Os Trigonum Syndrome

I had myself some coffee yesterday, which perked me up pretty fast, because I could not wake up, as I am not used to 50 mg of Seroquel anymore. I woke up at 9, and by 1 PM, I still did not have my bearings, so I had to have something. In fact, I wonder if it perked me up a little too much, because normally when I drink coffee, it doesn’t really do anything for me. I normally drink it out of enjoyment, just because I’ve learned to appreciate the taste of coffee itself a little over the years. I mean, I added a lot of sugar, but even when we had work meetings and I decided to have coffee, I’d still add a lot of sugar, but that didn’t make me up. I was still at the same energy level I was when I finished drinking it. But a similar thing happened to me last Saturday when I worked Market on the River. I was already awake by the time I got there, but it’s not like I was bleary. I was just in a super crabby mood. I didn’t want anything to do with anyone, and I figured people were going to tick me off. My co-worker wasn’t ticking me off, but whenever I talked, it was all this irritable negativity. But as soon as I had some coffee just to warm me up, suddenly I was up and ready for the world, and despite the crummy weather, I had this sudden burst of confidence and desire to do stuff, to wander around–to not stay still, basically.

I know with a lot of people, this is what coffee probably does for them. I don’t know. All I can tell you is that coffee normally does not make me up, up, if that makes sense.

But today I woke up, and it’s like I hadn’t even taken 50 mg at all. I woke up at 9, my usual time, unfortunately, just because Seroquel is annoying, but my mind was sharp and racing with thoughts. I laid in bed for fifteen minutes, just so the sleepiness could drain from my body itself, but I was zipping around, ready to get my paycheck, cash my work check and AEC one, send of WSD to a Tumblr winner, and I even went to Hobby Lobby to buy new brushes, paints, canvas, and an easel. For some reason, whenever I’m hypomanic or manic, I get this strong urge to paint, probably because it’s therapeutic and I don’t have to worry about making it right. I can just mix colors on canvas, abstract fashion, and just go with it. I collected my supplies, went home, and did my Access homework. I had this sudden confidence with my Access homework, so confident I got a 99 compared to yesterday’s 89. And I can’t figure out what I did differently with today’s assignment that I didn’t do with the last one.

So I got some bad news on my ankle, the thing I talked about in the last post. I have a syndrome called OS Trigonum syndrome (this isn’t the bad news, although it’s still bad). This means that something didn’t ossify when I was younger, so I have an extra bone at the back of my heel either fused to my talus or held in place by a piece of cartilage. I think pointe work began to irritate this bone. What happens when you do plantar flexion or pointe work, this little bone gets crushed between your heel and ankle, so it gets very irritated. Jumps mostly aggravated the bone. Many dancers report it hurting during pointe work, but my injury might not be that bad…yet. But the bad news is that I was hoping I could get the MRI ASAP, get the surgery soon, and then take a break over the summer. However, apparently I’m not going to get the second opinion until July, which means surgery being delayed, and Grade V starts in the fall.

Now being hypomanic, you can imagine my explosiveness toward this news. I wanted to scream, I wanted to break things, I wanted to hurt myself because I couldn’t go to bed to escape these feelings because hypomania says you don’t want to go to bed, no matter how crappy you feel. My dad had to talk me down from it, because I couldn’t. You get so irrational, so rage-filled, that you can’t concentrate, you can’t find that silver lining. And someone HAS to talk you down from it. So there is a silver lining. I can do Session I of the grade IV intensive  and learn the grade V barre work (because for some reason you do grade V barre work in a grade IV intensive). And let’s assume I get the surgery in October. I will have a month and a half to learn the Grade V exercises, get the surgery in October, and come back in January. I’ll probably be a little behind, just because they build on the exercises, but I will have at least learned those exercises; I would just have to see what was added to them.

I am going back en pointe though. I am not staying off pointe for five months, not when pointe work didn’t cause me any pain to begin with. This decision is out of sheer stubborness and the fear that I am going to fall behind in pointe work. Now if it does begin to hurt, I’ll take myself off pointe. I’ll also probably limit the jumps I do in class. Like maybe do every other jump exercise, depending on what it is. This is my decision, my choice. And even if it starts hurting worse than it hurts right now (because it’s not so severe that I can’t dance), then I think by that point, I’ll be okay with not doing anything until everything gets taken care of. As it stands, I can still dance; therefore, I will keep dancing until my injury literally tells me it is not possible to currently dance.

I’ll just load up on Icy Hot.

A Useful Tool for Dancers…and Writers

Ever since starting Dance August mid-January, I have begun taking care of my body more after a 2 1/2 hour dance class. That class pushes your body to the limits, and because of this, the trigger points in my left leg began acting up. I had accepted them as permanent knots that would never go away. My previous dance school didn’t trigger them that much. Fibromyalgia is also notorious for them. After all, I’ve had them for two years. However, knowing that this is the school I want to stay at for a long while, I knew I needn’t not accept that line of thought anymore. I scheduled an appointment with my primary physician; however, she told me the predictable: heat, stretching, better arch support, and a possible professional massage. Even so, I heeded her advice.

I had THIRTEEN muscle knots in my leg.

This is exactly what I use.

Some were small, others were probably about an inch in diameter. (I am only guessing based on the tender spots I found in my calf that weren’t present in my other one.) When you have muscle knots for as long as I have, those muscle knots develop scar tissue around them to prevent the muscle from tearing. It’s amazing, actually, that I have been able to function in ballet with that many muscle knots. Even so, they were causing me muscle weakness I was not willing to accept. I have also always felt a stretch in my left leg  I could never get rid of during pliés that I never felt in my right, too. I don’t feel that anymore.

My left balance in class has been horrible in adagio. You stand on one leg, flat, while your other leg does something, and no matter what I did, I could not regroup my left balance once I lost it. My right balance, however, had no problem. So I started using my percussion massager on all those knots. It’s very painful, but because of ballet, I have a high pain threshold, which is unusual for someone with fibromyalgia. The knots didn’t really affect anything else in ballet, but I love adagio, and so I am determined to perfect that left balance.

I use this massager all over my body after an intense dance class. It usually prevents that delayed onset muscle soreness after intense workouts.

In any case, having one node on this massager allows for precise targeting of specific tender spots on the body. Since I’ve had mine for two years, it took probably about two weeks to get rid of the majority in my calf. The longer you have knots, the harder it is to get rid of them because of that scar tissue. You have to wear the scar tissue down first before you can get to the knot. Otherwise, this little beauty will get rid of new muscle knots immediately. It really helps me when my fibromyalgia is acting up and my muscles become tense. Stretching doesn’t work. In fact, stretching makes it worse. I don’t know the reason behind this, but it does.

As writers, we spend a lot of time sitting. Many of us sit with bad posture, often slumping over to get our work done, hardly ever taking breaks. So some of us develop knots. Some of us begin to feel tight in our upper bodies and even necks. This happens because you’re restricting blood flow to areas of muscle that become tight. A percussion massager can bring back that blood flow so you can comfortably get back to working on your writing. However, do not use this massager as a crutch to continue bad habits. You need to improve your posture and take periodic breaks away from the computer to regroup your muscles. Blood flow is so important. If you continue bad habits, you’re going to eventually develop tightness in other areas of your body that you don’t want, such as your hips, lower back, and eventually legs. You might need to see a physical therapist once your body gets to this point. Then you will need a deep tissue massage. However, my percussion massager is my own personal masseuse. I don’t need a deep tissue massage, not when this thing can do it effectively.

It’s $99.00. At least when I paid for it. You can get it at Brookestone, or on their website.

This is my foam roller. There are many different types of rollers out there. Research the types to find the best one that would suit your body’s needs. Mine is black compacted foam, so it’s hard.

Don’t despair if you can’t afford this. There are cheaper alternatives. A foam roller is one. There are many different types of foam rollers, so do your research to see what works best for you. All you do is put the foam roller on the floor, lay whatever area is tense on it, or whatever area is tender, and use your own body weight to roll that tender area back and forth over the roller. After a few minutes, that tightness should disappear. Hand massagers might be effective, too, if you are able to reach those tight areas. I would invest in a foam roller, though. I believe mine was sixteen dollars when I paid for it. I think a hand massager would be great for your neck.

Periodically stretch, too, when you’re taking breaks so you don’t develop knots.

These are cheap. Research how to use them for upper body strengthening. They can also be used for other types of strengthening. I have stronger ones than this so they don’t snap. I bought mine at Sport’s Authority. These vary in strength. Yellow is the weakest; black is the strongest.

Here are some other tips so you don’t have to spring for a percussion massager if you don’t have long-term knots:

1. Stretch periodically. I would say every thirty minutes take a break away from the computer for about five minutes
2. Invest in a theraband to strengthen the upper body. This can improve posture and alignment
3. Yoga
4. Core strengthening exercises: crunches, about 50 a day
5. Foam roller for those hard-to-reach tender spots

Dance class does enough for me in regards to strengthening my body, but I will have to get back to the theraband to have my left leg catch up to my right, strength-wise. Long-term muscle knots can prevent strength from being gained in those areas. Since I had a lot, I have a lot of strengthening that I need to do. Luckily the knots have never affected my pointe work.

I am pleased with my massager. I feel like I finally have my left leg back.

How I Overcame Writer’s Doubt

For a few weeks I struggled with trying to overcome doubt in my ability as a writer. The Stars Are Infinite, in a sense, was rejected a few weeks ago. I wouldn’t say rejected, necessarily, but I don’t know any other way to phrase it, because it is going to come out, and it is going to receive a contract once I complete the necessary edits; however, the initial blow had shaken my faith in myself as a writer. It was a misguided blow on my part, of course. Even so, I had a lot of confidence in my writing because of When Stars Die and some feedback from ‘I Am the Bell Jar,’ published in 2013: A Stellar Collection. It’s great to have confidence; however, once you’re published and then you’re rejected, that rejection stings 10x harder than if you had never been published.

When you’re published, you have the expectation that you’re going to be published again. After all, fans of your books are counting on it. So for a bit I struggled with all these questions: Is When Stars Die going to be my only book ever? What if I just got lucky with it? What if every book I write from here on out sucks? What if my writing actually is crap? Why am I doing this? And so on and so forth. Any writer who has EVER struggled with self-doubt knows the exact questions I’m speaking of.

How did I regain my confidence?

I completed the edits of the first fifteen chapters my publisher did, and those edits alone crammed brevity into my mind. They weren’t difficult to do. I also considered that I was perhaps OVERCONFIDENT in those chapters. I wrote them when I was 20, and while I did have professional edits on them, I was still 20 when I wrote them. I wrote When Stars Die when I was 21, and completed it, revisions and all, at 22. So it was 2 years after The Stars Are Infinite that When Stars Die was basically born. When I went back into TSAI, I didn’t touch the first fifteen chapters that much. Just did some edits here and there, added some stuff, and that was it. However, with the remainder of the book, I had to write it all over again, so it can’t even rightly be called a re-write. Even when I did write those chapters, I ended up re-writing much of them. I probably spent more time editing the latter half than the former half, just because I know more now than I did when I was 20. I wrote the first 15 chapters at the age of 20, and the rest of the book at 23. I spent 5 months doing intense edits of the rest of the book–7 if you count January and February. That’s 3 years of improvement since beginning TSAI. Arguably I should have spent equal time with both, but I get discombobulated at times.

A common writing error is for writers to spend more time on the first half than the last half. I did the reverse. I think this happened because I wanted–and still want–TSAI to be a million times better than WSD, and those chapters leading up to the climax, and the chapters that fall thereafter, are crucial.

That was my error.

I regained my confidence when I completed those edits, and the edits my personal assistant did for me–I am SUPER indebted to her. When I stepped away from All Shattered Ones, the book I was hoping to finish before getting TSAI back, I realized that if I were a crap writer, I wouldn’t have any idea where to begin with revisions in regards to ASO. I do. I know exactly what I’m going to do to better ASO, to make it cleaner, more crisp–cleaning up metaphor overkill, for one. And re-structuring a few things in the plot, of course.

I also fully regained my confidence when I was able to proofread for a previous client. I learn a lot by editing other people’s manuscripts, and I learned a lot from proofreading this client’s manuscript. I learn what I can do to better my own manuscripts, pretty much. Proofreading this manuscript also instilled brevity within me. Now I’m going through TSAI and cutting unnecessary, lengthy sentences, or just breaking up those sentences. I’m also going to–and sigh–read my book out loud, or have my Kindle do it for me at least. I didn’t do that with When Stars Die. The book was just that easy.

I have also accepted that it is going to take more than a year for me to create a book I am satisfied with.

Also, as strange as it sounds, my confidence in ballet directly correlates to my confidence in writing. If I can freaking do ballet, I can sure as heck get another novel published. I mean, I’m at grade IV, and I’ve only been dancing ballet for 2 1/2 years (arguably, I should be in grade V, but the Cecchetti method is different from my last school’s). And…drum roll please…my boss pretty much implied I’m going to get hired on at Southern Siding, which means I will receive more commission–I’m going through a temp agency for them currently.

Ultimately, I think good things happening outside of your writing life can actually improve the quality of your writing life. After all, we need lives outside of writing, and we need good ones at that. All this goodness going on for me has shifted my perspective, and has thus put a positive spin on how I feel about my own writing.

Have you ever lost your confidence in your own writing? If so, how did you regain it?

The Return of The Dancing Writer

I have been watching ballet video after ballet video because I’ve become more comfortable with the idea that I can reach the potential I want to reach. It may not be the level that a professional can dance, but I want it to be pretty darn close. I feel like Dance Augusta is going to do just that for me.

Grade IV is perfect for me right now. Yes, I am a little more advanced, but there are some things that I need to slow down on, jumps and adagio being two of those things. At Dance Augusta, the students do the same exercises every day and add on as time goes by, so this allows the students to work on everything…and I mean everything.

Grade IV is 2 1/2 hours long. We spent our time at the barre for an hour and some change, working on everything at the barre that you can possibly work on, which didn’t exist at my old school. At my old school, we only did the basic barre work, and, really, we only treated it like a warm-up. Barre work is so much more than that. Barre is where you develop the necessary strength and technique to be able to execute moves in the center.

I took a dance intensive at Dance Augusta almost two years ago, and I thought a long barre was really odd, and, frankly, annoying, but now that I’ve matured as a dancer and have become more serious, I see that it is probably more important than center work, because the barre is where everything begins.

I was surprised with the ease in which I was able to keep up with these exercises I had never done–mostly. I did stumble a few times. It made me realize that I’d come a long way since starting dance, even if I had ultimately become unhappy with my old school. But it was nice being able to slow down. The barre exercises themselves are more intricate, so they were by no means dull like the exercises below my level at my old school, but they still give me a chance to really concentrate on my technique and strengthen everything within me. Then there were stretches, which I love, and then some strengthening exercises for the core, back, butt, and the upper body (I hate upper body exercises, even with “girly” push-ups). We didn’t really do strengthening exercises like that at my old school. Technique class was mostly just an hour, so there really was no time. Then came the center, which lasted about thirty minutes.

Now center is where I did begin to struggle, but that’s because I didn’t know some of the exercises, and it’s not as easy to keep up with center work as it is with barre work. There were a few times I had to stop and look at where the girls were in the exercise. Luckily, with the petite allegro (tiny movements), which often consist of jumps, they are slow and meticulous, which is just perfect for me, and at the same time difficult. I’m used to doing faster jump movements, which is both harder than the slow ones at Dance Augusta, and yet easier, because the faster you go, the less you have to really roll through your feet–you just don’t have the time. But it’s nice to have these jumps slowed down because jumps have always been a little bit difficult for me. I think just about every girl in my class feels that way. But with these slower jumps, I have to actively concentrate on really rolling through my feet because at my old school, even when I first began, I never did any exercises that forced me to REALLY roll through my feet–I just had to think about making mango juice with my plie. But it’s good, and I’m SUPER hoping that after the summer intensive I’ll be a much better jumper. I’m primarily a turner, so anything with turns, I’m gold.

The adagio is also simpler, too, which is what I really need. I still struggle with balance, for whatever odd reason (because you think if you can balance in turns on pointe you could stand on one freaking foot with no problem), and having a simpler adagio will better built up my balance and clean up my technique. Adagio is slow movements, and often involves standing on one leg while your other leg is doing something else. Luckily at Dance Augusta, the other leg isn’t up for too long, even though it gets back up in the air just as fast. Then we moved to across the floor movements, which were chaines. It’s basically turning on two feet to get somewhere, usually spotting an object you want to reach. At this studio, the girls are still breaking them down, and I don’t even know how to break down a chaine anymore. So I just zipped by the girls, but now I know that’s kind of a rude thing to do. At my last studio, and I kid you not, I was taught that if you were faster than the girl in front of you, that you basically had permission to not necessarily mow her down, but get her out of your way. There was this one exercise where we were doing bourrees (tiny, quick movements on pointe), where the older girls had to chase down the less-experienced pointe students, and now that I think about it, that’s the stupidest exercise in the world, especially for girls who just started pointe.

At Dance Augusta, I’ve got to slow myself down, which is probably for the best anyway. Just cleaner technique.

Now on to pointe. These girls have been en pointe for half a year, and they haven’t even started center work yet. I’ve been en pointe for two years, and I pretty much don’t need the barre anymore. HOWEVER, I don’t mind taking it slow again, because the exercises won’t make me lose my ability to do pirouettes or anything else complicated on pointe. I was really tempted to practice some difficult moves while the girls were getting their shoes on, but I refrained from doing so because that could look very show-offish. However, I’ll probably be doing them before class starts, because I don’t know how long it’s going to be before they start doing pirouettes en pointe, when they’re still learning pirouettes in 4th on flat. There are only 6 grades at Dance Augusta, so I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t be starting pirouettes in grade V (because there is some separate advance pointe class or whatever), which is what I’ll be starting in the fall. At the same time, it’s good DA is slow with the girls. Pointe work should be taken slowly, especially if you’re only doing it twice a week, that way when you come to the center, you’re not struggling as much.

At my old school, girls who have been en pointe for only a few months are already doing pirouettes. They can do them, yeah. I’m not going to deny them their ability to do them, because the pointe classes there are 50 minutes, and you can do them 3x a week. But my old school and DA have a very different mindset. At my old school, it’s mostly about fun, so being at the barre doing the same exercises and never going into the center until you’re in your second year of pointe is not that school’s idea of fun. But it’s whatever. Personally, I think pointe work should be taken slowly, because the girls at my old school are now being pressured to do more because of the roles they have been given in Roar. For example, Wind is a role that includes a lot of bourrees. One girl at my old studio struggles with them. She had to literally be pushed across the floor to do them, and yet she was given the role of Wind. That’s all I’m going to say on that point.

So, yes, pointe work is much slower than where I’m at in terms of ability, but that’s okay. I took Grade IV so I could slow down in order to be where I want to be because at my old school, you’re not given that chance unless you’re in the performing company. At DA, you will do just about every possible exercise within those 2 1/2 hours. At my old school, the teachers had to pick and choose, so you’re not always going to do jumps every single class. That isn’t what I need. I need classes where we work on all things. Otherwise, I’m not going to get to where I want to be.

What was really neat, though, is that the pointe exercises we were doing at the barre were the EXACT same exercises I did when I started their intensive a few years ago. So it was interesting to see how far I’ve progressed. I remembered how I had to stop several times during the back-to-back exercises to stretch out my calves and roll my feet because they were screaming from pain. Most of the girls had to do that, so I know how they feel, but I didn’t have to do that at all during the thirty minutes of pointe work–and you don’t really stop in between exercises. This basically means my feet are used to being en pointe, and so what was once painful isn’t painful anymore.

As you have read, I had a great first day there, and I look forward to making this place my new dance home. I’ve warmed up to the girls pretty fast, but it’s probably because I’m much more outgoing now than I was when I first took the intensive. I mean, you have to be outgoing as a marketing trainee at Southern Siding!

By the way, I was almost physically dying at the end of class. But so was everyone else. I haven’t felt that way in a ballet class in a LONG while. And, yes, I am sore as I am typing this.

The Dancing Writer’s Departure

Let me preface this by saying this is not a departure from my blog. Oh, certainly not.  I am still trying to figure out how to build a following without busting my butt off by commenting on a million other blogs, friending those blogs, with the hopes that they follow me back, even though I understand they have no obligation to do so. I shouldn’t have to do that to build a following, because many successful blogs don’t have to. Having a lot of followers means nothing if I’m not having any interaction. But that is neither here nor there.

Me as Flower Fairy. A simple role, but one that taught me how to really move.

I call myself The Dancing Writer for a reason, and I think it’s time to talk about ballet, which I don’t do often enough to keep up with the title of The Dancing Writer. I’ve complained about it a little on Facebook and Twitter, if any of you have seen, which, I’ll take the blame for, was very unprofessional of me, but in the heat of the moment, you tend to do things you wouldn’t normally do, and lashing out is one of my faults. I rarely get angry, but when I do, I go from 0-180, which usually ends up in crying that lasts for a few hours. I do get upset, but that upset rarely leads to anger. In this case, I was immediately angry and was considering switching schools the moment I found my name.

To remain as sensitive as possible about the topic, I am not going to bash my previous school. It was a very good school. It was very fun. The teachers were great. I made some good friends there, and I have many positive memories. Being able to participate in The Roar of Love (2013) was one such fond memory I had. However, it is a recreational school, one that places priorities on company members over non-company members, which I don’t think is fair, as not every dancer there can afford the time nor money to be a company member, but it’s probably how the school earns its money to stay afloat–through sponsors and what not. And that school deserves to stay open because it has won many awards for a reason. But it might have been the wrong school for me all along, and I didn’t realize that until this year. I was blind because I started out with private lessons there with a wonderful woman named Rebecca, who made me want to start taking classes there. She was the only reason I did. She’s gone now, but I persisted in spite of her absence, because I was already used to the atmosphere and greatly adored the girls.

I never considered myself a role model to them. I didn’t sign up to be a role model. I signed up to dance. I think once I established myself as equals to them, and took them on as friends, that role model idea went out the window. And I wanted to be equal to them. I didn’t want any special treatment for being the only adult consistently taking classes and being serious about the art form. I also didn’t want the pressure of being a role model put on me. Sure, I could dish out advice to them with situations I’ve been in when I was their age, but really being able to talk to these girls and getting to know them made me realize that it’s possible to be 23 and still be able to relate to girls who are in their late or early teens. I had one who was pretty much a younger sister to me, because she did look up to me and sought me out for advice. However, she left for pretty much the same reason I did, which I will mention soon, and I miss her terribly. Otherwise, the other girls were my friends. Plain and simple. I interacted with them the way I interacted with my friends my age (albeit, I toned down the jokes and language), but I still acted plain silly with them, just as I would with friends of my age–even ones much older than I.

Even so, this year’s casting made me realize I wasn’t going to get any better, not just in casting, but in terms of skill. I have improved as a dancer, but I attribute that largely to the performance experience I had in Roar because it better taught me how to memorize longer combinations without stopping in the middle of one to remember what the next move was. However, without that performance experience, I don’t think I would have gained that betterment in my dance skills. The roles weren’t complicated, but they developed the memorization part of my brain, which I didn’t have when starting the school. They also developed that part of my brain where I didn’t need to think about what move came next. The moves were already in my muscles, so there was no need to think about them. I just did them.

This is Wind. It was my favorite role. I would have loved to have been Wind again.

Now it’s time to get down to the part that broke my heart. Last year I did not expect to be cast into Roar at all because of my status as an adult, and I was okay with that. I had no reason to expect it, so I had no expectations. However, when I received casting and decided to peruse it out of curiosity to see who received what role, I was surprised to find my name on there four times in three different roles: Flower Fairy, Spring Maiden, and Wind–2 casts. Because of last year’s casting in Roar, I felt this year I had every right to expect I was going to be in Roar–otherwise, it would have been plain cruel to not cast me. I was really banking on getting more challenging roles this year that would better me as a dancer. I could come away and say, ‘Yep! I did that role. I was able to do it, and now I’m confident I can improve as a dancer.’ That didn’t happen at all. I put so much hope and heart into casting and was on pins and needles, as was every girl at the school, about the casting. Ballet is as much of a passion as writing is, even though I have no plans to go pro.

When the cast list appeared in my Gmail, my heart jumped in my chest. However, when I perused the list for my name, I saw it only once. In cast two, as Spring Maiden, which I did last year. At the time the role was slightly challenging because it was probably a 4-5 minute piece and I hadn’t fully memorized it until the last two rehearsals, but I expected something more and didn’t get it.

At first I was angry, because I realized less-experienced girls, both on and off pointe, were getting the roles people at my level usually receive–so I wasn’t the only one upset about casting. All the girls at my level had been shortchanged (except for one), for one reason or another. But I won’t go into detail about that. All I can say is that the school probably depends a lot on sponsorships, and in order to keep those sponsors happy, they have to ensure that their children are happy at the school, lest they lose their sponsors, which are often the ones most active in the school. Casting is a HUGE deal at that school, as these girls are in 4 performances a year, and if they’re losing dancers because of casting, they could lose sponsors as well. So it’s no surprise; however, it’s very upsetting for someone such as me, who devoted two years to the school, was always able to afford tuition, who mostly attended dance classes regularly, and was very serious while in class. I especially worked hard this year, not only for myself, but to ensure I would receive a good role in Roar that would make me into a much better dancer, as I believe the girls are as good as they are because of the performances.

Some tried to persuade me not to quit, as there was always next year, but, not only did I know I was never going to get anything better, I also knew I didn’t want to stick around for another year to wind up in disappointment–again. I take ballet seriously, and I want to have fun with it, so I knew the passion for that school died when the casting came out.

I am not perfect, I still slightly struggle, but I have taken the highest level there, and I was surprised with my ability to keep up. I think I should have been struggling, but I didn’t. Even boys they pulled from an art school because they are in desperate need of boys, who had been with the school for not even two years and had never taken ballet prior to this school, were keeping up with the highest-level class. Granted, their technique isn’t strong, but they were able to keep up with the exercises. So I knew the challenge did not lie in the classes themselves, but in the performances.

So after realizing this, I had broken down in tears and could not be consoled for a few hours. I knew I was never going to get anything challenging beyond Spring Maiden, so to speak, because as the girls that move up in level and more join the company, I knew I was going to be slipped into whatever was left. Being in Roar is a privilege, and not a right, and I was made an exception when I was cast for Roar, but, even now that I have cooled off, I don’t think I should have been expected to be grateful to be cast at all, not when the prior year was better, especially considering I didn’t dance that much in the fall because of depression and hospitalizations. This year, I did dance more, so I was flummoxed. Even worse, I was not given a role en pointe, which would have deprived me of pointe work for three months. That is not a good thing for someone as serious as me who wants to improve.

As bittersweet as it is, I am moving on to another school, one that is a professional and not a performance-based one. At this school, if any of the girls are chosen to participate in The Nutcracker, rehearsal time is outside of class, and so does not eat up class time. Also, they only use certain girls–or boys–when they can’t fill all slots in their professional performance of The Nutcracker, so I won’t have to have any expectations. They also do demonstrations at the end of the year, but this is more for the parents. I don’t think I’d be allowed to be in one, but I wouldn’t be getting anything out of it anyway because I am the one who will be paying the school, so I know I am getting a good dance education and don’t need to prove it to anyone like the kids will have to for their parents. The point is that I can still participate in these demo rehearsals that are actual exercises done in class–not variations of ballet performances. This isn’t to say anything bad about my old school. This is just the reality. My old school may have never been a right fit for me from the beginning, but just because it isn’t a right fit for me, doesn’t mean it won’t be a right fit for someone else. In fact, many adults who really want to do ballet often retreat to the new school I’m going to so they can learn ballet in a more serious environment without being an exception to anything. My old school has an adult class, but it is purely recreational, purely for fun.

I am both nervous and excited. I am nervous because they have a set repertoire of exercises they do every day, so I’ll have some catching up to do. And I am excited because I know this school will help me bring out my full potential as a dancer. I probably should have gone there to begin with. After all, I did an intensive there. Even so, another reason I didn’t go to the school was because during that intensive, fibromyalgia really affected by legs horribly, and I attributed it to the intensity of the work, which is not found at my old school. However, I have learned that it is my ballet tights that aggravate my fibromyalgia, so I simply need to roll them up to my knees, and I am usually okay. I will also let the teacher know about my chronic pain condition. It has not really affected by ballet as of late, but I will be attending, twice a week, classes that are 2 1/2 hours long, so I do expect my fibro to pop up a little bit more. (Of course, my former rhume told me that without ballet, my fibro would be much worse, so you have to outweigh the benefits with the consequences. My fibro is really mild compared to a lot of cases, but I am also very limber.)

I start this Wednesday. Wish me luck!

Mike Rowe’s Advice on Working Both Smart AND Hard and My Disagreements With This From the Commenters of the Article

I was originally going to write a post about why the third book in The Stars Trilogy will probably have to be delayed and may not come out until 2016 or whatever (MAYBE 2015…MAYBE), but I found this post by Mike Rowe and decided to write a response to it, especially because of the disconcerting comments below, mostly that millennials are lazy. But who are working your minimum wage jobs? Millenials. So that argument is done with, because we do need people to work minimum wage jobs.

Basically, the entire premise of the article is that we’ve been told our whole lives to work smarter, not harder. Mike Rowe, on the other hand, believes we should work both smart and hard and that physical labor jobs are in dire need of young people like me who went to college, took out massive loans, found themselves unemployed and in debt. I am privileged enough to have parents who are paying for my college. Very privileged, and I acknowledge this, but I do work hard to ensure their money doesn’t go to waste. So I do agree with Mike’s points. What I don’t agree on is that ALL OF US are cut out for manual labor jobs. I have accepted the reality that all of us can’t do anything we want to do, and that includes the jobs Mike is pushing. I wanted to be a zoologist, but chemistry basically killed that dream because it was so difficult for me to learn and understand, and I knew it’d only get worse in college. Was I upset? No, because I’d be even more upset trying to take classes that would burst my stress threshold. Plus, my friend across the street wanted to be a pediatric doctor, but she worked her butt off in college, struggled with science classes, and did not get the GPA necessary to go on to med school. So she trained to be a physician’s assistant instead. I think she’ll be happier doing that than struggling through med school.

The first “job” I ever had was volunteering at a horse stable, hoping to work myself up into getting to an actual job there because I was not yet sixteen and so couldn’t legally work. However, the hierarchy of the job was ridiculous. I had been volunteering for two years, but new hires, who had no experience with horses, were basically allowed to tell me what to do, even though I sometimes had to step in and tell them they weren’t doing the job right. When I was old enough for the job, I applied, but never was offered a job, even though I had a good reputation there, and other people, with no experience, were getting hired ahead of me. I ultimately quit because, quite literally, the boss was having some sort of breakdown and taking it out on all of her volunteers by forcing us to work harder than the staff members, who could laze around and still get paid. For example, I was shoveling bedding for the horses into trash bags with three other people. Finding the pitchfork ineffective, I decided to sit down amongst the shavings and just use my arms to fill the bags. A staff member walked by and saw all of us sitting (one staff member actually sleeping, the other volunteer trying to help), and reported us for not doing our job. Here was the boss’s logic: the volunteer and I had to be sent home because we weren’t doing our job, but the staff member didn’t get in trouble because well, she was a staff member, and could do whatever she wanted, when she didn’t help out. Again, she just slept while I was doing most of the work. I had filled ten bags, but I wasn’t even allowed to explain my side of the story. So. True story.

Would I be able to do a job like that now? No. I have a chronic pain illness (fibromyalgia, which is mostly mild, but I do get flares from time-to-time that put it in the moderate status, if, for example, I stand for a long time), one that cripples me, even at my own job. I currently work as a marketing trainee, which can get boring at times, but, from time to time, I do love the job because of the people, my co-workers, and the customers I get to meet. Unlike fast food jobs, I can take the time to get to know the customers, especially if they’re not in a hurry. I’ve also met amazing regulars at the mall who are freaking awesome. And honestly, it is not a job I would mind working at for the rest of my life while doing freelance jobs (I am doing my best to care about making sales now, because my other co-workers have been successful at it, so why can’t I?). I have met very, very few rude people at my job. Sure, they’ll insult the giveaway–but they aren’t rude to me–but I’m so used to it that their insults make me laugh. But, overall, the people I’ve met are very polite, and I’ve learned that a smile from me goes a long way in changing a person’s attitude, and you don’t see a lot of workers at fast food restaurants smiling, now do you? Seriously, a smile can make a HUGE difference.

In any case, I’ve mostly been doing the mall, and even there I have to sit a bunch of times because within ten minutes of standing, my lower back will start to tighten, as will my hips and groin; the permanent trigger points in my calves will start to tighten all the muscles there, reminding my left knee that it had been sprained at one point; and everything else will follow, from my neck to my upper back, and then I’ll develop a tension headache if I do not sit. So I sit down. A bunch of times. I even have to be careful about what I wear. My slacks can hurt my hips, as do tights, and even skirts with elastic bands. It’s bizarre. So do you really think I would be cut out doing the job of a mechanic, or a plumber, or some other manual labor job? Probably not. Plus, it’s not what I want to do. Quite frankly, I would be miserable. I don’t want to be miserable just to make a lot of money. Mike Rowe posits that those jobs would be rewarding, and maybe they would if I gave them a try, but how can they be rewarding if they would ultimately put me in a lot of pain? Plus, Mike Rowe, who does seem like a great person, acts like earning a lot of money will ultimately bring us happiness. Sure, money pays the bills and allows us to do stuff, but I don’t want to earn money to buy material possessions. I want to earn money to help my fiancé pay the bills, get me insurance so I can keep taking my bipolar meds, buy some groceries, while having enough left for myself to do some ballet–which helps my fibromyalgia, and my rheumatologist said that without my ballet, but fibro would be a lot worse. That’s it. I don’t care about buying some fancy house or car (I would like a car like my mom’s because it’s both affordable with great gas mileage, and I would need one to take me places) or living in some swanky subdivision or doing all these other things that money mongers want to do, that the “American Dream” says we all should do A, B, and C, and that will bring us happiness. Ideas of happiness are subjective for everyone, and making tons of money to put me in the rich status is not. I was fed that Republican crap in high school, that hard work will earn you anything and everything you want–I don’t consider myself a Democrat, just to put that out there. I loved my US Affairs teacher, but I didn’t agree with everything he said–even though I agreed with MOST of what he said.

So here’s where things get a little tricky for me. I am transferring to an online college called Columbia of Missouri, which does have several campuses. Why am I making this move? Quite simply, I do not want to be a teacher. I am passionate about education itself. I think it’d actually be great to work at the CCBOE (Columbia County Board of Education), because you don’t have to have a teaching degree, but I think I have enough knowledge to be able to tell bureaucrats (and that’s what they are) that this is not how we should be treating education because we need to think about the children, and bureaucrats aren’t doing that. So because education is run by bureaucrats, I know I’d be miserable as a teacher. Also, if I went back to my English degree, I would have to take one more year of French, and I have been away from French for one and a half years. I took it before, but that class was the straw that broke the camel’s back and was a huge factor in my first hospitalization. I don’t think I could go back to that class and be able to pass it, because I’d pretty much have to study French all over again to catch up to it.

The online college does not require that amount of foreign language. I desperately wanted to major in creative writing because you could take two internship classes, gaining experience in publishing, but, unfortunately, that is only offered to campus students. So I am stuck having to major in what is ultimately a useless degree; however, I think I can take technical writing and editing classes, so I’m going to try to take advantage of the useful classes, not the useless ones. I love literature, don’t get me wrong, but it’s useless. Plain freaking useless, unless you plan on getting your masters and teaching it at the college level. I don’t want to sink myself into debt. Oh certainly I know I would love teaching at the college level, but I would have to write and publish essays related to my field, and, let’s be honest, I don’t give a crap about writing literary analyses papers, even though I am good at it.

But, to me, you should get a job in what you’re best at. Mike Rowe acts like we can all become competent in the field of manual labor. If we ALL got jobs in that field, then, well, you know where the country would be headed. Manual labor jobs are important. I don’t understand why they are looked down upon, but to assume that we’re all capable of it is like saying we’re all capable of going on to be doctors if we tried our darned hardest.

I am good with words. English has always been my best subject. I want to do something that involves words. I plan to be a freelance tutor, editor, and writer, and I also hope to stay with Southern Siding, even if it’s just eight hours a week (because, hey, those eight hours a week can afford me my ballet tuition, and perhaps I can pull sales out of those 8 hours alone. I am actually aspiring to be hired by them now). But, quite honestly, I am unsure about my future. At the least, right now, I will need to do something that can help me pay for car insurance, gas, possibly payment on a new car, and medical insurance. But, of course, I’ll probably be seeking some sort of editing job as well (my friend found one on an English degree, so why can’t I? I have the experience for it). I mean, there are many possible things for me, even with an arguably useless degree.

I think the ultimate problem is not that the degrees college students are getting are useless. I just think the problem is that there are no internships required in colleges that can help students develop the necessary skills to find a job in their field or something closely related. One of the degrees a commenter says is useless is anthropology. Is it really? Anthropologists’ jobs are to help us understand how the rest of the world lives to show us that just because someone lives a lifestyle we consider bizarre does not make our lifestyle superior. And these anthropologists put themselves among those conditions, people who are so used to our lifestyle. But they do it for the love of people and the desire to teach us about different cultures around the world. Now, to me, that is a pretty cool job.

I will write a post on the third book in The Stars Trilogy, as well as posting two interviews of authors I’ve done and a guest post someone has done. However, from here on out, I am no longer accepting interviews from other writers because that requires work on my part, not when literally every minute of the day needs to be used for my own productivity. Guest posts are fine, because all they require from me is a copy and paste.

Publishing a lot of Books a Year through the Perspective of Ballet

I have come to accept that I’m probably going to be a one-book-a-year writer, when originally I wanted to do more. I didn’t have the entire Stars Trilogy written out when AEC Stellar snatched up When Stars Die. I’ve finished The Stars Are Infinite and have sent it off (but I spent years on this book and half a year revising when I got back to it), but it likely won’t come out until late next year. Originally, I did want to write more than one book a year because of everything I’ve read among the self-publishing community that the best way to get noticed is to crank out book after book after book. I have one self-published friend who has done 4 since publishing her first book in February. Granted, I am not a self-published author. I am a small-press author. However, here is an interesting tidbit: there is a bestselling author, traditionally, with a small press, and her book is not selling best. At all. Not even Midlist level. I can’t figure out why this is. Is it because her fanbase doesn’t know about it? Is it because her fanbase is finicky about her books? Has her book not been marketed properly? I don’t know, but I suppose this proves that having a lot of books behind you doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to succeed. I mean, why crank out book after book after book, when you can focus on just getting the one book out there and building your base using that one book alone? Perhaps some of you authors can weigh in on this.

This is not the real cover art.

Now that I’ve accepted I will probably be a one-book-a-year author, I’ve come to realize that in spite of having one book beneath my belt, I still have a lot of doubts when writing a new book, doubts that can be sometimes outright terrifying. Back in the summer, I started a book about a suicidal teen rescued by a puppeteer and taken to this place where he can recover from his trauma, and then he’s eventually kidnapped by a crazed psychopath, essentially. The premise seemed promising, at first, but I couldn’t execute it, IN SPITE of having outlined the book twice. I couldn’t convey what I wanted to, so I shelved it and decided to get back to work on The Stars Are Infinite, knowing it’d be an easier task to tackle because I already had things I could work with from having the first book. Now that TSAI is off, I’m back to the book about the suicidal teen. However, I have made an enormous overhaul with the book. I mean, HUGE, and I’ll speak about those changes in another post to coincide with this one. This is why I can’t be a one-book-per-year author, because I make massive changes to my books so that they are virtually unrecognizable from the first draft, and that, in my opinion, is how it should be, because it’s that way for traditional authors and successful small presses who don’t function as author mills. Author mills don’t spend as much time on editing as successful small presses do. But, I dunno. Maybe I just need more hours in a day or something.

I don’t know what self-published writers who crank out a crap ton of books a year do–and I mean publish, not just write a lot of books in a year, and then spend the next year or whatever revising the heck out of each book. Do they write the draft and just basically spend time doing line edits and copy edits and then proofreads? Or do they spend all day writing so they can finish that book in a week or two and then spend the next month completely overhauling the book? I mean, what do they do? I know one self-published author who had published two of his books, but he already had them written before deciding to jump into the publishing waters, and even then he was doing revisions on them. He told me he had been working on both books for six years. Now his next book is going to be published by a small press. The author with 4 books did not have those books written when jumping into the waters. Her first one she did spend a long time on, but it kept getting rejected by agents, who loved it, but thought it too niche. So she self-published it from their validation alone. With the other 3 books, she wrote as she went. At the same time, she now has an agent, and this author will likely be spending far more time on this one book than on her self-published books.

I’m about to dive into some opinion waters here, but just to let you know, I will adjust my perspective if someone can explain something to me. So please do not feel insulted by what I’m about to say. My opinion may be coming from pure ignorance, as I am not among the self-publishing community. I know authors who are self-published, but, frankly, I am interested in those in the small press community since I relate to them more. I feel like those in the big press group are untouchable. Sure, they’ll talk to you on Twitter, but will they ever accept your request? Probably not. So, please inform me. I do want to understand. Lack of knowledge is not stupidity. Lack of knowledge is ignorance, and they are two entirely different things. Am I saying self-published authors don’t work hard? No. Of course they do, but I often wonder about those who crank out so many books a year. Could they have created better products had they spent more time on working on a single book than worrying about cranking out more than one or two books a year? I feel like it should be about the readers, even if they are few.

I don’t think it should take a month to revise a book, which is a complete overhaul of a book. I think it should take more than a month, and then perhaps another month to do line edits/copyediting along the way, then proofreads, then sending off to a beta reader, then to an editor if you’re going to self-publish. I really don’t think it should take such a short amount of time to create a book. I feel like even if that book does sell well, you’re shortchanging your readers by not giving them the best book possible, even if it does get rave reviews. After all, they don’t know they could get better. Sells and rave reviews matter to me, but so does getting the best book out there possible, and I can’t do that by revising a book in a month. In fact, I’d argue, for me, it should take half a year to write the book at my fullest before sending it off to a beta reader, and then probably another month working on their critique, then a few weeks proofreading. Maybe some authors are just more talented than me. I really don’t know. I have no clue.

Not on the box. Not turned out. Sous-sous should be tight. Both heels should be showing when properly turned out and sous-sous is tight.

So why do I feel like you’re shortchanging readers? Let’s look at it this way through the perspective of ballet: The average person who attends a ballet performance knows little about how ballet functions, yet, companies only accept the most polished dancers. So if the average person knows little about ballet, why accept polished dancers when the average person would probably be satisfied with dancers who are less-than-polished? I believe this is because the companies don’t want to shortchange their viewers when they know they can deliver the most stellar performance possible. Ballet is not like watching a movie, where a crap ton of new movies come out each year. Companies already have a repertoire of ballets they can perform, like Swan Lake and the like. Sure, new ballets are created, but they will always dance the classics. And a lot of these dancers have already performed many of the ballets done.

I know about ballet. I am among the ballet community. I have become more critical of the ballets my own studio puts on. They’re still fun, but I have noticed they’ve been casting dancers in difficult roles, roles they can manage, but the technique is sloppy because they haven’t been dancing long enough: toes not pointed, bent knees, lack of core, ect. On stage they can wow us, but in class, they struggle with technique. I wasn’t as impressed with The Nutcracker this year as I was the last time I saw it, not because of The Nutcracker itself, but because of a few dancers whose technique could not compare to the last dancers who performed those roles. I was not at all impressed by the Sugar Plum Fairy’s Cavalier (and we all watch The Nutcracker for those two characters). In fact, with the first performance, it was difficult for me to pick who danced best among the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. This time, it was easy to pick: the Sugar Plum Fairy, but she has danced for years and has beautiful technique, as do the rest of the experienced dancers at my school. Could many of them go on to become professionals? Probably not, because professional companies expect a lot more than one pirouette, even if it’s perfect. But they have strong technique, even if they can’t always nail it, which professional dancers can do. However, my fiancé didn’t seem to care about the Cavalier’s performance. He still thought it was impressive, but it’s because he doesn’t know ballet like I do. He doesn’t know that you’re not supposed to do pirouettes on a bent knee, and the Cavalier did four on a bent knee, so I wasn’t impressed. He also did the male version of foutte turns, but his foot was not pointed, and he was improperly aligned. In any case, I would have rather have seen one pirouette on a straight knee than four on a bent knee.

However, ballets are not catered toward dancers. They are catered to your average viewer, who, even if they watch professional ballet after professional ballet, may still not understand ballet unless they are actually among the ballet community. If they see pirouettes on bent knees, they may think that is actually part of the performance. They don’t know you can never have a pirouette on a bent knee, unless they care to research how ballet is supposed to actually work. Then they’ll probably become more critical. Or maybe they can discern a mediocre performance from a professional one, but there is some leeway given between studios that are professional and studios that are not. I give leeway to the younger dancers because the purpose of those performances is to give them performance experience, but I am still impressed by the younger ones because I have seen them grow and become better. But would I pay the price of a professional show for my studio? No, as they are not a pro company. So among professional performances, if a dancer does a pirouette on a bent knee, again, viewers will probably think that it’s part of the performance because, well, those are professionals. And they, the average viewers, simply want to be entertained; however, companies want straight knees in a pro company and won’t allow anything less. This is why professional companies only want the best dancers possible, so that way they know the average viewer is receiving the best possible performance, and that they’re not insulting their viewers by allowing less-than-polished dancers into their companies. This isn’t to say book-after-book-after-book-self-published authors are insulting their readers. Not at all. Some of them may be talented enough that they can create the best book possible and publish a few more titles in a single year.

Even so, I feel like cranking out a lot of books are like those pirouettes. The best authors that I’ve read crank out one or two books a year, and this is among self-published and traditional. I would rather see one book on a straight knee than four on a bent knee, so to speak. And since I am a writer among the writing community, I can tell. Sure, even books trad publishers spend months on can still be mediocre in the market, because for them, it’s about sales, and if a mediocre book can bring in sales, then they’ll keep at it with that author. Even so, they’re still working hard on trying to create the best product possible, even if it turns out to be a flop, even if they end up editing it so much that they accidentally make it worse. But readers won’t know. Non-writing readers forgive a lot of grammatical errors that writers do not. Most readers who think books are mediocre anyway think those books should have been worked on more without knowing they’ve been worked on to death. I got to the point where I was so tired of editing When Stars Die that I wanted to scream, so I knew my book was getting there. So I want to create the best possible book for my readers, and I don’t think that can be accomplished in two months. In fact, the one who self-published 4 books spent only one month on a book before self-publishing it. What if this author could have created a better, stronger product by spending more time?

Simply put, I want my readers to have the best product possible, even if some may disagree, and I cannot accomplish this within three months. I don’t simply want to write lots of books to fast build a fanbase. And cranking out a lot of books doesn’t guarantee that. Certainly that could help greatly with sales, thus earning more money, but, again, I want them to be holding the best product possible, a work they know took more than one year to polish–including publishing people’s input.

So, for those who do aspire to crank out a lot of books a year, what is your process and just how do you do it?

Year in Review: 2013 Edition

This is Wind.

2013 started out with sort of a bang, but it’s overall been a fairly crap year for me, because I spent a lot more time being depressed than not, and have considered, on several occasions, ways to take my own life. Thankfully I didn’t, but as you all know from my last post, I’m still scared that I’m going to, once again, be caught up in those feelings, make an attempt, and have that attempt be successful. But there were moments of light and hope, and I’m going to share them with all of you.

1. The Roar of Love. I did not expect to be casted in this recital not only because I was an adult ballet dancer and too old for the company, but because I had not done ballet for half of the semester ever since ballet started in August (but EVERYONE can be in this recital, even the alumni who have not danced there in several years). I spent my time being depressed, missing a week because of said depression, missing another week, I think, and missing an entire month because of hospitalizations. But I was casted, and I was so happy that I cried, because one of my dreams was being en pointe and then performing in a recital en pointe. I also didn’t expect to get the roles that I did, and one of those roles was Wind, which involves a lot of bourrees and being en pointe for mostly every scene. It showed me that Mr. Ron, owner of the studio, had the confidence that I would be able to handle such a role in spite of being en pointe for half a year and missing an entire month and a half of pointe class.
2. When Stars Die. Okay, as you all know, I jumped headfirst into the querying process. It arguably makes me an amateur, but you know what? I knew the risks of going with a publisher who did not yet have a track record of publication; however, they did have authors. But I am no longer an amateur, and you can’t say that I am, not when AEC Stellar has proven to be a very smart, flexible company, with fantastic transparency. I feel like I could ask my publisher how many times he’s been to the bathroom in his life, and he’ll tell me (okay, maybe not that, but you get the point). I was thrilled to get the contract because it meant my dream was finally coming true, after 15 years of waiting for it to come to fruition. Now my dream is to be a bestseller, so that is what I’m striving for next. Of course, I know that one trilogy being published doesn’t guarantee other works will be taken on, as ALL writers are freelance, except for maybe those who self-publish, but having credentials under your belt makes the process a little bit easier.
3. Freelance Editing. It had been a while since I’d flexed my freelance muscles, but it was really nice to be able to edit a sample for someone who was impressed with what I did. That same someone also sent the sample off to a professional editor who works with the Big 5, and our comments roughly aligned, so it told me that I definitely had the skills necessary to be one. I was also able to edit two manuscripts this year for people. My first client wanted me to edit his again because he had a positive experience with me the first time, but I was, once again, struggling with depression and had to recommend someone else for him–but he was grateful. However, the experience with my last client was horrible, but I at least got my money, and I will write a blog post about that, mostly pointing to what clients looking for an editor should expect (and what you should and should not do when interacting with your editor). In conclusion, my last client was unable to handle my criticism, and I did apologize to him that he did not like my feedback.
4. Ballet Summer Intensive. I was both terrified and excited to take this intensive because I was finally starting the ‘Big Girl’ level, where you really start to begin to dance instead of just doing tiny, short exercises where you worked on mastering the technique of one or two moves. With Mrs. Renee Toole, it was fun and showed me that I had improved since taking juniors the year before–I had been taking the junior class during Roar because I had to since I had rehearsal right after, but the class still intimidated me every time I took it. With Mr. Ron, the class was tougher, and I royally screwed up on the across-the-floor exercise he gave us, but I practiced it and nailed it the next time we had to do it. I was also okay with his center work, but the intensive made me realize that I was indeed ready for the junior level.
5. Ballet Senior Class. For the longest time this semester I was terrified to take this class–the highest level–because I had no idea what to expect. But I finally decided to dive in headfirst with my junior buddies, and the class was not as bad as I thought it’d be. In fact, it was a million times easier than Mr. Viator’s junior classes, where he gives us ridiculously long exercises I have a hard time remembering. I’ve taken the senior class twice, and I am no longer scared to do so. In fact, I welcome it because I got tired of taking the Petite II class, which no longer offers anything to me any more, other than allowing me to work on technique. However, by the time you reach my level, a challenge class often improves you more than a lower class. So I will be taking it from now on and will take one senior and one junior class starting over the summer. I have no idea what the senior class will be like for Mr. Ron, as he primarily utilizes the Russian technique, something I am not used to, but I do welcome the challenge.
6. Pointe Work. I am so happy with how much I have improved with pointe work since beginning it a year and a half ago. I can now just about do everything en pointe, including Italian Fouettes. I can’t do regular fouettes just yet, which are included in the video at the end, but hopefully I can at least do a few by the end of the ballet year. Otherwise, I can do just about everything else,even though I have to work on cleaning up some of the technique, like the Italian ones. The funniest thing, however, is it has become a practical tradition for me to fall at least once when practicing a move before ballet class actually begins. And it happens every single class. But I don’t mind these falls because it means I am giving everything I’ve got, even though it’s often too much. But you at least learn your limits by doing it that way, and I am not afraid to fall. Not afraid at all. I am also not afraid of injuries, although I will be in a lot of pain if one happens. But, hey, injuries are part of any athletic endeavor.
7. The Stars Are Infinite. I am very, very pleased to have finally finished this novel after nine years of working on it. This novel has been such an arduous undertaking, the second most difficult novel I have ever worked on. And, no, When Stars Die was a relatively easy novel to write, to be honest. But I know some novels are going to be easier to write than others. However, TSAI was so difficult to work on because you want the second book in a series to outshine your first book, and I hope it will, because I REALLY considered the criticism of a 3 star reviewer who is looking forward to the sequel and has faith that it will be better. So I treated her as my number one fan in that moment when doing serious edits to TSAI. When Stars Die, even though it has only 33 reviews so far, has mostly received praise, and I think that by the time you receive the 30th review, you roughly know where your novel stands–at least I hope. I am waiting for the 70th review to do a signed giveaway of one of my paperback WSD copies. I do know books who have about 30 reviews and have low-average ratings. I consider average to be in the 3 star range, or the 3 point something range. But, yes, I REALLY hope the sequel outshines the first because a lot of new authors like me have a hard time trying to do that.
8. All Shattered Ones. This book, by far, is the most difficult to write because it stems from something very personal and deep inside of me, that being of depression and suicidal ideation. The basic premise is that a young boy struggling with chronic depression takes his own life, being urged by a haunting voice to do so. After taking his life, he wakes up in another world called Silvaria, a place for people who have lived painful lives, and need another chance in a place that is meant to be a paradise for them. In Silvaria, there are beings called Lightveils who help these people overcome their tragedies. They then help these people become Lightveils themselves so they can continue the cycle of helping those just like them. However, the voice still haunts Gene, and despite being in a promising place of paradise, the voice drives Gene to self-harm, worsens his depression, and makes him wish for a death that is impossible in a world where death does not exist. It originally started out as When Heaven Was Blue, the character having the same name. But Gene was saved from a suicide attempt by a puppeteer who took him to a place called Stolentime that would allow Gene to heal from his mental illness. He was stalked by the same haunting voice, but I didn’t like the set-up, even though I was slightly satisfied with the direction of the story. However, I do draw from bits and pieces of WHWB to form ASO, so ASO is the third draft.
9. Completing My Last Year as a Junior. I had to miss an entire year of school because of bipolar disorder so I could focus on getting better. Well, when I registered for the fall, I was feeling great; however, when the semester began, I was back to being depressed, so it was a very, very difficult struggle to get through the semester, and I had so many doubts that I would survive it because there were times where I felt like I needed to be hospitalized again. In fact, my therapist told me that if I continued to worsen, I would have to be so that I could be kept safe from myself. But that didn’t happen. I struggled through mid-terms, having several panic attacks and crying spells when studying for these, and flying through finals, when I finally found stability by the end of the semester. Now I am a senior in college, which I should have been a year ago, but I will hopefully graduate one of these days. So I survived despite the intense depression.

Well, this has been my year in review with my most memorable moments in spite of the dark times I dealt with. What are some of your most memorable moments from this year?

Merry Christmas, and let’s all make 2014 our best!

From Gender Coverflips to Twitter, the Sexism Never Ends

So there is a ton of sexism going on lately in both the gaming and publishing industries. And of course there are plenty of people writing about it.

I first off want to state that I know sexism against men exists, but sexism against men IN THE FIELD OF INDUSTRIES exists not because men are men but because men are supposedly acting feminine or doing feminine things. It happens in the field of nursing because it is generally a female-dominated field and so is automatically considered a feminine job. So when a man is a nurse, he is doing “feminine” things and is therefore considered weak. Granted, some women reinforce this sexism, but they shouldn’t. But when women join a male-dominated field, they are picked on not because they are acting “masculine”, but because they are female and are therefore too weak to be in the field they are in. Male ballet dancers are picked on too because they’re considered “feminine” for doing something in a female-dominated field, which is a shame because male ballet dancers are just as incredible as their female counterparts, and we need more men in ballet. And their muscles! Have you seen the muscles on a male ballet dancer? They can take on football players, contrary to popular belief, especially because they know how to articulate all those muscles they have.

(Now I realize ascribing labels to them makes them seem less than, but I ascribed labels to specifically point out a certain sex. If I had just said ballet dancer, you probably would have thought of a female, wouldn’t you have?)

I honestly could do an entire post about sexism against men (because it is real, it exists, and it is sickening the way our society treats sexism against men), but this post isn’t about them. The Good Men Project does an excellent job about giving men voices anyway. But men don’t struggle in the gaming and publishing industries the way women do.

With gender coverflips, outcries from women in the field of science fiction, and some pretty nasty Tweets from men (above), it’s clear there is a problem. I was stunned as I was going through the comments to some of the articles linked here, along with more articles that I haven’t linked, just how ignorant people can be. One thing that rankles my nerves more than anything is how women are constantly the butt of a sexist joke: get back to the kitchen, cook and clean for me, get me a sandwich! What makes people think that in the 21st century, jokes like those are funny anymore? They’re so overused anyway that they’ve lost their appeal as potential jokes.

Now on to the gaming industry. The problem with the gaming industry is there are not enough female protagonists, and if there is a female protagonist, she is so oversexed that the outfit she wears isn’t even functional. The newest Metal Gear Solid game comes to mind, where there is a sniper in the desert, and she is so scantily clad that it’s outrageous. Someone on Tumblr tried to justify her clothing by saying she’s in the desert. No! Just no! You wouldn’t wear hardly any clothing in the desert. You would cover up so you don’t burn. Then there is Laura Croft. When I was a child, I swore her breasts grew larger every game, but that was probably just graphical improvement. There is nothing wrong with a lady having large breasts because large-breasted women exist, but large breasts present a problem of their own, and males wouldn’t really understand this because they don’t have breasts–so male game designers have no clue just how problematic large breasts would be for an adventurous woman. Then there is severe sexism in the online gaming community. Women are constantly called names and, of course, are told to go back to the kitchen. The sexism in the online gaming community especially has me flabbergasted. What makes men–no, boys–think this is okay? Isn’t respect taught? Or is sexism more subconscious?

Then there is the publishing industry. The sexism isn’t just rabid among the sci-fic community, but rabid in general because female writers are not getting the acclaim their male counterparts are because the male voice is still considered universal while the female voice is still considered “other”. The general thought is that women aren’t writing any good books, that the female protagonists are weak and pathetic and whiny and clingy. People, Twilight doesn’t define all of what women write. Just as books showing outrageously violent men doesn’t define all of what men write (John Green springs to mind). People who claim there are so many weak females probably haven’t been going to bookstores lately. Since I heavily read YA, I have seen tons of books with female protagonists able to stand on their own, who don’t lose who they are in the face of adversity.

So there is a lot going on in both of these industries that needs to be changed, both in the way people view women and how women are treated.

What Is This Nonsense Called Free Time?

I’ll probably be blogging about ballet a lot simply because it is a regular part of my summer and it has gotten to the point where it has become quite challenging for me. Ballet has always been hard. In fact, the basics seem to become more difficult the better I get. But it is more challenging because it really requires more of the use of my mind. No longer can I depend on just flat out muscle memory to do the work for me.

But the difficulty of this week’s class was finally explained when the director mentioned he had been using the Russian method, which is supposedly the hardest method there is because they really use their arms and heads. Of course, because I had only received some Cechetti and I guess French, Russian is an entirely different language for me. But it explained why I’ve been having such difficulties this week–mostly at the barre today. Since I’m not used to Russian, of course I’m going to flail around, and because I haven’t been doing ballet for years, it’s going to be hard for me to immediately incorporate it, not like the other advanced dancers who can. So I eased up on self-criticism when it came to barre work. Even so, center was much better today. I was more coordinated and so was able to flow more with the moves. Now I’ve just got to work on getting springier jumps.  And pointe work went okay. I’ve just got to work on getting the minute details in combinations, those transition steps that help you flow from one move to the next.

As for my writing life, I have four chapters of Stolentime edited so far and plan to do a fifth today. The revisions are going along fairly smoothly and I don’t really see myself stumbling across any mental blocks. I am also editing a client manuscript, so I really can’t take on any other clients right now because there are never enough hours in the day. It’s either work or ballet, and so with the time outside of those two activities, I’ve got to squeeze in writing somehow–and editing.

I also may hold off on doing part 3 of Sister Evelyn until next week simply because I want to get in at least ten chapters of Stolentime before taking a break one day to work on Sister Evelyn. And I can’t forget When Stars Die, but it’s in line edits currently.

Also, I’ll probably start editorial work for a magazine my writer’s group wants to start. This one will likely be biannual though, whereas The Corner Club Press is every 2 to 3 months.

As you can see, I have a lot going on. I shudder to think about how things are going to pick up when I start class in the fall.