An ode to failure

Failure is the path to success. (I say this because I consider myself a consummate failure. I'm biased.) Yes, I know it sounds pat and perhaps trite. But nothing worthwhile is possible without failure and rejection and pain.

~

I started my college years in a graphic design program. I thought I belonged there because the only thing I was any good at in high school was art.

I hated the program. I didn't feel like my instructors actually taught anything. We did project after project without much direction. Only after we were in the very late stages of an assignment did we receive our teachers' input, and by input I mean criticism. Usually by then it was too late to do anything about it.

I made lots of Bs and I considered each one to be a failure. I wanted to be making As. I didn't care so much about the projects themselves, I just wanted to be successful and to be recognized as such. I hated being in front of people and having my shortcomings examined.

Excuse me, did I say "my shortcomings"? I meant the shortcomings of my work. Except I really meant mine, because in my mind they were one and the same.

~

After a year and a half I left the program to study horrible things that happened in the past as well as horrible things that are still happening today. I continued trying to make art, but grew more and more frustrated with my output. I felt I was not improving, that my technique had stagnated and was indeed growing worse. And eventually I quit drawing and painting all but completely. I very rarely do it now.

For years I couldn't think about art or design without feeling like a catastrophic loser. Only very recently have I been able to look back at that time without feeling ashamed.

No one told me to feel this way. I decided I sucked on my own.

After some time (as long as I could manage) I accumulated 120 credits and was made to leave college. I failed to find a job in my field (although what field that was I'm still not exactly sure) and ended up working as a secretary.

By this time my interest in dance had ballooned immensely. Dance occupied all of my free time and then some. I felt desperate to try to make it my career. And after only two years of full-time employment I quit, hoping I could perhaps work a part-time job and get by otherwise on dance alone.

This didn't work. I tried teaching as many as six classes a week at one point, desperate to reach out to students in different areas. At many of these classes, due to rent and gas, I was making a loss.

I felt like a moron for quitting my job. I felt like a delinquent for not having a job. I felt like a failure because my plan wasn't working. I felt horrible.

In 2010 I stopped teaching many of my classes. Simultaneously, my hours at my part time job were decimated. I had nothing to do and was bringing in next to no income.

I stared into the void. The void told me to write a novel about vampires.

No, I thought, that's a really stupid idea. I should try to get another job. A real job, with regular hours, where I put on normal clothes and go into a normal office with normal people. I did some listless job-hunting online and submitted a few applications to a few places. I never heard back.

I wrote the novel, still thinking it was a stupid idea. Then I rewrote it five times. I started teaching dance classes again. The classes grew. The classes shrank. I got a second part time job.

Now the novel is finished. I consider it my first successful project. Not that I have convinced someone to publish it yet (I haven't), or even to represent it (nope not that either), but because I love it from the bottom of my heart. It might be total crap, but it is my beloved crap, the crap I have poured my heart and soul into.

Why can I love this crap when I couldn't love most of my previous crap?

Perhaps because I saw it as an experiment, a way to express something weird within me, and not as a competition with some Platonic ideal of high art or literature. I suppose I failed to live up to that ideal so many times, eventually I was forced to realize that all I will do for the rest of my life is fail to live up to the ideal.

I accepted my status as a complete failure, said "fuck it", and kept working anyway. The time since then has been the only time in my life when I have ever been able to feel like I have accomplished any measure of success.

~

We define success or failure by our own version of the ideal. Now every time I feel trapped my by own ideals, I remind myself that I'm a failure and I get right back to work. And I'm almost always proud of what I manage to accomplish.

Since I've accepted myself as a failure I don't care so much about impressing other people. I've realized I'd rather communicate with other people, or at least entertain them, than impress them.

I would still love to make a living, or even half a living, from my writing or from dance. But even if I never do, it can't make me any more of a failure.

~

Failure is an intrinsic part of making art. Artists transmit ideas into reality, but it isn't a download kind of process; the works we create will never and can never perfectly match our ideas of what the work should be. Our mediums are flawed. Reality and the mind don't mesh perfectly. Even verbalizing an idea distorts it somehow.

You must accept that you will fail and then make the attempt anyway. Every attempt will result in failure.

I lied to you earlier. Failure is not really the path to success. Success is just a particularly appealing brand of failure. Failure is all that there is.

I look back and I am glad for all the ways I have failed. I look forward and hope to keep failing with my whole heart.

Side effects

So I am on a new drug that's supposed to help me manage my Fibromyalgia pain. For quite a long time I was terrified of getting pharmaceutical help for my condition, but after a resounding success with a sleep drug I started last year I thought what the hell, let's give this a shot too.

The drug, which I don't really want to call out by name--let's just say it's popular for FMS--is sort of helping with the pain, by means of inducing a state in which I feel my nerves are swaddled in cotton. An odd swimming sensation sometimes overcomes me and I hear "Across The Universe" on near-constant repeat. (last detail an exaggeration)

I am not sure I like the main effect of the drug, not to mention the side effects.
I'm having some side effects. Or at least I think I am. Sometimes it's hard to tell what's the drug and what's me being a hypochondriac freak.

First off, I think it's thrown off my equilibrium. I can't spin like I normally can without feeling dizzy, and I feel unstable on my toes. This might not sound so bad--how often do you have to spin around until you make yourself sick?--but spinning is a big part of what I do for fun and sometimes profit, i.e. bellydance. But is this really because of the drug or because I didn't practice much in December?

Doubt sets in.

My hunger impulses are out of whack. I don't feel particularly hungry at all, ever. But I always feel like I could eat. After eating a good meal I don't really feel full. Is this me or the drug?
So I try not to eat except at meals, knowing I can just keep eating mindlessly if I don't police myself. Then sometimes I start to feel lightheaded. Is this from hunger or is it another side effect?
I feel tired and forgetful. Often I'm not sure what I should be doing, but I feel I should be doing something. I have trouble with word recall and sometimes when faced with a complex problem my brain simply freezes up and throws a Blue Screen of Death. But, uh, welcome to being Sara. I've been this way for as long as I can remember. Is this me or the drug?
Sometimes I feel happy, like REALLY happy, for no goddamn reason. Less often I feel inexplicably sad. Me or the drug?

I could go on.

For years, my doctors placed my well being squarely in my hands. At the time there was no drug for Fibromyalgia. I was on my own. Eat right, sleep enough and on a regular schedule, and exercise enough (but not too much) and you will feel all right, they said.

Now, as a result, whenever I feel shitty I immediately want to blame myself. If I hadn't slept in 30 minutes, I'd feel okay. If I had exercised yesterday I'd have more energy. If I hadn't waited to eat breakfast I wouldn't have a headache.

And now, experiencing these symptoms, I'm not sure what is at fault: me or the drug. I'm awfully confused. I want to believe that in the end the drug will help, because I want to believe there is a solution. Somewhere deep in my shriveled heart I still want to believe that I can feel well most of the time. Not because health itself is that appealing to me, but because I feel like my condition gets in the way of my dreams. Sometimes I let myself think about what I could be like if I just had some energy.

I don't want to sound maudlin. My bad days are really not so bad. I'm never going to die from this and it probably isn't going to get worse unless I let myself go. But hope opens you up to this odd feeling: the idea that in returning back to normal something has been lost.

Should I put up with the side effects and hold on to that hope or should I give up?

2011

For perhaps the first time in my life I am sad to see a year end.
2011 was incredibly kind to me and my husband. In 2010 we spent most of our time apart. For much of it I drove him back and forth to work every day (a 45 minute commute one way) so I could get to my ESL appointments. In 2011 he got a contract working for a giant multinational tech company and now we both work at home. We spend most of our time in the same room, talking and obsessing over our little white dog.
We moved to a nice apartment with lots of closet space and big windows that look out into the bright blue sky.
At night we play Magic: The Gathering and Arkham Horror.
We don't live paycheck to paycheck any more.
I started working with a group of writers who make me much more sane about my writing. Some of them even like to play Magic with me. (I played a lot of Magic in 2011.)
I went to the most beautiful island in the world with my beautiful sister to study with the most beautiful bellydancer ever.
I have lots of black and grey clothes in my closet (so I can pretend to be a goth everyday) and I live within walking distance of my favorite store (Goodwill).
I just made space in my bedroom for my art desk so I can start drawing again without hurting my neck.
My little life has never been happier, and I have never felt more comfortable with myself than I do now.

Thank you 2011.

Accomplishments

2011 was kind of awesome. Despite my neuroses and crippling attention deficit disorder I managed to get some good work in. Let's take a look.

• I finished Redlisted!!!!!!!!11 After going through a months-long period where I couldn't stand to even look at the manuscript, around September I suddenly got the inspiration and the urge to write the last draft, which I actually like and can show to people without cringing or wanting to hide in a hole. I am so happy that I got past the stage of wanting to disown it slash erase all traces of its existence.
  
• I produced a show, Doomsday Cabaret, all by myself and it didn't suck. In fact, I've heard people liked it.
  
• I taught a workshop at a regional festival for the first time!
  
• I got a new part time job and have managed to hold on to it despite sucking at it really, really badly. I am being serious. I am terrible at this stupid job, but I am proud of myself for sticking it out and trying my best.
  
• I wrote a short story! NO! TWO SHORT STORIES! Oh wow!
  
• I performed outside the US for the first time!
  
• I got accepted to perform at TribalCon 2012. I was scared to even apply, so this was kind of a big deal for me.
  
• I started writing a novel I am pretty much in love with.
  
• I made myself start going to a writers group despite my severe anxiety at the outset. It was totally worth it.
  
• I forced myself to start submitting Redlisted to agents, again, despite my fear of everything and my constant feelings of dread when it comes to anything related to the writing industry.
  
• I made some awesome costumes! Best costumes yet!
  
• I feel like my performances came a long way. I am satisfied watching my videos in a way I haven't been in the past.
  

YES! HIGH FIVES TO ME.
I would really like to hear what YOU did this year that you are proud of.

Resolutions

2012 is coming. I better get some stuff done before the world ends. (John Hodgman says it will and I find his books to be totally credible. In fact they are pretty much my most trusted sources of information, ever.)

Last year I went insane with monthly checklists (you can easily find them in the archives) and all kinds of related self-flagellation. This resulted in a hardcore burnout period, especially after I got my second part time job and said goodbye to a good amount of my free time.

I've transitioned into a kinder "do what you can" philosophy since then. I try not to stress about the things I'm not getting done because that list is infinitely long and contemplating it too deeply will make me go insane. Instead I might as well try to enjoy life and feel good about myself from time to time.

Still, there are some things I'd like to get done in 2012. Here are some of them.

• I would like to finish the first draft of my second novel. Right now it's about half done, and I think if I make it a priority for a few months it will materialize.
  
• I would like to produce another Doomsday Cabaret show.
  
• I would like to get in better shape. If possible I would like to be able to run a ten minute mile. (That may not sound too fast, but, let me tell you, it would be an improvement over the current situation.)
  
• I'd like to write a few more short stories and it would be great if I could get a short story published.
  
• I want to spend less time on Facebook and more time reading.
  
• I'd like to make at least one more bellydance costume.
  
• I want to feel good about what I perform at TribalCon, which will mean preparing well.
  
• I'd like to teach some workshops out of town (although I don't have much control over whether or not that comes to pass).
  
• I'd like to write an article about bellydance and publish it somewhere.
  
• I want to save more money and eat more fruits and vegetables. (Exciting!!)
  

And of course, I wish and hope that I will find a good agent for my book, and I'm going to try my best, but in the end it's not up to me. If I haven't found an agent by the end of 2012 I will probably go ahead and self-publish on Amazon, and I'm excited that possibility for its own reasons.

What are your resolutions?

Auto Bio

So I have been avoiding querying specific agents because they ask for a writer bio. As someone with no publication credits (yet! I am in the process of trying to find a home for a short story I am actually quite proud of) and no qualifications, I have no idea what the hell to say about myself. I hope it doesn't sound jaded to say that I feel like turdpolishing is necessary. I am just another eccentric among eccentrics who thinks they wrote something people might want to buy.

If I were to tell the truth unvarnished by what I think people want to hear, my bio would probably go something like this:


Sara Beaman was born in 1984 in a small town in New York and raised by Dungeons and Dragons nerds. She grew up a lonely brainiac with impeccable fashion sense (discounting a long stretch of years including middle school, high school, college and her early adult life). Like many other children who suck at sports, she thoroughly enjoyed reading science fiction and fantasy novels while avoiding projectiles thrown by other children at recess.

At some point she moved to North Carolina, where she met her future husband at a high school for unsociable technology enthusiasts. Then, thinking she would like to become a graphic designer, she enrolled in the North Carolina State University College of Design. Her mother warned her not to, and, indeed, it was an ill-advised course of action which left her full of ennui. After only a year and a half she dropped out of design school, preferring to study the history of human misery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill instead.

During her idle years as a student Sara began studying the exotic art of bellydance, perhaps as a way to distract herself from her existential dread. After graduation, she worked a short stint at a temp agency, then a somewhat longer stint as a secretary at UNC. Then she decided to quit her perfectly acceptable job to pursue a career as a full time bellydancer. Then the economy tanked.

Now she thinks she'd probably like to be a novelist instead. She is willing to work hard and try her best. She would like to be able to provide publication credits but she is honestly dreadful at coming up with ideas for short stories. She has written like three, all told, and one of them is kind of crap.

But really, writing is what calls to the jaded remnants of her soul. She is serious about it and will totally do whatever it takes.

Sara resides in Raleigh, North Carolina with her misanthrope husband and her rescue dog Lola who loves humans quite a bit.


LOL okay but seriously I need to write something I can actually send to people. :(

"Do you dance for your husband?"

A patron asked me this at the show last night.

I couldn't tell how she meant the question. Discomfort in her eyes. Perhaps she was trying to square what she'd seen in my performance with her own personal paradigm of sexuality. Perhaps she was trying to submit a gentle complaint, to police my behavior in a subtle way. Perhaps she was merely curious about what I do at home.

"I dance for everyone," I said, sharing her unease.

I get asked this question a lot, more frequently by new students than anyone else. Always women, never men. Sometimes it's a related question: "Can you teach me how to dance for my husband?" Sometimes it's another variation: "Can you dance for my husband?" ("I'll pay you." "It's his birthday.")

They've been asking me this for years but I never get used to it.

I won't pretend I don't understand what they're seeing: a girl (although I may not qualify as such for much longer), scantily clad, moving her hips and chest around in rhythmic patterns. I get it. It reads, for them, as an unsubtle display of female sexuality.

I am not offended by their perception of what I am doing and why. It may not mesh with my intent, but so what? If I made my intent for each performance completely transparent, it would stop being interesting, and I think it might very well stop being art. Art, to me, exists in the vast space between the intent of the creator and the perception of the audience. It's negotiated.

What bothers me is always the tone. Let's put your dance in an acceptable context, shall we? You are doing this for a man. And he is your husband.

I won't go on about my motivations for dancing because putting them to words would mutilate them. But let's suppose I intended for my audience to take everything on face value alone: girl in lots of makeup and a (sort of) revealing costume, shaking it. Let's say my intention was really just to titillate.

I will do this for whoever the fuck I want, thank you. And I don't care what you think of that. If you want to read me as a sex object, go ahead. Just don't try to cram the patriarchy down my throat. I know you can see a wedding ring on my finger, but don't pretend you understand my relationship with my husband, and don't you dare try to enforce what you think it should be on me.

I will dance for the enjoyment of everyone in the audience, male or female, young or old. To be honest I am more concerned with my female audience members. I want them to see me feeling happy and comfortable with myself, my body, my spirit. I want them to know they can feel the same way. Maybe not by being a dancing girl live on stage, but through whatever medium, in whatever venue they choose.

I want these girls and women to go out into the world and be themselves for everyone, not just their husbands.

By asking me this question I can see these women are not getting that. And it makes me sad.

The sweet death of ambition

So what follows may seem like another woe-is-Sara kind of post, but rest assured, that's not what I'm feeling. I just want to take stock of things by writing them out. And I feel fine. I'm happier recently than I've been in a long time.

I think it's time for me to re-evaluate my ambitions.

I've been trying for three-ish years to 'make it' as a bellydance teacher. By 'making it' I mean making enough money to do that part time and something else part time. I've never been under the misapprehension that I could teach and do nothing else, at least not in this area or this economy.

I quit my job in 2009. I got serious. I gave it a good effort.

Now I'm tired of it and I want to stop.

I live in an area with a lot of teachers. There's nothing wrong with that and I'm not upset about it, but the fact is if you divide the number of people interested in bellydance by the number of teachers you don't really get a whole lot of people in each class.

I live in an area where dance studio rent ranges from painful to exorbitant.

I live in an area where bellydance doesn't have a huge public face, and where most 'normal people' don't even know that the bellydance community exists.

I live in a time where no one has a whole lot of money to throw around, and when a certain world dance fitness craze has decimated the market for bellydance classes.

I've been teaching regularly since 2004. There hasn't been more than a month-long period when I haven't taught a regular class. I've taught as many as six classes per week in the past.

This year I realized, if I want to ever save any money at all, I would need to get a second part-time job. So now I have two part-time jobs, not one.

My teaching skills and my knowledge base are improving (I think?). My dance skills are certainly improving, anyway. I've recently been asked to participate in regional events as a performer or teacher for the first time. I practice and promote myself and I try to perform for the general public to raise awareness about the beauty of our dance form.

This year I tried to make another push for financial viability, adding two classes to my schedule for a total of four. My class attendance dwindled to fewer students than I had at the beginning of 2011, when I was teaching just two classes. In fact, it was about half the number of students I had in January of this year.

I cancelled two classes. Now my total number of students is the same as it was with four classes.

You'd think this would be frustrating. Well, it's only the fourth or fifth time this (or something worse) has happened to me, and I've learned to just look at it and accept it. And this time I took a step back and looked at how I really feel.

I don't want to teach four classes a week! I feel burned out when I teach that many. Doing 1000x basic moves is hard on my poor wretched FMS-riddled body. I get sick and tired and I pull so many muscles it's hard for me to concentrate on my own dance development. Besides, I like having time to do something other than work and teach and practice! I like not having every single weeknight and every single weekend day booked solid.

I don't really want what I thought I wanted.

For a month or so I've told myself I need to regroup, to try try again, to give it another year, but I look at what it's going to take to rebrand myself and make another big marketing push and I just don't want to do it. I don't want to do it any more.

The thing is I'm not much of an entrepreneur. I hate networking. I like making friends (for realsies) but when I have to worry about promoting myself I get awkward. I hate money and I hate branding! I hate advertising! I'm a naive artist. I want my work to stand on its own, even though I know that's stupid and that no one ever 'makes it' without shameless self promotion. I have too much shame, I guess.

I still love dance. I still want to teach, but I don't want to worry about whether or not I make money doing it. I want to share what I'm interested in, not what I think will sell. I especially want to perform, but I know I won't make money doing that. Those days are over. Maybe a new era will come around some day where you can get a restaurant gig and work it, but I might be too old to take advantage of it by then.

I'm not sad. I have a million other things I want to do with my life. I'll probably never be satisfied no matter what I manage to accomplish, but I'll never be bored, either.

So here's to the future. And to figuring out what I'll do with myself next.

What made me weird, part one

This post is inspired by an old post at Coilhouse, one of my favorite blogs.

Rogue.
I started using a computer when I was three. Back in the 80s this was the exception, not the rule. My parents had a PC Jr, one of the first computers with a monitor that could display any kind of color. My dad taught me how to use MS DOS to access the games on the PC Jr. My favorite of these games was called Rogue.

In Rogue, you played a little adventurer, represented by a tiny smiley face icon. You navigated your adventurer through randomly-generated dungeons; fought monsters, represented by letters of the alphabet (T for Troll, Z for Zombie), all of which had different abilities and strengths; collected gold, potions and equipment; and ate delectable things such as slime mold (viable nutriment in Rogue) to keep your character alive.

I now know that Rogue is considered the first "graphical adventure game" and is kind of a big deal in computer game history. I did not know this when I was three. Mostly I knew that I wanted to get to the fiftieth level of the dungeon and slay the M(inotaur). Because who doesn't want that?

Once, I made it to perhaps the twentieth level, which was a big deal since normally I died every five minutes or so. But it was late and my parents made me go to bed. When I woke up I found that someone had turned the computer off! I wanted to cry.
Dejected, I pushed the power button on the CPU. The little indicator light turned off. I pushed it again; the light turned on.

My dad appeared.
"Sara!" he said. "I just turned the monitor off! I left the computer on!"
And that's how I learned that monitors work separately from the CPU.



Pee-wee's Playhouse.
I think this one explains itself.



Dungeons and Dragons.
My parents have been playing D&D (and later AD&D) since before I was born. If I recall correctly they started back with the original D&D box set where you had to color in the pips on the dice with a white crayon.

As a small kid I thought all adults played D&D whenever they had friends over for dinner. I always wanted to join in but for the very most part I would just listen on the sidelines until I got bored or confused. It was probably too hard for me to play anyway, at least when I was very small. The game is much simpler now, but Advanced Dungeons and Dragons was a different story, with its THAC0 charts and all its innumerable tables and obscure conditional rules.

The first time I actually played a game of AD&D was when I was seven. My friend Tracy was the DM. I took my fighter through a dungeon and in the deepest depths I fought and killed a white dragon. Righteous.

Later that week I went to a novelty store at the mall and bought a necklace to symbolize this victory. The pendant was a dragon-ish looking claw holding a clear marble. I remember thinking very specifically that the marble was the dead dragon's eye. I wore the shit out of that necklace.

The Monstrous Manual was particularly formative for me.



Books.
I started reading when I was two. I read all kinds of everything. I especially loved fantasy novels. I read fast and constantly. I read on the playground during recess. (I was not a particularly popular little girl.)

My original job aspirations were astronaut (because space) and author (because books). Then I found out how you use the toilet on a space shuttle and that pretty much killed my space aspirations.

After that I basically assumed I was going to grow up and become a writer. I lost track of that goal for a long time, but I've come back to it as an adult. Even though I'm unpublished I feel I am finally doing my younger self justice.

The kinds of books I read (mostly fantasy) made me want to see things differently. I wanted to look around myself and find secrets and magic. I wanted to believe that there is something more to the world than what is apparent to our eyes and ears.

I still do.

Two books stand out particularly well in my memory. The first is the book pictured above, Wise Child by Monica Furlong. Thinking back, I'm all but sure that this book made me stop being Catholic and turned me into the weird pseudo-pagan-but-not-really I am today. (I identify as Panentheist. Say that five times fast. I'm not Atheist but I'm a-religious.)

The second is Oddly Enough by Bruce Coville, a collection of short stories, one of which ("The Language of Blood") most likely generated my deep and abiding love for vampires.

Sara Beaman, Re-Animator

So I'm going to try blogging again. Let's not talk about the hiatus and my related feelings of shame. No one wants to hear about it, least of all me.

Instead let's talk about my current projects.

The old obsession rears its (ugly? fabulous? combo of the two?) head.
After a months-long hiatus, I am working on the fifth draft (sane, normal, balanced decision) of my vampire novel, which henceforth shall be referred to as Redlisted as I have decided that will be the title.
I got really burned out on Redlisted earlier this year and didn't think I would ever want to work on it again. For reasons I can only speculate about, within the last week I have suddenly become eager to work on it again.
I'm going to be integrating major changes that I think will improve the book, to make it more coherent, to bring out the nature of the characters and to make the plot more interesting.
SO EXCITED.

I am also working on a second novel. It's not about vampires.

I am putting together an anachronistic variety show, the Doomsday Cabaret. It will have bellydancers and hopefully other kinds of performers doing fun and interesting things, and will take place on Friday Dec. 9. Please come if you care about my feelings. And let me know if you are interested in performing or contributing to the administrative aspect of the show.

I'm going to be giving another lecture about bellydance history at UNC next week (most likely, it's still tentative).

I'm teaching a benefit workshop for the Wake County SPCA on October 9.

And of course I am teaching class, performing, etc etc that sort of thing.

I recently started a second part time job as well. So I'm having to teach myself some stricter time management techniques. But it's starting to work out all right, and it's nice not to have to be super stressed out about money all the time.

And there you have it.

Feeling guilty

because I haven't posted in quite some time. I've been feeling kind of drained lately, both mentally and physically, and I haven't had much happen that I was excited to write about.
A few weeks ago I thought I had happened across a prescription combination that was going to be the magic bullet for my fibromyalgia symptoms. I was really ready to believe that I might be able to achieve a new standard of living, permanently. I think I got excited over... not nothing, but a few days of feeling better, after which I went back to normal. It was nice to feel better for a little while, anyway. But right now I'm tired and enervated.
I spent a long time thinking I could make myself feel better without (legal) drugs, and for a while I think I was right. I spent most of my college years feeling pretty okay. The years since then have been harder. I exercise regularly (although not very strenuously, because then I'd hurt myself), I eat fairly well, and I get more than enough sleep every night, and now I'm even on drugs because I gave up on making it on my own, and I still feel kind of shitty most of the time. I only work about four hours a day, six days a week (yes I know what that multiplies to. I'm functionally idle), but between that and cleaning and cooking and a few half hours of writing and practice every day, it feels like all I can manage.
I know I am going to have to make a big push if, for example, I want to try to get my book published--and I might as well try; it's pretty much finished. But right now I don't have the energy to do much other than get by.
Which is fine. At least I'm getting by.

What is up

This moment's thought: Oh shit. That's right. I have a blog.
So I haven't blogged in over a month. That's shameful. Here's a hasty attempt to assert my enduring devotion to the interwebs and to all of my amazing, charismatic, erudite readers, all of whom have excellent taste and should totally keep reading.
Here's what's up. I'll keep it to soundbytes.

Fibromyalgia. I am probably having some sort of relapse. I feel like crap even though I've been eating okay, exercising (albeit half-heartedly) and getting enough sleep. I'm going back to the doctor soon, I think? I can't remember, just like I can't remember anything else.

Bellydance. I am teaching at the Asheville Bellydance Festival next weekend, and my workshop is SOLD OUT. Holy crap. I thought I'd be lucky if three people showed up, seeing as that's basically what happened to me at Triboriginal 2009. Not that I should be advertising that fact on the internet. I am redoubling my efforts to make the workshop totally rock everyone's faces (in a kind, student-focused and supportive way, of course).
The Sparkle Oasis workshop remains open and will be even more face-rocking because it features TWO teachers--including one teacher who doesn't suffer from fibromyalgia brain death syndrome: my majestic sister Emily.
Also. I taught a workshop a few days ago to benefit Historic Green which raised $540, which I need to go online and donate as soon as I am done with this post.

Fiction. I have started working on the sequel to my vampire novel (which I still haven't decided on a title for--now THAT is procrastination). This is not premature and it is in fact a fantastic idea even though it's making it so that I have neither the time nor the energy to finish editing the existing novel or to begin preparing said novel for the agent submission process. Shut up. It totally is awesome and you don't even know.
But seriously, I'm excited about it. I always allow myself to go crazy with the first draft and write really badly. (Otherwise I would never be able to write anything ever.) I'm probably more excited about the opportunity to write really cheesy hackneyed trash than I should be, but whatevs. It's fun not to worry so much about how things sound and instead to focus on what happens next. I don't outline, so I have no idea what is coming. I just get to keep going down the rabbit hole.
My non-vampire short story (novella? novel?) kind of stalled out, so I am submitting it to my writers' group in an attempt to motivate myself to finish it. I will let you know if this ends up being a good idea or a terrible one.

Other. Nothing else about my life is worthy of comment, except for the fact that between private lessons, classes, and tutoring, I can feel that I'm slowly approaching the burnout insanity that I experienced this time last year. I'm glad to be working and to be in demand, but unfortunately I have a Constitution score of 4 (on the DND scale, obvs) and I just can't handle working every day of the week. I'm a little scared to pass things up, though, because I know it's either feast or famine, and a girl needs to eat.
Like I said, I'll let you know how it goes.

February recap and goals for March

Hey, guess what? That's what! It's walk of shame time.

Here were my goals for February.

-Choreograph a solo for the Bozenka show. ALL OF IT.
Well, I tried. I got a minute and a half of a new choreo done, then decided I totally hated it. And now I will be doing improv. Abort/Retry/Fail.

-Write an epilogue for my book.
I did this. And I actually liked it.

-Write a plot summary. No, really. Actually write it this time.
Okay, so I'm 2/3 of the way done with a synopsis. Partial success achieved.

-Go to some more writers' meetups.
I did this. In fact, in a particularly unhinged moment, I agreed to read an excerpt from a short story I'm working on at a writing group tomorrow. Why did I do this? I probably won't be able to sleep tonight. Oh God. I shouldn't think about it.

-Stop freaking out about anything and everything that has to do with book submission.
I think that's going to require some pretty heavy medication. Otherwise, it's most likely unachievable.

-Come up with an action plan for preparing my novel for submission over the next three months.
I'm working on a fourth draft instead. Is it necessary or am I just avoiding the things I fear? It's a column A / column B kind of thing.

-Try to eat like a sane person, not a third grader.
Let's not talk about it.

All right, well, as shameful as that was, I have reasons to be happy with myself. Well, one reason: I'm working on a short story that I really like after months and months of false starts and ideas that were pretty much dead on arrival. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

Here are my goals for March:

- Do my taxes. A perennial source of fun!
- Finish and revise the short story I'm working on.
- Finish rewriting the even chapters of the book.
- Make a choreography for my solo at the Asheville Bellydance Festival gala. COME ON SARA. YOU CAN DO IT.
- Finish the synopsis of the novel and clean it up.
- Write a first draft of a query letter to send to agents.
- Promote my upcoming workshops and events.
- Start getting ready to move by cleaning and getting rid of stuff I don't use or need.

YEAH! GO TEAM SKB!

The aftermath of giving up

I was just looking through my old morning pages journal for 2009 to find material for my upcoming FLOW class when I came along this entry, dated August 19- four days after my twenty-fifth birthday. It's pretty amusing. Here it is, unedited.

I'm super jazzed because I just drank a ton of coffee. I guess this week I'm supposed to explore my childhood experiences with creativity. (This was an assignment from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.)
I remember when I was three, one day I was finger painting and it made me think I wanted to be a fashion designer. I'm not sure how I thought the two were connected, but the thought just occurred to me. (I think I had the idea that I could create patterns for fabric prints via fingerpainting.)
Later, when I was in the second grade or so, I remember we did a project in Art class where we created our own versions of famous paintings. I did a version of the Mona Lisa. It didn't really occur to me to think of it as special, but when the art teacher put all of our drawings out to hang in the hall, all of my friends commented on how good my drawing was. I felt very proud of that. That was the first time I really thought I had any talent for visual art.
For a very long time, all through elementary school and much of middle school, I focused on becoming a creative writer and a musician (playing the viola). Those were the things I thought I was really good at. I know I did dance classes as well but I don't think I thought of them as being a vehicle for creative expression-- I viewed them more as a sport instead.
Writing was probably the most important thing to me back then. I really wanted to become a novelist. In high school, both music and writing totally fell by the wayside as I began to focus more energy on drawing and painting. I don't think I ever made the choice consciously to stop writing, but I did actively decide to stop playing viola.
Now I feel like I probably have little to no facility as a musician or writer, and whatever skill I had in drawing and painting is quickly diminishing. Honestly I dread the thought of attempting to pick any of these pursuits up again. I feel like it would be mostly a waste of time because I think that my growth potential in these areas is really limited.
I guess I am not interested in the idea of continually producing mediocre work and never improving. To be fair, it's not like I have ever made any genuine attempt to improve my writing, so my idea that that pursuit would be futile is largely baseless.
I must admit that it is far more appealing for me to work on dance, where I can really see myself improving and I don't feel so stuck or limited.
I'm not as afraid of mediocrity as I am of stagnation.

This feeling of stagnation and continual mediocrity was the reason I stopped drawing on a regular basis. Despite consistent effort and practice, I never felt I was improving. Over time I grew more and more focused on the technical aspect of drawing-- to be specific, the accurate representation of human anatomy in figure drawing-- and less and less satisfied with my abilities as a technician. Eventually I became so discouraged with my lack of aptitude that I gave up the pursuit. I was twenty-ish when I made that decision.
I have tried several times to start drawing again, because I've started to really miss it, and I feel inspired by different things now as I was then. Unfortunately, drawing makes my neck injury flare up, just as most other crafts do at this point. I can't do it much at all any more.
Pain was the main reason I stopped playing viola as well.

Pain, sickness, frustration, self-doubt and feelings of total failure were all major factors that led me to start writing again. When I started down that path last April, I felt that my health issues were closing off all of my other creative options, including dance, or at least my dream of being a dance professional. Fumbling around in that bleak atmosphere for something creative I could do that wouldn't hurt, I happened upon writing, and by extension, the book.

It's painful to give up. Letting go of something you love is heartbreaking and often terrifying.
However, I believe that in certain situations, it can also be the only way to overcome creative and emotional blocks.

Here's another journal entry, from August 9, 2009.

Prior to finding dance I had spent the last few years feeling incompetent, unaccomplished and unworthy of attention for many years. However, as a small child, I always felt like I was special, talented, and worthy of the recognition of others. For years, as an adolescent, I missed that feeling terribly. Somehow I felt both responsible for its loss, figuring my general slacker attitude was to blame, but also helpless to change due to my inability to cope with my chronic disease, fibromyalgia. I worked hard to become a competent and respected artist, but I never felt like I accomplished that goal.
...Looking back, I remember that I was actually being praised and rewarded and even paid for my artwork, but it didn't seem to matter. Because I was constantly frustrated by my own lack of progress, I never took any of this recognition seriously. I didn't feel good about my work even when other people liked it.

And another, from August 12:

I feel like as long as I keep dancing, I'll still be the same person I am now at my core. I'm afraid that without that anchor I will start to wither emotionally. I am not even talking only about this happening at the twilight of my life-- I'm scared it could happen now if I let it. I think the thing is, at this point I feel like this is my life's work. Were I to stop I would feel like I was giving up and abandoning something crucial to my self.
...I don't know why my emotional attachment to this dance runs so deep. I guess part of it is that I feel like it's the only reason I'm not still totally crippled by my fibromyalgia. But I also know that I have always longed to be really good at something. I'll always feel like that moment is on the horizon with dance, and it's wonderful to always have that to hope for.
...I think my real goal is just to keep trying forever. To never let myself get comfortable or complacent. To always keep pushing myself to do more and do better.

And yet another, from August 13:

Why am I so afraid of giving up?
It makes me feel like a loser. I have the idea in my head that if I give up, I'll never accomplish anything important, thus be a loser. Also, I tend to feel like giving up negates the value of what you've accomplished in the past because the future potential is wasted. Wasted potential is one of the things I fear most.
I know you can't go through life without making decisions which prohibit you from achieving your potential in a certain area, and I accept that to some extent, although that idea still makes me a little upset.
...I think I've felt since I was young that I really could do anything as long as I really tried. This is almost certainly untrue, but I probably hold it as fact anyway. Thus, when I fail, I feel it is an indication not of my lack of ability but rather of my shortcomings as a human being.

So right now some of you are probably thinking "wow, she needs therapy", while others probably see themselves reflected in these words. My point in posting this stuff is not to elicit sympathy, but rather to demonstrate something no one ever told me when I got into the business of doing art, and that is: sometimes it makes sense to give up.

It's hard to know where to get your sense of self-worth from. Some people base it on their social lives, some base it on their work performance, some on their appearance or their participation in an organization or group.
Most of the artists I know tend to base it on their work-- and often, by extension, the commercial success or failure of their work, or the critical feedback they receive about their work, or both.
By last year I had learned that people are fickle and so is the market; you can't use either as an accurate barometer of the value of your work. So, instead, I had decided to associate my self-worth with how much I was progressing as a dancer, and by extension how hard I was working to progress.
The result was not fun, and it was not a good mental working environment. It was impossible for me to fully enjoy working with so much riding on the results. The pathways to creativity were blocked with too much baggage.
The spectre of my physical limitations loomed over everything I did. Instead of being mature about handling my limitiations, respecting my body and avoiding things that caused pain, I pushed myself as hard as I could in an effort to prove that I could overcome (or ignore) my chronic illness.
I'd devised a battle in my head, with me and my dance on one side and the fibromyalgia on the other.
The fibromyalgia won.

I don't imagine that your creative struggles are the same as mine, but still, most of us are at war with ourselves over something, placing one part of ourselves on the side of Good and the other part on the side of Evil. Some of these fights are worthwhile and reasonable (i.e. struggling against addiction) but many, like mine was, are pointless and self-defeating.

Here is my advice for self-flagellating artists like myself:

Give up.
More work is not better work.
There is nothing sacred about working yourself to death.
Your work is not you; your worth is not the worth of your work. You're worth infinitely more than anything you could ever accomplish or produce.
The things you hate about yourself could be fuel for your creative efforts if you learn how to work with them rather than against them.
None of us can do everything. We can't even do everything we're good at.
Don't be afraid to stop doing something, even creative work, when it stops making sense. The work will still be there; time doesn't diminish it.
Get used to asking yourself what makes sense for you and what doesn't; what you need and what you don't.
Look inside and figure out what you need to do and then do that-- and only that. Anything more will just get in the way.
Love yourself for who you'd be if you had to stop working tomorrow.

Lola

I had wanted my own dog for a long time, pretty much since I moved out of my parents' house, but I wanted to wait until I knew I could be a good dog parent before getting one. Last year I figured it was about time. My parents offered to pay the adoption fee at a shelter as a Christmas present. So, excited and nervous, I went out to find a shelter dog.

I decided I'd go to the Durham Animal Protection Society first. My husband had worked on their website at his previous job, which was full of charming-looking dogs. I was particularly interested in a middling-sized black shaggy dog who seemed like a sweet girl from her description. I went out to the shelter by myself; my husband was working and couldn't come with me. When I got there I was informed that the sweet-looking black shaggy dog had been adopted, but that I could look at the other dogs and see if there was anyone else I'd be interested in adopting. So I went into the dog area: a long cinder block hall of solitary holding pens, their floors slanted so that urine would flow to little canals to either side of the central walkway.

As soon as I went inside I felt the urge to cry. Some dogs barked at me, some came up to the bars and whined, some shivered in corners. They all looked confused and desperate to leave. The kennels all had placards with numbers on them, underneath which the dogs' names were posted along with a summary of their personality traits. I'd been instructed to remember the numbers for the dogs I wanted to meet one-on-one, so I started to make a list. It rapidly grew to an unreasonable size-- there was no time to meet with six, eight, twelve, all of the dogs. I had to pick three or four, even if that meant picking at random, which is what I did.

I went back out to the desk and told the volunteer which dogs I wanted to meet. They sent me to a visitation room where I met with four dogs. Two of them seemed afraid of me. One was desperate for every moment of my attention-- she'd just been abandoned at the shelter by her family due to someone's allergies. The fourth was adorable, a little timid, but smart and affectionate. She looked like Benji and knew several commands. She hid behind me when the man came to take her back to her kennel. Her name was Olivia.

I went back to the desk and said I was interested in adopting Olivia. I found out I couldn't start the adoption process on her because I was married and my husband wasn't there to cosign. I asked if there was any way to put a hold on her account so that my husband could come and meet her. I could have, but it would have prevented anyone else coming and adopting her in the meantime. I didn't want to take the chance that Dan wouldn't like her, so I decided not to put her account on hold.

I went out to my car and bawled my eyes out. Then I went home and cried myself to sleep in the mid-afternoon.

I returned with my husband, my sister and my mother two days later. I asked about Olivia at the front desk. She was gone; someone else had adopted her. I didn't really want to go back into the dog holding area, but we'd driven for forty-five minutes to get to the shelter so I made myself do it anyway. Most of the same dogs were still there, but a door at the end of the hallway that had been closed before was now open. Beyond it there was an area with smaller crates for puppies and small dogs. We went back to look, even though we didn't want a puppy or a small dog-- they're both far more likely to be adopted than larger adult dogs are.

There, alone in a kennel, was a little white dog with bug eyes, shivering and looking like the world was about to end. She was cute, but she looked kind of high-strung. Her papers said she was a Chihuahua mix and her name was Lola. Nothing was written down about her personality or whether or not she was housetrained. Her kennel number was P2.

The four of us went back out to the lobby and made a list by consensus. Dan and I weren't sure about the little white dog with the bug eyes, but my mom and sister wouldn't let us not see her.

I took our list up to the volunteer. She pulled the files out for the other three without comment, but when she got to P2's file, her face lit up.

"Oh, Lola," she said. "She's a sweetheart."

We met with four dogs. Two of them were pretty disinterested in us, didn't even respond to "hi doggie"; it seemed like they'd been strays for a long time. The third dog was a big black shepherd mix named Theodore who was heart-wrenchingly shy but still sweet. My husband eventually got Theo to let him give him a hug and we both started crying.

We'd pretty much decided that we were going to adopt Theo before they brought Lola in-- but then they brought Lola in. She looked over the volunteer's shoulder at us with her big black eyes, practically fluttering her little eyelashes. As soon as she got down on the floor she trotted over to each one of us in turn, leaning all ten pounds of her body weight against our legs and gazing up at us with gentle affection. She had a cold; she wheezed every time she exhaled. When she got around to saying hi to me, she sneezed dog snot all over my hand.

She didn't really know any commands, but she knew her name. When we decided to see what would happen if we stopped paying attention to her, she curled up in my sister's coat and started to fall asleep.

I was in love. We were all in love. Despite wanting to help Theo, I knew there was no way I could leave little Lola at the shelter, even though I was positive someone else would adopt her. No-- probably because I was positive someone else would adopt her, and I wanted her to be mine.

I went up to the desk and asked them what they could tell us about Lola. She was sweet, and she'd been a stray-- that's all they knew. Was she housetrained? Did she like kids or cats? No one knew. I asked to start the adoption process anyway. I didn't care if she peed all over my apartment. They said there was one complication: someone had shown up last week and tried to claim Lola, but they weren't able to prove that she belonged to them-- no vet records, no vaccines, nothing. They could start the adoption process for us, but they couldn't guarantee that these people wouldn't come back with proof.

I spent the next eight days-- and that's how long it took-- in agony. I went on their website every hour to check on Lola's adoption status. At first she wasn't even on the website; then she was on the website as an adoptable dog-- but she was MY dog!-- and then she was on the website as adoption pending. I called them at least five times to check on our status, and I went to bed nervous every night.

On January 7 we got a call letting us know that Lola would be ready to pick up the following day. On January 8 my entire family went out to pick her up. She seemed excited and happy on the way home, and really perked up when we turned in to our neighborhood. When we got her in to the apartment, she made a beeline for her dog bed and curled up inside.

At first she didn't eat much. She didn't really want to play, either; she was afraid of the squeaking noise her toys made. In fact, she didn't seem to know what toys were. At one point she carried them all very delicately to her dog bed and laid down on top of them as if they were puppies. She was mostly interested in finding the softest location in the vicinity and falling asleep. She never barked. But she was housebroken, and she started to respond to "sit" and "stay" when she felt like it. I was sad that she wasn't more outgoing, but she was sweet and well-behaved and very easy to care for, so I figured I couldn't ask for more.

She came out of her shell bit by bit with every passing week. We found out that she did like to play-- she just didn't know how to play with toys. She was, however, a big fan of play-biting our hands, growling and acting tough, and then running laps around the living room. She got more and more affectionate, and wanted to spend more time on our laps or burrowed next to us. We taught her how to play fetch and tug, and she started chewing on her bones and eating way more than enough food for a ten-pound animal, as well as things that may not exactly qualify as food.

We found out that she loves beer (we don't let her drink any, but she tries to go for ours whenever she gets the opportunity), she has bad back legs, and there is nothing in the universe that is sweeter than she is.

Today is our one-year anniversary. I know Lola understands what we did for her-- I can see she understands, in her sweet little buggy eyes-- but I'm not sure she understands how much she's done for us.







According to the ASPCA, two thirds of adoptable shelter dogs are unnecessarily euthanized every year.

The APS has a wonderful article about why to adopt a shelter dog. Shelter dogs are every bit as good as any dog that you could purchase from a breeder-- and there are millions out there that need your help.

If you are looking for a dog, please don't buy one from a breeder. Adopt one from a shelter or a rescue organization instead. There is one out there that you need as much as they need you.


P.S. Theo was adopted the same week as Lola. I hope he's with a family with a nice big yard.

Dreams for the future

Image from A Journey Round My Skull.

I am typically the kind of person who sets goals (e.g. tasks I can complete through hard work and perseverance) rather than dreams (which I tend to view as asking the universe for favors). I don't consider myself a pessimist, nor an optimist. I prefer to avoid thinking about what the world will churn out in the future, instead focusing on the small list of things I can directly affect. I believe that good things can happen to me and mine, yet I operate under the assumption that if I'm not making them happen, they probably won't.
Just like everyone, I have things I wish for in secret, little miracles and such, but I don't spend much time contemplating them-- maybe out of fear that, should they never come to pass, I'll feel a greater sense of loss or regret for having paid them any attention.

As I grow older I'm beginning to realize the flaws in my way of thinking. I wonder if my unsentimental pragmatism wasn't part of the reason my recent attempt to make my way in the world as a professional bellydancer was such a disaster. Looking back, I realize I started out with the assumption that I would most likely fail, which was no way to go about pursuing something so unorthodox.
Perhaps if I'd spent some time indulging in some fantastic vision of how it all could go, I would have had a better idea of what I wanted out of the experience. Maybe I would have had a fire underneath me that would have propelled me to work harder and to think of elegant solutions to my everyday problems.
Maybe I would have failed anyway. Who can say? Either way, my pragmatism couldn't save that endeavor. I learned a lot from what happened and I don't feel bitter about it, but I can't help but wonder how things might have gone if my outlook had been different.

I think it might be time to admit to myself what I'm wishing for, to say it out loud and make the risk of hoping. I feel nervous about writing any of this down, but maybe it'll get easier as I go. What do I really have to lose?

So.
In 2011:

I want to find a job that allows me to support myself without draining all my energy. The lower stress the better, with a steady paycheck (it doesn't have to be big).

I want to start selling out at least one of my Saturday classes. Max capacity at the studio where I teach is 12-13 students.

I want my health to continue improving.

I want to have at least one of my short stories published in an anthology, magazine, or online publication and get paid for it.

I want my family's dance studio to be a financial success.

and most of all

I want to find an agent who's excited about representing my novel.

Goals for November

Well, I didn't even post any goals for October. Perhaps I somehow knew that I would get next to nothing done? All right-- to be fair, I've been working on responsible, "real life", adult kinds of things, like trying to find a job and getting my passport renewed (which was a three week long saga of intrigue and horror).
Note: I did manage to choreograph a new solo and rewrite chapter one of my novel, so I can't say I accomplished nothing in October. I also read my new favorite vampire novel (Let The Right One In, OMG OMG OMGOMGOMG so good so good) while on a return flight from England.
In any case, I've resolved that while continuing to try to be responsible and turn my Hindenberg-esque life around, I'm also going to accomplish some creative goals in November. I will just have to stop having leisure time altogether. That's okay, right??

Here are my creative goals for November:
-Finish third drafts for 1/3 of the remaining chapters of the novel.
-Keep practicing new solo choreographies and work on solo improv.
-Do more dance-related strength training.
-Work on promoting my new classes at World in Motion.
-Update my website. (this is a big one.)
-Start working on the Christmas present situation. (I always give handmade presents to my family and friends, usually because I am totally broke, and every year it is a huge time investment.)
-Make some more costuming items to sell.

And here's my responsible adult goal:
-Apply to a million jobs.

News from the Sara zone

Life got real, you guys.
My husband's car needs an engine replacement. We don't have the money to fix it, nor do we have the money to buy a new car. Since we both need a car to get to work, I've been driving him to work and picking him up every day. This wouldn't be so bad, but he works 45 minutes from where we live, in the opposite direction from my work. As a result, I've put myself on a No Procrastination Campaign because I have Not A Lot of Free Time Anymore. I am also on financial lockdown, defcon 5, in which I buy nothing that I don't immediately need, sell anything I can that I no longer use.
Fffffffffff.
I tried to start doing a second pass at editing the first chapter of my book and decided that I hate the first chapter. All of it. So, now, I am rewriting the first chapter. All of it. I hope I won't feel compelled to do this with all of the book at some juncture or another, but I feel that it's necessary for the first chapter. I'm having fun with the rewrite, so that's good, at least.
I also got into playing Minecraft since my last post, perhaps as a way to escape my car-related worries. It combines pretty much everything I could ever want in a videogame into one thoroughly addictive package. However, even when I play it on the lowest graphical settings possible, it overheats my computer on a regular basis. When this happens, everything I've done in a given game will get corrupted. So I've resolved to quit. I should probably feel lucky; it was devouring my brain like a zombie, but not one that lights on fire and dies during daylight hours. I'm not sure if I would have had the willpower to stop if it hadn't been actively destroying my computer.
Oh well. You gives some, you takes some.