The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Side of Pickleball
Marlene Bell is the author of “Pickleball – the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” Telling us how she got into pickleball on the Pickleball Fire podcast, she explained how she came across the sport through a travel show. She saw people in their fifties and sixties playing pickleball at a travel show and noticed that they were using a smaller court compared to a tennis court.
She competed in tennis before and couldn’t play any longer due to her knee problems. Seeing senior citizens like herself playing pickleball and having fun, she thought she could perform well in pickleball. A year after trying the game, she was looking for a new house in a new community. Due to her growing interest in pickleball, she bought a place only two houses away from the pickleball courts.
According to Marlene, pickleball brought her back to life. Finding herself hooked with the game and playing all the time, she thought about finding a way to make a living through pickleball. Pickleball had become Marlene’s life, and she wanted to make a living doing something she loved. She started by crafting and selling pickleball gadgets but couldn’t make enough progress in that business. That’s when Marlene started thinking of writing a book on pickleball. She checked out a few books about pickleball that are available on Amazon and decided that she can’t write something so “instructional.” That’s how she came to decide that she wanted to write a book on the “joys of pickleball.”
One of the chapters in her book is called “Ask the Pickler.” It is based on stories of her friends on the pickleball court. She aimed to spread smiles and add some laughter and fun to the lives of her readers through her writing. Her books include a lot of funny pickleball sayings and jokes to put a smile on the readers’ faces.
Having received a lot of positive feedback from readers on her first book, Marlene is now planning to write a novel-type book related to pickleball. The story will be based on her friends and different occurrences on the court in Marlene’s own experience. Of course, she is going to change their names to protect their identities.
Her upcoming book is based on several different stories. One of the stories is of a woman who finds relief from her life problems in pickleball. She has also written several other novels and characters based on her circle of friends. She says she would have never found such great friends if it weren’t for pickleball.
