For the first time in my adult life, I opted out of dance this past week. I did not go to ballet on Monday, 305 Fitness on Wednesday (or as I like to call it, Zumba turned up to an 11), or Zumba today. I did not have a ballroom lesson. And I feel better for it.
Continue readingI entered a writing competition in August on Medium. There were four categories – Space, Death, Reentry and Work. I wrote articles for the first two:
Space
According to Society’s Expectations, I’ve Failed At Life
Death
The winners were just announced. I did not win any prize or receive any honorable mention. I didn’t expect to, honestly. There were about 10,000 entries between the four categories! I didn’t maximize my chances by entering all four categories, and more importantly, I still have plenty to learn and explore when it comes to writing.
Continue readingFollowing up from last week, I’m pleased to report that my apartment now has a few more holiday decorations scattered strategically around the living room. I even baked eggnog scones yesterday and today, I’m working on a loaf of challah bread (taking advantage of the fact that this week is both Hanukkah AND Christmas).
Another follow-up from last week’s blog post, the short film I wrote about was released on YouTube! I was in awe of how Lindsey Cira, the woman behind the piece, edited all of the elements together to create an absolutely beautiful final product!
Continue readingHappy holidays, dancers! I was gifted a poinsettia today, so that means I have officially started decorating the apartment for Christmas. Between getting sick immediately after Thanksgiving and a packed schedule, I just haven’t had much time to clean and break out the holiday decor. I’m sure Santa will understand if the poinsettia is as far as I get.
I know some of you have been busy too with end-of-the-year competitions including Ohio Star Ball, South Open Dancesport and Holiday Dance Classic. It dawned on me after my last lesson that it’s only two months until my first competition goal of 2020 (California Open). I had a brief “oh shit” moment as the doubts all popped up like prairie dogs in my brain. It still feels like I have so much work to do!
That work isn’t what I wanted to write about today though. Recent experiences have reminded me how important it is to just tap into your creativity and play.
Continue readingI think every dancer has been here: your teacher or coach tells you to do something and you do it. Then they tell you that it wasn’t right and repeat the instruction. So you do it again. They say no again, or they tell you that you need to do it bigger or longer or fuller. But you already feel maxed out on how big, long or full you can get! You don’t understand, why are they telling you that you’re doing it wrong? You did what they told you to do!
At least you thought you did.
Today is more about writing than ballroom. I am working on my second eBook (yay!) and a lot of the content is based on what I’ve already written. So I copied a bunch of blog posts into a Word document to use as the foundation for this new project. I proceeded to stare at my screen for 15 minutes without a clue of how to proceed. I started to feel like I should just delete everything and start from scratch! But there was good information from my original posts, why waste time rewriting it?
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We did it! It’s the 31st day of the 31 Day Writing Challenge! Anyone else exhausted? I read from more than one other 31 dayer that a challenge like this is a marathon, not a sprint. They weren’t kidding! As the ballroom writer, I’m claiming top student.
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The Girl with the Tree Tattoo 