying to relax. I made a good hit and we won a point. As I walked to the other side of the court to serve, I took another deep breath and let it out slowly, concentrating only on the breath and relaxation. We won another point. 

We came back in that game and won, and I'm convinced that breathing and relaxation made the difference. I do this routinely now, and my play seems better for it.

Breathing -- deep and regular breaths -- are a core part of yoga. Many types of breathing are done, but the Do Yoga With Me website shows a few you can try. I recommend the Upper Chest, Mid-Chest, and Abdominal breaths individually first, followed by combined breathing techniques. Of course, you can't do these on the court, but I never really knew what a deep breath was before learning to breathe this way, and I find it has made a difference in my stamina during a game. Perhaps it will for you, too.

When I decided to write this post, I did an internet search for "pickleball yoga." I found only one relevant entry: a blog post on Pickleball Central's site about yoga poses and their benefit for pickleball. I then searched for "yoga tennis" and discovered other posts listing the same poses and their benefits for tennis players. 

Here's what Pickleball Central has to say: "Pickleball may be relatively low impact, but as a sport with repetitive movements, it still puts strain on the body that can lead to injuries. Unlike a lot of sports, pickleball demands more from a player’s dominant side – their paddle hand side – resulting in repetitive misalignment that can put uneven wear and tear on that side of the body. Here are some pickleball specific yoga poses that can help strengthen arms, backs, and shoulders, even out hips, and lengthen both sides of the body evenly helping to avoid injury, recover from the strain of court time more quickly, and make your game more powerful."

Take a look at the poses on the Pickleball Central blog post and give them a try. As with all things, start out slowly and build up as your body can tolerate the positions more easily. 

I've mentioned before how much I enjoy doing research for my books. Last night, that enjoyment took a funny turn.

The current setting of this book is a fantasy world, and its technological advancement is pre-industrial, similar to that of Renaissance England. As I wrote the start of a new chapter, my characters had to go fetch some hay. Not a terribly difficult task, even if they are centaurs,* or so I thought. 

I wrote something like, "They cantered up the road to bring back some bales of hay." (Pulitzer worthy, don't you think?) Then I realized that baling of hay didn't happen until there were machines to help, and this society would not have that technology. 

I remembered seeing an album cover, years ago, that showed a drawing of what I was looking for (any Traffic fans out there?). It featured a (blank) of barley, with "blank" being the word I needed.

A Google search led me first to a site describing early harvesting in England and suggested the word "pook." I loved the sound of that and looked it up. It's definition was extremely helpful: "a haycock." What the heck is a haycock? I discovered it's "a small conical pile of hay stacked in a hayfield awaiting removal to a barn." I'd learned something fun, but pook wasn't the word I wanted, so I kept digging. 

Oddly, I came across a site specifically designed to advise writers of fantasy fiction that's set in pre-industrial worlds to avoid using the word "bale" when their characters get hay. (Apparently, there's a lot of hay gathering going on in fantasy fiction.) I thought running across that article was rather strange, but I kept looking. 

I finally arrived at the word I needed: "sheaf," with plural "sheaves" (as in "bringing in the"). The picture here looks like what I had in mind. It shows sheaves of wheat or barley--not hay--that have been "shocked" (stacked against each other in an upright position). Evidently, shocks help protect harvested grain from rain and allow it to dry faster. 

Of course, my next thought was, "Wait. What season is it in the story? If it isn't fall, the sheaves won't still be in the fields . . . or will they?"

The entanglements resulting from one tiny word seem endless, but they're also great fun. In the end, the centaurs did finally manage to canter up the road on a fine, fall day and bring in the sheaves of hay using travois, or sleds, they pulled behind them. Hooray!
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* Half human/half horse creature from Greek and Roman mythology. 

This year, we didn't have family coming to visit for Thanksgiving, and our sons and daughters-in-law had other holiday commitments. We hadn't planned to play pickleball, but the pull of the courts was strong, so we headed out. It was a great morning.

Living in Arizona has its downside (read: HOT HOT SUMMER), but the glories of this season's weather make it all worthwhile. It was 82 degrees while we were there and we had a several great games with new friends. I began to think about all I have to be thankful for, and next to my wonderful family, friends, and furry creatures, I feel pretty thankful to have found such a great sport and to have been privileged to write a book about it.

I started thinking about sharing the wealth -- or at least a bit of it. 

If you would like to win one of five copies of The Art of Pickleball, all you have to do is share the URL for The Art of Pickleball on as many social media platforms as you wish. For each one you share, you'll get one entry into the drawing. The contest begins November 28th and ends December 10th. The winners will be announced December 11th in another blog post & email message.

The URL for my page about The Art of Pickleball is:   http://www.galeleach.com/the-art-of-pickleball.html
Copy that link and either post it in a message on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or any other social media site, or send it in an email to your friends (and copy me). Once you've made the posts, copy their URLs and post those here in a comment. You can also share this blog post using the icons below and share those URLs.

For example, I just wrote a Twitter post about the contest here: 
https://twitter.com/galeleach/status/538165364115271680
I would paste that URL into a comment in order to have one entry in the drawing.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and good luck with the contest!