tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10177209185165072282024-03-17T21:03:57.003-06:00The Edge Of The DreamSarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.comBlogger694125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-12225756522063159282024-02-04T19:30:00.003-07:002024-02-05T10:03:13.375-07:00Set Apart - The Silverwind Album Nobody Talks About<div style="text-align: left;"><i>21 June 2021, 12.39pm</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Today I'm going to show a little love to the bastard Silverwind album.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'll be honest... I <i>hated</i> this album when I first heard it. <i>Hated</i> it. I had been a Silverwind fangirl for several years by that point, and fourteen-year-old me wanted nothing more than to be the next Betsy Hernandez. Her voice is still my favourite female voice ever, in any genre, bar none.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When I plunked <i>Set Apart</i> (1986) onto the turntable and heard thick alto harmonies coming through the speakers, I felt betrayed. It was like I'd been punched in the gut. It took me over five years to realise that actually, the hyped-up '80s tracks and the sweet, calming harmonies that balanced them were really quite good. Had the voice been Betsy Hernandez's, this would have instantly become my favourite album of all time, but the shock of the very different voices made this album a slow burner. And, from what I can gather online in all my music-nerd groups, I was not the only one who felt this way.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Certainly, the trio that replaced Hernandez, Banov, and Gramling were very talented singers who blended beautifully, but the change in sound was so sudden and drastic that it was hard to look past the change to the album itself, or even the strengths of the singers that replaced the original three. It's no surprise that despite the beauty of the songwriting, the harmonies, and the instrumentation, this was the last album to bear the Silverwind name -- the change was simply too great to overcome in one album, and in the music business, one album is all it takes to sink you as a recording act. The producers tried to soften the blow by having Betsy Hernandez sing guest vocals on two of the songs, but it was too little, too late.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And yet... this album is a banger. It was ahead of its time while keeping one foot firmly planted in the gentle Maranatha keyboard/string machine sound a CCM audience would be looking for. In fact, the production and arranging was so cutting edge for the time that if you were to play me this album for the first time with no background information and ask me what year it was from, I would guess 1989. The saxophone sounds, the woodwind-esque keyboards, the synth stings, the occasional squarewave bass, the very electric guitar -- all these were motifs that were not yet mainstream in 1986. The opening track (<i>I'm Forever Yours</i>) may have the biggest drums in CCM this side of Mylon LeFevre and Broken Heart's <i>Crack The Sky</i>. In fact, the drums are a huge part of the entire record -- even the mellow songs. Just listen to <i>Heart Of Love</i> and tell me you can't see that song in front of a live audience of thousands having the absolute time of their lives.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Lyrically, this is still very much a Silverwind album. Simple, honest lyrics of childlike wonder and heartfelt praise still abound here. Most of the songs were still written by the Hernandez and Hernandez husband/wife team -- in fact the clarity and quality of the lyrics here takes a marked leap. This album is full of striking lyrical gems, such as <i>But once you've seen the sun, there isn't anyone / Who is able to persuade you it's not there</i>... (<i>I Believe In You</i>), or <i> No manufactured fake or forgery / No counterfeit could make a fool of me / I've found a love so real / A power I can feel</i>... (<i>Heart Of Love</i> -- this bit is just so fun to sing), or <i>God's heart was broken to make me my own</i>... (<i>Crystal Heart</i>) or <i>They say you're wise as you grow older / But all I know is I've grown colder</i>... (<i>First Love</i>).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As to the quality of the voices -- the harmonies are still catchy and dare I say addicting. They're just <i>different</i>, and once you get past that, they're truly enjoyable. Silverwind has often been called the 'Christian ABBA' due to the soaring harmonies, and that nickname is still relevant even with the personnel change. Even this is actually a step up from the previous album, <i>By His Spirit</i>. <i>BHS</i> relied heavily on Hernandez, with the other two members singing lead on only one song each (though to be fair, who wouldn't give in to the temptation to feature such an angelic voice so much?). In <i>Set Apart</i>, vocal duties are pretty much divided equally between the women, even within individual songs, and one hears some lovely male solos on Side B (<i>First Love</i> is a beautifully emotional performance). Older Silverwind relegated the harmonies largely to choruses, but <i>Set Apart</i> Silverwind used them everywhere, and it made their swan song truly shine. If you hold out through the initial style shock until the penultimate track (<i>I Believe In You</i>), you'll be rewarded with a strong and powerfully-sung glimpse of classic Silverwind.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It was really context that sunk this album. If it hadn't been released under the Silverwind name, with all of the sonic and vocal expectations that came with that name, I daresay this album would have blown up. This was the most rocking female-led album in mainstream CCM at the time (Leslie Phillips' magnum opus <i>The Turning</i> was not yet released, and Margaret Becker wouldn't make her debut for another year), and definitely the hardest-hitting worship record to date (Petra's <i>Petra Praise... The Rock Cries Out</i> was still three years away). Yet it remains the only album of Silverwind's catalogue that has never seen a CD release and consistently gets either hated on or not mentioned at all among fans of the group.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's really a shame that this record didn't have a better chance at life. It's a really strong album in almost every respect, and I'm glad I stuck with it long enough to see that. I encourage you to do the same.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">You can listen to it on YouTube <a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu9aHWuvd5uLLnEaPsdGeiYT_KGk7_C5&si=0Z61BtTjv08IkTdd">here</a>.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-44895767556229105652024-01-22T21:58:00.005-07:002024-01-22T21:58:41.453-07:00Brain Dump/Goal Update<div style="text-align: left;">Really lacking motivation, as usual. I keep trying to power through it, but I'm running out of reasons why I <i>should</i> be powering through. I'm trying to tell myself it's because I've been sick all month (had COVID immediately after Christmas, and now have long COVID symptoms so yay for that), but I know that I wouldn't be any more motivated if I wasn't sick. How on earth did I ever manage to focus long enough to get a Bachelor's degree?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So I thought I'd write a blog post, since nothing else is working. Maybe blogging about my problems will help me find the solution.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There's a scriptwriting contest nearby that closes on the 30th, and I'm trying to write something for it, if only to get my name out there (but hey, getting it produced would be a nice bonus). I came up with a theme, but it's supposed to be a one-act play. I've never even <i>watched</i> a one-act play in all my years of theatre, let alone written one. When you Google what a one-act play consists of, you get WILDLY different answers. Like literal opposite-ends-of-the-spectrum answers. So I just picked one and am hoping it's right. Self-doubt is not a great companion to have in a situation like this. I have no real pretensions of winning but -- man, wouldn't it be great if I did? It would look amazing in my portfolio.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I wanted to be writing articles and getting to a point where I would write an article draft one day and then editing older ones the next and repeat. I haven't written (or edited) a single thing in at least two weeks, despite really only working half-days due to ALL of the health issues. I just have absolutely no motivation and absolutely no ideas. How do I think I'm going to do this full-time when <i>this</i> happens all the time? It's so frustrating. I'm the only person in this household able-bodied enough to work (or at least I was before my back injury in September), and that's slipping away from me fast. I have always wanted to be self-employed and here's my chance and I'm just... doing nothing. I'm so frustrated with myself. Everyone else can do this. Why can't I? I know, I know, it's the ADHD. But that makes it worse. This only reinforces the idea that I am a dysfunctional human being and I'm too broken to bother being fixed. It's hard to want to try when you just feel so broken and forgotten.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I've submitted two pieces -- one to a magazine, and one to a flash fiction publication -- and haven't heard anything back. The magazine said it could be 9-12 months (yes, months), and the flash fiction should be announced in the next week or two. I have a half-decent draft I wanted to send to an online culture publisher, but I can't seem to pull the trigger on it. I'm so terrified they'll think my idea is stupid.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I have a vague idea of what needs to happen in <i>Kyrie</i> to fix the very-bad pacing issues in Act I, but I haven't figured out how to actually implement that... it's just a vague idea in my head at this point, but to actually write it into scenes? Pffft. No clue. No idea what those scenes would look like.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I've done some fine art -- mostly pencil crayon, actually, and I've almost finished a piece in marker. Those are fun and they've turned out decent. My main problem here is lack of ideas. I usually think in words (writer) and feelings (dancer), not easily-drawable images. The images I <i>do</i> think of are WAY above my skill level and I know it would just be an exercise in frustration to even try.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I haven't even <i>touched</i> dance. Not one dance thing. I want to make a trailer for <i>Sottovoce</i> so I can submit it to MDFF, but I just... can't, somehow. I want to type up the choreography so far for my (hopefully) next tap dance film to see where I'm at and what's left to choreograph, but again, I just... can't. I'm afraid I'll struggle with memorizing as much as I did with <i>Inside Of You</i> -- it turned out all right, but I've GOT to stop going into filming knowing literally none of the choreography. It just makes shooting take a thousand times longer and it makes editing so much harder than it needs to be. I dread starting memorization. I really do. I think me not typing up this choreography is me trying to avoid starting memorization -- which, of course, will make the problem even worse because then I'll have less time to memorise. I know this. I've always known this. But I can't seem to just DO it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The one goal I've actually made a good start on is the reading. I've finished one book and read another cover-to-cover last night (it was a beta read, actually, and it was SO good. Will probably be talking about that book here a good bit when it's released -- the author accidentally hit all my special interests and it was really well-crafted).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Rehearsals for my show are going well so far. The cast seem friendly, but it's hard for this broken human to initiate conversations with them. They're a good group, and there's always laughter at rehearsal. It's also really nice to go on long drives again (it's a forty-minute drive one way -- about what I used to do four days a week for dance before I got married).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I still don't have any motivation or ideas (well, maybe one, but it's a baby idea and it needs to incubate a little bit), but it did feel nice to actually type for a while and have my thoughts organized like this.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If you've made it this far, thanks for reading.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-6784523245293401222023-12-31T22:40:00.000-07:002023-12-31T22:40:04.815-07:00The Annual GoalpostI love and hate making these posts.<div><br /></div><div>On one hand, I love dreaming up all the possibilities. But on the other hand, I hate trying to guess what kind of goals are reasonable and what aren't. After probably close to seven years of making these annual posts, I still feel that I don't know what I'm doing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, here goes. It might look a little different this year.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>- At least two new dance films.</div><div>I think I know which two. I just have to DO them (this includes memorising!).</div><div><br /></div><div>- Create a long-ish (15+ minute) dance show.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Audition for three shows.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Make a plan of attack to rewrite <i>Kyrie</i> again.</div><div>First step is to reread the thing and make lots of notes. I already know Act I has severe pacing issues. I might try adding a subplot or something... I'm actually not quite sure how to fix it.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Start pitching to magazines.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Write at least four articles/stories a week.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Enter a writing contest.</div><div><br /></div><div>- At least one date night every two weeks.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Read more (soft goal of nine books in 2024).</div><div><br /></div><div>- More watercolour painting. I am deliberately not putting a number here.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Sustainably cut back hours at the day job.</div><div>I am so burnt out with my current job it is not even funny. The management has been restructured, and now the workplace culture is so bad that I would literally rather die than work one more day there. I'm also not making nearly enough money there to cover our living expenses so every day I work there I feel I get farther behind. I'm really trying to grow my dance/writing network so maybe I can at least freelance enough to cut my hours at my current job even if I can't quit outright.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Save $1000 for a house.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>STRETCH GOALS:</div><div><br /></div><div>- Apply for at least one festival (ideally with above longer dance show).</div><div><br /></div><div>- Take at least three dance classes (or courses of some kind).</div><div><br /></div><div>- Crochet myself a sweater.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Make a third dance film.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This year's list is deliberately much shorter than previous years. It turns out it's just not possible to sustain the kind of creative output I was expecting from myself while also holding down an extremely emotionally draining full time job <i>and</i> being married.</div><div><br /></div><div>The other thing is, the projects I'm undertaking now are a step up from the things I used to do. Ten years ago I was building a portfolio. I was making dances and honing my creative voice on small projects. But now I'm building on that experience to make bigger things. My goals used to be 'choreograph X amount of dances' -- small things that I could easily knock out in a week if I wanted to. But now the goals are more like 'make two dance films.' And learning, shooting, and editing a dance film is a lot more time-intensive than simply choreographing one on paper. <i>Sottovoce</i> took me 58 days -- nearly two months (granted, I am including the choreography time in this), and that was very much a speedrun. <i>Inside Of You</i> -- a much shorter and smaller-scale piece -- was still a solid month of editing even though I only filmed for an hour, and I'm not even counting the astronomical amount of time it takes me to memorise a dance piece nowadays. I'm looking to take some serious steps in this coming year -- bigger, more time-intensive steps, and those take up less space on the page.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is exactly what I've spent the last ten years or so working towards. Last year I took some big steps. This year I'm looking to build on those steps and take bigger ones.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-64457495135600289362023-12-14T17:08:00.001-07:002023-12-14T17:08:12.935-07:00TiredI'm tired of being a failure.<div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of being broken.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of everything I do being wrong.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of being yelled at.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of being told I don't know how to do anything.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of waking up in the morning.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of the same old, same old.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of having nothing left to give.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of looking into my future and seeing only pain.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of trying solutions and having them fail -- often spectacularly.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of trying to find purpose and meaning.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of trying to find a reason to fight for anything.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of losing those who are supposed to love me.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of being somehow simultaneously 'too much' and 'too little.'</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of crying.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of trying.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired FROM trying.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of being broken.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of being the black sheep</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of having nowhere to put this pain.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of scrimping and scraping for every penny.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of fighting.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of having my 'friends' abandon me.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of not being able to afford to get the help I need.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of having to be strong all the time.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm tired of living.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-85240964248082934022023-12-10T10:34:00.002-07:002023-12-10T10:34:10.879-07:00A Search for Fulfilling Work<div style="text-align: left;">I'm still job-hunting and every day at my current job kills my soul a little bit more. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. I'm in limbo as far as my training for the next 'level' in the company, so to speak, and even though it comes with a slight (very slight) pay raise, I feel no excitement for it. I'm really just doing it for the money, and I need more than just money to feel that my job -- that my <i>time</i> -- is worth it. I'm not feeling fulfilled at all, and the rush I used to get in making X amount of drinks or burgers in a certain timeframe just isn't doing it for me anymore. The thrill of accomplishment is wearing off, especially now that I'm being more consistent with finishing dance films and I have <i>Kyrie</i> fully rewritten. Those are huge, complex, creative, challenging projects, and burgers are just... burgers.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">However, I currently live in a tiny town with no real, fulfilling jobs. I've been applying for remote online 'virtual assistant' and copywriting jobs, but so far I'm striking out.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I've been looking into being a freelance writer more seriously. Until recently, I've been so overwhelmed by even the idea of looking it up that I haven't even Googled it. But I'm started to do some research, and... it actually looks pretty fun. Even some of the lower-end pay rates I've seen would pay many times more per week than my current job. It would definitely be enough to cut my hours at least, if I can get some consistent work. I'm testing out how consistently I can generate ideas and write articles through the month of December, and in the early part of next year my plan is to start actually pitching.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Freelance writing would be the ultimate dream... to wake up at a decent hour of the morning, sit in front of my computer and type for a few hours while listening to fun music, then spend the rest of the day spending time with my husband or working on dance projects. If I'm able to land a dance teaching gig, so much the better -- that's more consistent, something I actually am passionate about, and doesn't require me to get up at 6am and walk to work in the freezing cold and stand on an awful concrete floor all day with managers treating me like I don't know how to do my job and then go to bed at some boring early hour just to do it all over again. And again. And again.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's not even like I would slave over the computer all day. I can totally put out an 800-1k word article in a half hour and edit it in a day or so. Fifteen years of NaNoWriMo and a five-year college degree have trained me well on that point. I would love my work a lot more, I would be far less tired, and maybe our marriage would improve with the additional time and energy I would have for my husband because it's not being drained out of me at a soulless job that demands so much but has nothing to offer.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Time is precious. I don't want to spend my precious time making burgers that people eat in ten minutes and forget about. I want to spend as much of my time feeling fulfilled as I possibly can. For me, that means writing about things -- helping readers make sense of the world. That means dancing -- the only way I have found any modicum of true peace. That means making crochet projects and paintings -- things that make our world and the worlds of my loved ones just a little bit brighter. Thirty-two hours a week at a job where you're just a cog in a machine is too much time out of such a short life. I could be doing so much with that time and I'm just standing there asking people what they want in their coffee. There's got to be more to life than that. I know there is... I've seen it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The arts impact people. People carry art with them for the rest of their lives. I want to be a part of that.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-56410128366641265252023-11-26T11:01:00.002-07:002023-11-30T17:28:37.933-07:00NaNoWriMo, Day 26 - An AnnouncementI'm into the final 7k of what may be my final NaNoWriMo event. At least for a while.<div><br /></div><div>It's been a solid run. I've written twenty novels out of this contest since 2008. Only a few of them are really beyond redemption (or at least would take more work than I'm willing to put in). <i>Kyrie</i> (2014) is obviously my favourite, but there are definitely others I will be revisiting when <i>Kyrie</i> is closer to true completion.</div><div><br /></div><div>This farewell to NaNoWriMo would not be complete without a huge nod to Chris Baty, the founder, and his book <i>No Plot? No Problem!</i> which I borrowed from the library at age 14 -- not knowing it would change my life forever.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Chris Baty made writing accessible for those of us with ADHD. He made writing seem like madcap fun, not a tedious chore. He made it exciting. He gave it a deadline (and you know how great deadlines are for ADHDers). He made it a social activity.</div><div><br /></div><div>Chris Baty revolutionised what writing was. He unlocked the gate of writing so the ADHDers, with all our whimsy and colour and verve, could have a seat at the table too. He gave writing ADHDers a voice. And I am so grateful for that. Without that zany book, and without that deadline, I would never have written anything. I would still be spinning my wheels, wondering what could have been if I had only managed to try writing just once.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Don't get me wrong, I'm not quitting writing altogether. I intend to rewrite <i>Kyrie</i> again starting in 2024. As mentioned above, there are other drafts lined up for once <i>Kyrie</i> is 'done.' I am so excited to actually work towards publication for some of these stories. I still intend to write blog posts and maybe the odd short story.</div><div><br /></div><div>Maybe in a few years I'll revisit the possibility of NaNoWriMo. But I'll be taking an indefinite, likely multi-year, hiatus. Up till now, the only years I sat out were 2017 and 2020. But my job, my marriage, and my mental health have all suffered during the past few Novembers and I have decided it's time to recharge. The annual hit to my marriage especially is just not worth it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Is it sad? Definitely. I loved this event and the madcap fun it brought into my life. I loved writing alongside M and then writing to keep her memory alive. But as much as I love M and will never forget her, 'keeping her memory alive' can't be the only reason to subject my marriage to this substantial strain every year. I have other art pieces dedicated to her that accomplish the same thing. And NaNoWriMo just isn't the same without her actually in it. Every year since her death has been a huge struggle, and I think at this point, five years later, I have to accept that NaNoWriMo will never again be the same amount of fun. Time does not heal all wounds. Not completely.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the time being, I think I have gotten what I need to get out of this event. Maybe one day I'll return. Maybe I never will.</div><div><br /></div><div>But for now, I will try to savour these last 7k as much as I can.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-6528893648599352432023-11-18T16:02:00.000-07:002023-11-18T16:02:39.097-07:00NaNoWriMo, Day 18<div style="text-align: left;">I am struggling HARD this year.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm exactly at par right now. I'm getting hundreds -- not thousands -- of words done on work days, and have written maybe five words today -- my day off. I had hoped to write 3k today, but I just don't have the mental energy.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I keep going back to LinkedIn, looking for jobs, looking for connections, looking for <i>anything</i> that will get me out of this hellhole job that I'm currently trapped in. This is quite literally eating my life. My marriage is failing and I am almost convinced it's work stress that's making me an ineffective marriage partner.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On top of that, somebody tipped off the NaNoWriMo Board about the moderation drama that's been going on all year THIS month, of all months, and got all the forums shut down for all users during the LITERAL ANNUAL EVENT THAT THE FORUMS ARE THERE FOR. I've never been a huge forum presence, but I have a couple threads that I'm active in and not having the forums there for support and encouragement has almost killed my writerly will to live. I understand why they did it, I do. Moderation is, apparently, a dumpster fire (I have not witnessed any of this, but I've been hearing others complain about it all year) so in order to 'suspend' mod activities and sort out the allegations, they had to also suspend the forums lest it become the Wild West. But in an already-difficult time in my life where I am feeling extremely unsupported and unheard both personally and professionally, this is the straw that has broken this camel's back. Even if everything is sorted out, I really don't know if I will do NaNoWriMo next year. I understand the Board is doing their best and I do appreciate their efforts to sort it out and make it right as best they can but I'm just done having all my support systems taken away from me and this has left a really bad taste in my mouth. NaNoWriMo made me a writer and for that I will always be grateful. I have nothing bad to say about the event. But I don't know if I have the strength to put myself through this again, and that breaks my heart. I loved this place. But I feel it didn't love us back.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm so tired. I've had a headache for *checks notes* eighteen days now.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Even my story feels dead. I guess it matches my soul right now. I loved the concept of it, but I'm struggling with execution, as I did with last year's story. Both years I've had amazing ideas that I really loved, but was completely bored of the story as I wrote it. I don't remember feeling this before with any of the previous eighteen NaNo-related works I've written.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Is it a sign that I need to pause writing rough drafts and focus on editing these into actual published works? Maybe. I have easily five drafts that are very workable candidates for eventual publication. But I do want to finish this one. Only 20k left to go. It's still very doable, but only if work and marriage stress don't drown me first.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I hate that this is the NaNoWriMo experience I'm having. Even before the forum shutdown, I was struggling mightily. I'm so tired. I'm so done. Even with an outline, I can't seem to get from point A to point B. I honestly wonder if I would have been better off not making an outline at all. It's not stifling me, per se... I think the outline itself is just not interesting enough to me at the moment, especially with everything else draining me of hope. Writing used to be a welcome escape for me, but it's not working anymore. And that hurts a lot.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-24932265928744823532023-11-12T19:03:00.001-07:002023-11-12T19:03:10.516-07:00NaNoWriMo, Day 12I have never been so prepared for NaNoWriMo.<div><br /></div><div>I actually outlined this year. I used to mentally lock up at the mere mention of an outline, but the fact that I finished a full rewrite of <i>Kyrie</i> in large part due to an outline has made me rethink my process a little bit.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mind you, I haven't done a full outline. I only plotted about three-quarters of the way, and I'm okay with that. I don't want to know where <i>exactly</i> this is going to end up, but since I have so little writing time nowadays, I'm finding I need to have a clear idea of what's coming next every day so I'm not just wasting hours filibustering. Don't get me wrong, I liked the filibustering -- that's part of the fun -- but between the full-time job, hunting for a job that will pay me a living wage/not demonize me for being injured and in severe pain, trying to keep ahead of my husband's multiple health issues, and trying to not ruin our marriage by being so burnt out by work, I simply do not have time to filibuster now. (That's also why I don't post here as much. I want to, but I'm so burnt out by work that half the time I come home and literally stare at the wall for hours, trying to even begin to recover.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Day 1 started out surprisingly well. I managed to rack up 2,252 words, the overwhelming majority of them on Lila, my Neo (the second iteration) while waiting for supper to cook.</div><div><br /></div><div>Day 2 started rough (overslept and also spent almost 45 minutes on hold with Amazon customer service because they screwed up my order), but managed to make up the word count in the evening.</div><div><br /></div><div>Day 3 was the first time (of many) I struggled to make the word count. There's definitely a logistical flaw in my story, and I'm still partly in revision mode from the <i>Kyrie</i> rewrite so it was hard to me to let it go and continue the story without solving the problem.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, I did rediscover Margaret Becker's music and have been playing the <i>heck</i> out of it. Every song is a straight up banger and I feel like I can conquer the universe after listening to this stuff. How have I not fangirled over her work before? Now I understand why my mother had her music on repeat all the time when I was a kid.</div><div><br /></div><div>Week 2 was basically a write-off (not in a good way). More marital problems (it seems these always crop up whenever I'm trying to do something creative), and work problems conspired to make this week one of the worst NaNoWriMo weeks I have EVER experienced. I say this as a fourteen-year veteran of the sport with nearly 20 NaNoWriMo-born rough drafts in my folders. There were several days that I didn't even make 1,000 words, and I don't think I have EVER done that during NaNoWriMo before.</div><div><br /></div><div>After one of the worst writing weeks in my entire writing life, I decided that since the work problems are likely to continue (they are mostly management related and not likely to improve anytime soon) and marital problems happen at the most inopportune times, I would build up a massive lead this weekend. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's going well so far. Day 11 (yesterday), I racked up 4,187 words, bringing the novel's total to 22,006. So far today I've gotten to 25,128 words and might poke at it a bit more tonight. I do have tomorrow off as well, but we've got some errands to run so the numbers may not be as big. But I want to get as close to 30k as possible before I go back to work on Tuesday.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not feeling the story yet, but I've had a couple of small bursts of inspiration and the outline has definitely helped a lot. I've had to remind myself that exposition is okay right now (there was a metric ton of exposition in <i>Kyrie</i>, and I've spent the better part of two years trying to convert those long swaths of many-weeks-compressed-into-two-paragraphs into actual scenes with motives and tensions and resolutions and foreshadowing -- but all of that takes days, if not weeks, at a time).</div><div><br /></div><div>Lila has been <i>indispensable</i> this year. I'm pretty sure this is the most I've worked with Lila since before I went to college. Even at home, I've been using her to write, and of course she comes to work for writing on my break (I usually manage about 300 words or so on break, which is 300 words less that I have to write after work when I'm so angry and frustrated at my job that I'm literally crying).</div><div><br /></div><div>TL;DR: Still not fully 'into' my story, work sucks and is <i>profoundly</i> affecting my writing (more than college ever did), but I'm spending this weekend building a word count cushion, Lila is awesome, and I love Margaret Becker.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-62868404734965064492023-10-29T15:02:00.002-06:002023-10-29T15:02:26.700-06:00Dance Film, Part 3<div style="text-align: left;">The dance film is done!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm most proud of this one so far. This is the first film I've made that actually looked as good as I pictured it in my head while planning. There are definitely some things I would have liked to do differently (like have the thing properly memorised, and have an extra camera or two for B-roll), but I am also completely content with how this one turned out. It's beautiful to look at and fun to listen to. I think this is one of the first times I feel that I've properly showcased who I am as a choreographer and as a dancer.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This is also the first time I've worked with a separate audio track rather than using the in-camera audio -- well, that's not <i>entirely</i> true, as the audio I used is from my B-roll camera. It was positioned closer to both the taps and the music source so both were louder and the sync was better. I've also noticed that my iPhone 13 Pro (now my primary filming camera) is REALLY LOUD. At first I thought it was interference from my tripod light, but even when I don't use the light, it still makes this loud white noise in the background. The sound from the taps was also extremely dead on this camera -- much more resonant on the B-roll (probably because I had an umbrella behind the B-roll camera shielding it from the drizzle).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So I split the audio track off the B-roll and synced it up with my edits as I went. I'm comfortable with sound editing from years of converting my dad's records on Audacity (and from designing the sound cues for <i>Sottovoce</i>), and I think that actually helped me slog through the hour of footage that I shot for a four-minute dance film.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's a simple, fun piece, and I think the choreography, the location, and the editing all manage to support that. This isn't big or flashy, and I like that. <i>I'm</i> not a big, flashy person. I feel this piece is the closest I've gotten to displaying my heart and soul on 'stage.' I don't expect this to make me viral or put me on the map or anything, but it's definitely my personal favourite.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Watch it <a href="https://youtu.be/vQfz8gL1340">here</a>.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-89667829705837302982023-10-06T14:21:00.000-06:002023-10-06T14:21:00.602-06:00NaNoWriMo TeaserI had almost decided not to do NaNoWriMo this year. Not because I had a bad experience or anything, but because I'm so weary. I'm tired of fighting for <i>every</i> scrap of creative time and energy. I've accomplished such big creative things in the past year and a half or so, but I still feel disconnected from the act of creating. I don't get to sit and enjoy it for hours on end like I used to. I have to sneak it in behind closed doors and on work breaks, only seconds at a time, maybe ten minutes if I'm lucky. I don't get to lean into it and really explore the way I used to. And I guess to me, that was the part I liked most. Finishing projects is great and all, but I loved the process of sitting down and just disappearing into another world for hours and then emerging with something tangible.<div><br /></div><div>Somewhere along the line I decided to leverage that weariness.</div><div><br /></div><div>So I'm writing essentially an autobiography set in a video game world. All the bosses are the people and situations that broke me.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, I have no idea how it ends, since I'm still in the middle of three boss battles simultaneously.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-78008758676083672512023-10-05T15:04:00.001-06:002023-10-05T15:04:24.792-06:00Dance Film? Part 2<div style="text-align: left;">I filmed the thing. A casual perusal of the footage looks good, though I haven't checked the sound. But at this point, what I have is what I have and I'm going to have to work with it. If I absolutely have to, I can rent the studio for an hour and record an overdub (though I'd rather not).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm glad I did it. Once I actually got going, I was at peace. Peace is so hard to find for me nowadays (working in fast food and walking on tiptoes around my in-laws every second of every day are not exactly peace-inciting activities), and it's been so long since I was in a regular dance class that I've forgotten what it's like to just lose yourself in dance.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I have said many times that dance was probably the reason nobody ever cottoned on to my ADHD -- it gave me an outlet for my physical energy and quieted my racing thoughts for long enough periods of time to keep me from spiraling into madness. (Dance has quite literally saved my life on suicidal days.)<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But when I was dancing on Monday, despite thinking about the choreography and the music and the timing and the dynamics, all other thoughts were gone from my mind. My mind was active -- thinking about dancing -- but calm. I wasn't chasing threads of half-formed ideas crisscrossing just out of my reach and despairing that maybe I just lost The One -- the Big Idea that finally gets me out of this rut. I don't ever -- EVER -- get that calm anywhere else. I was well and truly in the zone. Despite having to re-start over and over (because my memory unfortunately is still trash even when my mind is at peace), I managed to not get frustrated (filming outside in 10 degrees and light rain probably helped too because I wasn't dying of internal nuclear meltdown #sensoryissues).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I still don't know how it looks. But as I wrote in my journal on Sunday night, somewhere in the midst of all the despair: 'any footage is better than no footage.'</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now to get my iPod to remember that AirDrop is a thing so I can transfer the B-roll...</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-92206047932549149632023-10-01T23:58:00.002-06:002023-10-01T23:58:31.206-06:00Dance Film...? (An Update And Small Vent)<div style="text-align: left;">At the beginning of the year, I swore to myself that I would ACTUALLY make two dance films this year.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I knocked out one (<i>Sottovoce</i>) almost immediately, and allowed myself to do a smaller, simpler one for the second. I finally picked one, and have been trying to memorise the thing since July.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's still not memorised.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This is the only weekend I can film it, as this will be the last weekend of the year that I have access to this location and I REALLY don't want to film it indoors (in the same studio as <i>Sottovoce</i> to boot). I want to infuse colour and life into this dead town and filming outside in the fall leaves is the best way I can see to do that.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I also can't break a promise to myself again.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The only promise to myself I've kept this year so far is to finish the <i>Kyrie</i> rewrite. Don't get me wrong, that was a MASSIVE accomplishment, but I don't want the rest of this year to be a total washout.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I've been doing all the right things. I've been running this piece every spare second I have for three months. I didn't have access to a tap floor until tonight so I've been drilling the choreography into my head, knowing that only goes so far but wanting to give myself the best possible advantage.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I wanted to film this thing tomorrow. But it SUCKS.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The choreography is (mostly) great. But my memory -- apparently now my achilles' heel -- is doing its best to sabotage me at every. single. turn (literally and figuratively).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I don't want to fail yet again. I've broken this promise to myself so many times. I don't want to fail again. I don't want to fail again. But it looks like I may have no other option.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-63084222184618982892023-09-08T18:27:00.001-06:002023-09-08T18:27:48.300-06:00Mental Health Update, Year Twenty<div style="text-align: left;">The depression is hitting hard lately. I'm so tired and I had a thousand thoughts in my head before I sat down in front of this page and now they're all gone.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This pain is turning me into an animal. It's hard to even walk upright now, the physical pain and the palpable weight in my heart pull my chest to the earth like an anvil hanging off my sternum. I've cried at work three times in the past two days. Nobody noticed. I know my work has become positively shoddy. I feel like if anybody saw the sniveling, growling, barely-human creature I am when I'm alone, I would be sent to a mental institution immediately. I can barely string together a sentence even in front of people. I feel like the persona I put on in front of people is more and more incongruous with who I really am now. And who I really am is this bundle of pain so deep and so intense that it threatens to physically rip my heart out of my chest -- and I would welcome the day.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm tired of walking on eggshells. I'm tired of hearing the voices of the people who were supposed to love me in my head, calling me 'stupid.' Maybe I really am stupid, but that doesn't make the word hurt any less. I'm tired of looking in the mirror and not even recognising the person I see. I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of steeling myself for manipulation at work and I'm tired of steeling myself for manipulation at home. I'm tired of having to censor every thought. I'm tired of having to be on high alert to do damage control <i>constantly</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I want to lay down and close my eyes and never wake up again.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">They tell you things will get better. They tell you tomorrow's a new day. They tell you ten years down the road, you'll be glad you didn't kill yourself.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's been twenty years.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Twenty.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Years</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I regret staying in the chair in 2009. I regret walking back to my dorm in 2017. I regret putting the knife back in 2020. I regret putting the knife back again last year.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I regret every single time I didn't take that chance to get out. Because it's been twenty years since depression first entered my head and things have NOT gotten better. I think twenty years is a <i>more</i> than reasonable amount of time to wait it out.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So what's my reason now, all-knowing ones? I've waited. The better life, the hope and fulfillment and peace that all of you PROMISED me would come has not. So why should I wait longer? It hasn't shown up in twenty years, it's not likely to show up now.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And I'm so worn out and I'm so tired of waiting for a better day that will never come.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-19699622664226762182023-08-27T22:45:00.001-06:002023-08-27T22:45:24.799-06:00NF -- A Brief Overview<div style="text-align: left;">Been a while since we talked about music here. Something about having a day job and a husband cuts back a LOT on the music-listening time. It also doesn't help that said husband and I have VERY different musical tastes. While we've both introduced each other to a handful of new favourites, our music libraries as a whole remain 'his music' and 'my music.'</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The one exception is the rapper NF.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">NF has been on my radar for a long time, ever since <i>How Could You Leave Us</i> dropped. I saw it on social media, then the same year my college brought him in for a conference. As he was the only act at the conference who was NOT singing hipster worship, I attended purely on principle. I figured if there were more butts in seats at the not-hipster concerts, maybe they'd quit bringing in hipster acts.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The auditorium he performed to had a capacity of about a thousand people. It was not even half full.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I remember sitting in the pew, analysing every bar he gave us. With my mind steeped as it was in oceans of grief and the 'nothing is EVER good enough' rhetoric that my instructors poured into me like hot lead every single day, I simply thought his rhythm was a bit off... but I also remember thinking that I loved the lyrical concepts.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">'I'll check back in five years. He's got potential to go somewhere, but he's not there yet,' I told myself.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Our paths crossed every so often. I remember seeing the <i>Clouds</i> video when it first came out (was thoroughly confused by it but noted the cleaner, sharper rhythms), and I was really impressed by his technical and storytelling skills on <i>Story</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This past Friday we attended one of his stops on the Hope tour -- this time in an NHL arena that was definitely over half capacity with people <i>very</i> hyped to be there.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It was nothing at all like the show that gangly kid five years ago gave us.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Oh sure, the show was sophisticated and even I, a fairly seasoned (and jaded) performing artist with decades of experience, was truly wowed by some of the special effects, entrances, quick changes, and props. I actually feel as if I need to say 'spoiler alert' whenever I talk about this concert online because there was just so much sleight of hand and lovely surprises.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But over the past five years NF leaned into that lyrical strength he always had and leveled his rhythm game up alongside it. This show hits <i>hard</i>, both lyrically and musically, and that is exactly what I love in music -- all music. <i>Hope</i> (the song) alone is worth the price of admission to that show, and it was even before I saw all the live special effects. We bought <i>Hope</i> (the album) when it first dropped back in April, and that is the album that has truly made me a fan. I had bought <i>Clouds</i> shortly after it released, but that was more as a gift for my husband than for me. <i>Hope</i>, however, may just be NF's <i>Darn Floor</i>. In fact, I would go as far to say that NF is to rap was Terry Scott Taylor is to... almost every other genre of music. The lyrical incisiveness and the clear love for and dedication to their craft is very similar (though NF doesn't quote quite as much William Blake).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If, like me, you are thirsty for good music, NF needs to be in your collection.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-19887273924311756962023-07-31T22:03:00.004-06:002023-08-03T15:07:01.747-06:00Novel Achievement Unlocked!<div style="text-align: left;"> I have completed my first-ever novel rewrite.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I literally never thought this would happen. This is a bigger rush than I’ve EVER had finishing NaNoWriMo. I have completed a second draft of a book. It’s just over 85,000 words. Is it perfect? No. But it stands up better than its predecessor and gives me something coherent to send to beta readers.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">After nine years of my brain melting every time I thought about rewriting, I did it. I seriously just did it. I wrote a coherent novel before I turned thirty. After nine years of putting ‘revise <i>Kyrie</i>’ on my annual goal list, <i>I did it</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I only wish M was here to share my excitement.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-23770024626186765292023-07-21T17:56:00.004-06:002023-07-21T17:56:57.542-06:00Rewrite Update<div style="text-align: left;">I'm currently rewriting the MC's death scene.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's a weird experience. I first wrote this novel, this scene, in November 2014. Even then, I was no stranger to writing death scenes, but that's not what's weird.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What's weird is all the losses, the deaths that happened to me in real life -- all happened <i>after</i> I wrote that rough draft. This character dies of asthma. I wrote this scene in November and lost my best friend to lung failure three months later. My cousin died <i>of asthma</i> five months <i>after</i> I first wrote this scene. I didn't even know she had asthma until the night she died.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's also weird that this doesn't really trigger me or raise my anxiety levels (I don't have an anxiety disorder -- one of the few mental illnesses I've managed to dodge so far. My fear levels are normal, but my sadness and self-hatred levels are off the charts). Maybe I've accepted defeat and am just assuming bad things will always happen no matter what and there are absolutely zero ways to get out of it. Maybe I've been successful as separating fact from fiction. Maybe not really remembering writing the initial scenes in the first place is helping me be more objective -- there's not much emotional connection as far as 'I wrote this scene on this day while sitting in this place at this time of day' so I haven't had the 'I wrote this and then it happened' thought. Maybe the writing and the real life happened far enough apart that I <i>was</i> able to keep them separate.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Maybe I just knew that this is what had to happen for this book to work, and I have to do what I have to do. This book has no point if she survives. She's already had a near-death experience and the character's lives just continued on for the most part (as it does at college -- if you're not actively dead, you aren't sick enough. At least not at my college). For the MMC to learn what he needs to learn, he has to lose her. And it has to be severe and sudden, with absolutely no recourse. She's not the type of person to willy-nilly end a friendship, especially not one as precious as what they have.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Honestly, her leaving this particular friend character was the initial seed of the idea. At first the scene in my head was her driving away, never to return, but somewhere between initial idea and NaNoWriMo that year it morphed into what it is now, and I think that's a much stronger climax with more interesting repercussions. If she doesn't die, he never gets mad enough to stand up to the villain character -- at the cost of everything he's worked for. If she doesn't die, he never learns to live, really live, and to value people and experiences over money and 'proving people wrong.'</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I guess this novel is kind of a synthesis of what was going in my own life at the time -- I was still very much dealing with implications of my own near-death experience several years before and I was in the beginning stages of learning those very same lessons. The main character was who I was striving to become, and the MMC was me in that moment, trying to figure out how to get from here to there.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In some ways I think I've regressed in my goals there. And that's what making this rewrite in general so hard -- because I shut down <i>hard</i> when my cousin died. Suddenly life was not beautiful and life was not worth living. I never fully had the chance to learn those lessons. They have never taken root in my own life. And because this character doesn't die until very near the end of book, that means I spend 97% of the book building her up into this Mary Poppins sort of magical figure (while somehow not being a Mary Sue) with which I am <i>very </i>unfamiliar, and only the final 3% of the book is MMC consciously learning the lessons (which I actually am familiar with). Since the novel is 'written' by him after her death, there are elements of him picking up threads that he missed while he was living them... but that's a tough line to toe, though, because I very much want a 'no spoilers' approach. He, our narrator, doesn't mention that she dies until she does, right in front of him, barely a year after he meets her.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I do intend to send this draft out to a couple of beta readers, though I can think of a couple of things I might need to rewrite after this. This time I did a straight-through, top to bottom rewrite with absolutely no jumping around (partly so I wouldn't forget to write 'smaller' scenes, partly so I wouldn't have to completely reassemble the book potentially multiple times only to find parts still missing -- in short, to stave off mind-melting, brain-burning overwhelm). I started in April 2022 and I am on pace to finish this month. I'm currently at 77,000 words. I've never written <i>anything</i> this long before (you'd better believe I'm backing this thing up on an external drive every other day).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm just so proud that I've gotten this far. Even if nobody pays money for this book, I'm proud that I have given it a fair shot at life.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-72684553337207936282023-06-26T22:35:00.001-06:002023-06-26T22:35:15.219-06:00Follow Where?<div style="text-align: left;">I'm starting to get restless.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm almost three years deep into a 'normal' job. And while I'm good at it and enjoy the actual work... I'm tired. It's that bone-deep exhaustion that I've learned should not be ignored. I only work one day this week because it's tech week for the show I'm in (we open Friday!), and I'm so excited to just... not wake up at 6am. I would turn in my notice this week if I could -- despite the fact that they just announced all employees would be making one extra dollar per hour during the summer.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Maybe it's because I'm in a show -- a rare occasion here in the desert. I know I'm not star material and maybe I never will be, but I am now more happy being a one-line character than I would have been five years ago. I keep thinking of Jesus' words, "Follow Me."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I want to. But where is He, that I might follow? And what must I leave behind -- my job that's paying our bills or the dream I've been clinging to for nearly three decades? Of course my bias/special interests say to leave my job and follow the dream, but is it too soon? I want to follow God's timing, but I don't know what that <i>is</i>. How can I follow a guide that I can't see or hear? He says things like 'love your enemies,' and 'bear witness to the kingdom of God' and 'repent,' but that doesn't tell me whether or not I should be leaving my job or if I should be pursuing this dream of mine.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I want to be self-employed somehow. I miss being able to set my own hours. Even at college, I had control over when I did things as long as I attended classes. Classes were only an hour and fifteen mintues. They were just a <i>part</i> of my day, not the <i>whole entire day</i> like a day job is.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My husband is self-employed now (though it's commission, and he's not 'big' enough yet to maintain a reliably sustaining paycheque), and I'm really kind of jealous. <i>Kyrie</i> is so close to done, so hopefully publishing (read: maybe a small income) is in the not-too-distant future, plus I have two dance film ideas that can hopefully happen by the end of this year, but I can't assume both of those will sustain us. There's no money in dance films unless those films bring in choreographer contracts.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The other day, I remembered for the first time in a long time how my dad, a self-employed contractor, has never lacked for work. Whenever he started getting to the end of his bookings, the phone would start ringing again and he'd suddenly be back to booking six to eight months in advance again. He did no advertising, but he never ran out of work. God always brought more contracts. And I wonder if that's what I -- what we -- need to do. I never realised till now how frightening it must have been at times to know how <i>completely</i> our family's lives were in God's hands, how the only reason my dad ever had work was because God brought it to him. It's completely possible -- I lived it. Everything I ever had as a child -- food, lodging, clothing, lessons -- were as a direct result of God's provision. But my dad is also a much more righteous person than I am. God has blessed him, a righteous man. But I -- I am not the good Christian I used to be. My mid-to-late twenties were a very dark time and I made some very poor choices in those years when I thought God had abandoned me and nothing mattered anymore.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I am less than a decade away from the age my dad was when he started his business. It's not too late. Maybe it's the perfect time. I am in a more calm place now than I was in 2019 when my mindset was 'theatre professional or bust'... and I almost quite literally busted. I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps for every audition, every gig, every piece of choreography, every show, and I almost literally died. The only thing that stopped the madness was the pandemic and even then it was years before I properly acknowledged that I was burnt out and that I needed to breathe in for a while without pressuring myself to create -- at least not at the level I had been.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Or maybe it's too soon. Knowing I have a neurological condition that sets me up to do things before thinking them through is making me paranoid that I'm missing something vitally important and I'd be rushing into things if I quit my day job now. There's also the fact that every time I even think about coming close to broaching this topic with my husband (because isn't a good wife supposed to discuss these kinds of things with her significant other?), he suddenly relapses back into the angry person who rages at me for hours over literally nothing and of course <i>I</i> have to put <i>my</i> life on pause and sideline all <i>my</i> exhaustion and all <i>my</i> needs until I can talk him into being a reasonable human being again.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Again... how on earth am I supposed to know? How am I supposed to follow a leader I can't see? How can I follow the timing of a clock that doesn't exist?</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-62766136154034917232023-05-28T22:59:00.002-06:002023-05-28T22:59:21.976-06:00The Time Gap<div style="text-align: left;">We've all talked, heard, or at least felt this dissonance regarding time in the past few years. It's as if we all fell asleep when everything shut down in 2020 and now we're all waking up again to realise that three years have passed without us even feeling them. I've heard people of all age groups, religions, genders, and colours say this -- that time simply... disappeared.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But I've felt this before.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In 2014-15, in the span of six months, my best friend, a family friend, and a cousin all died. My uncle was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given three months to live. There were two ugly, out-of-the-blue divorces in my extended family (both marriages were well over a decade old). My college roommate and good friend abandoned me when I needed her most. I was almost literally drowning in homework at college, all with little sleep and no nutrition because performing arts profs don't care that the cafeteria (the only food option in a small college town) is only open for four hours a day. Half of my mother's side of the family stopped talking to each other about some financial dispute that I'm STILL not clear on the details of nearly a decade later.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I returned to college after Christmas 2014 secure in the love of my family and the loyalty of my friends. When I graduated four months later, not a single shred of it remained. It had all been bombed out from around me as I floated in some parallel universe in a different province, unable to protest anything that was happening.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Time stopped for me. 2015 through 2019 was a blur of... nothing. Time did not exist. In late 2019, my concept of time was still shaky.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Then the pandemic hit.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As it stands now, I have no explanation, few anchors, little memory of anything that happened after January 2015. I still, now, today, fully expect to wake up and have it be 17 January 2015. The clock stopped, the tape paused... and yet things kept happening, as if in a dream. It's 2023 somehow. I'm not old enough to be asking, 'where did the time go?' and yet somehow I'm asking it. How am I married? Who really is this guy in the bed with me? Where did all those friends from college go? What shows was I in? How long has Brittney been gone? What novels did I write? And M and Grandpa are gone too? Why am I living this is dusty, scorching, one-note town? How did I get here? It's almost like amnesia, or like my brain was switched into somebody else's body and now I'm living the life of a person I don't even know. And this is exactly how I've felt since 2015.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I've never had the words to explain it till now, and even now, I feel they're not adequate. But now that everyone else in the world has that shared experience of losing two years to lockdown... at least they can understand too, even if none of us are ever able to put it into words.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-55802406729149658602023-05-18T19:39:00.001-06:002023-05-18T19:39:31.867-06:00Missing Person<div style="text-align: left;"><i>Written 4 June 2022, 1.24pm</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Trigger warning: su*c*de</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I've been thinking a lot lately about who I used to be. That passionate, fiery, justice-loving, people-loving, fiercely kind, deeply-trusting person.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I keep thinking about when I was eighteen. The friends I had, the joy and the time and the clarity and the passion I had. I'm still in contact with some of the important people in my life from that time; the rest have all died. I was genuinely content to sit in my pink bedroom and choreograph Petra and White Heart songs. That was the time in my life when I felt the most complete and the most spiritually satisfied. I had a thirst for God that I didn't appreciate at the time, and in retrospect it showed. I fell into a couple of traditionalist traps, but by and large I was a fighter for true justice and love even then. A lot of my views at least mildly clashed with the religious establishment, but I was skilled enough in writing to persuade several key figures to at least properly consider what I was saying.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I keep thinking what could have been. What if I had ended up with that guy from youth group? What if my cousin had never died? What if I had never gone to college -- or at least <i>that</i> college?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That's a big one. The day I arrived, my faith started dying. It was slow at first, but accelerated tenfold when Brittney died and none of my college friends cared. And instead of getting out after my second year when I had the chance, I fought to return -- to return to the place that pushed me to such dire depths, spiritually. I was severely depressed, deeply wounded, and grieving, and I ran out of province back to a place that was also abusing me, but in new and different ways.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">By the time I left college, I was no longer the happy, joyful, passionate person I had been when I had started. The stress of the insane performing arts course load and the abuse from the director who tricked me into believing he had my best interests at heart had taken a heavy physical toll. I was probably a couple of months away from death, based on my physical health alone (I'm not even thinking about the severe depression I was in when I graduated). Instead of being a launchpad for what could have been a beautiful, God-honouring life, college was the death knell for me. I have so many still-bleeding emotional wounds that can be traced directly to that school, that director. Almost every single one of my dreams have died because of him and his words to me. He would say 'performers have to have thick skin,' but the fact is he is abusive and uses that phrase to justify his atrocities. I had thicker skin before I went to college than I do now. I had courage. I had spunk. I had joy. I had passion. I had LIFE, and now every single speck of all of that is gone.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I miss who I used to be.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In my pain and abandonment from God's people, I pushed away God Himself. And now I'm trapped in a tiny desert town with an absurdly high cost of living, absolutely no emotional support, and 'well-meaning' in-laws who are trying their best to take the place of that abusive man. It used to be nothing for me to jump in the van and drive several hours to do a show, or hang out with friends, or try something new. And now I never leave the house -- partly gas prices, and partly fear. I can feel my soul shriveling up and dying a little with every second I live, every breath I take.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I attempted suicide on 8 March 2017, and now, over five years later, I wish more than ever that I had done it then. I wish my life would have ended that day. But I trusted that things would get better, and five years later, they've gotten worse. My soul is dead, and that's a fate worse that still lungs. Every morning I wake up is the same and that's the one thing I never wanted to happen. I wanted to live with passion and joy and verve and courage and <i>life</i>, and I am doing none of that.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I want to busk. I want to make dance films. I want to make shows. I want to learn new styles of dance. I want to write publicly again. I want to be able to have an opinion and not be literally abused for it. I want to be <i>free</i> again. I'm not free. I am in a prison of 'if you do this, I will withhold the love I promised you and stab swords of stinging words into your heart.' I am in a prison of working eight hours a day at something that's fast-paced, but not intellectually stimulating. I am in a prison of hearing over and over the words 'you're not even trying and you have no business doing this.' I am in a prison of being <i>years</i> behind my peers in terms of experience because I stubbornly stuck to a college that had absolutely no intention of actually training me within the field that I went there for, and I had not even begun to heal those wounds before rushing off into marriage and bringing all of that anger and pain into a relationship that did not deserve such a burden and now is so broken by my issues it may never recover.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I miss who I used to be. I would kill to get her back.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-39533783350111975562023-05-10T18:39:00.000-06:002023-05-10T18:39:50.318-06:00Respect<div style="text-align: left;">It's well-known here that I do not get along with my in-laws. Specifically, one particular in-law.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That infuriates my husband to no end. He's long since accepted their abusive ways (after all, for twenty years he had no choice) and thinks they're completely normal, but I, with 1. my strong sense of right and wrong/justice, and 2. my growth-and-learning mindset that my own parents very intentionally fostered in me, do not and will not. I decided after college that I will no longer tolerate abuse, and that very definitely extends to family. Including married-in family.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The problem is, my husband was raised to 'respect his elders.' Not because they have earned respect, but because they 'said so.' Because they're older than him. (This, I've heard, is pretty typical of abusers.) And he demands that I do the same, because they destroyed his mind and spirit so thoroughly that he <i>cannot</i> think of doing anything different.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I, however, have been raised to challenge the status quo. Mind you, I did this naturally anyway, but my parents were smart enough to redirect it rather than punish it. They taught me that respect must be earned, not given, no matter how old they are and how much authority they have. My own parents earned my respect by hearing me out whenever I challenged them on something. They didn't always agree with me in the end (sometimes they did, but definitely not always), but they listened to me and addressed the underlying concerns behind my challenge. (This was the problem with the profs at college... they prescribed quick fixes that treated the symptom, not the cause; they didn't listen and address. As such, I got labeled a 'problem student' and was relentlessly bullied and verbally abused BY MY INSTRUCTORS for the better part of five years because they thought they were better than everyone and couldn't shut up and listen for just five minutes.) My parents encouraged me to think. A lot. 'Critical thinking skills' is still one of my mother's favourite phrases, and it shows in the way she educated us. My husband classifies himself as a rebel, but he's regularly scandalised by the things I say over the course of a normal day because he was severely (I would argue brutally) punished for saying far milder things.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My in-laws have questioned EVERY SINGLE ONE of my husband and I's choices since we met. He and I planned our wedding together and then had the entire thing absolutely destroyed by my in-laws because they actively hated everything I wanted for my own wedding. I actively block out the memory of our wedding day, because it wasn't my wedding and it never will be. It was absolutely <i>not</i> the wedding I wanted. It didn't represent me at all, only them. And I will never get that opportunity again. We will never get to have the wedding we wanted. That's supposed to be a HUGE core memory for almost every married couple and I literally can't even think about my wedding without wanting to scream, or injure myself, or both. I'm crying as I type this.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I used to love posting my art publicly. I loved writing on social media. I loved posting my dance videos. I loved sharing about my life honestly, the good and the bad. I loved interacting with the (many) people who loved my work. All it took was one little 'good Christian' family to destroy all of it. As soon as my husband and I got engaged, every single thing I posted became grounds for World War III. It is absolutely not possible to overstate the intensity of the multi-day screaming matches, the awful words they would say, and the gaslighting whenever I'd call them out on their toxicity. Gas was $1.39 a litre here today. Their gaslighting is so thick they could charge eight bucks a litre. You could power a loaded semi truck for months with that stuff, and it's just as toxic for the environment.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What I don't understand is why I'm supposed to respect my in-laws when they don't do the same to me. 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you' goes BOTH ways, not just one, and I refuse to be bullied into being a pawn in their stupid little game of control.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I will respect them when -- and ONLY when -- 1. they start hearing me out FULLY instead of bullying me after one (1) word (taken <i>completely</i> out of context), 2. they start realising that they've never lived my life and cannot possibly understand it, let alone re-write it, and 3. they realise I'm my own person and survived the first twenty-five years of my life QUITE nicely without their interference/micro-managing, thank you very much.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And even then... <i>only</i> after they've made a long, consistent habit of doing those three things.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-6358963859699099782023-04-30T12:38:00.005-06:002023-04-30T12:38:46.511-06:00One Year - Novel Rewrite UpdateOne year ago today, I officially started rewriting <i>Kyrie</i>.<br /><br />I'm well into the 'midpoint' section now. This is the part where the villain begins to show his true colours. This villain is based on some of the villains of my own story, and that, coupled with (yet another) domestic spat and my worsening asthma, is causing a lot of havoc in my body.<div><br /></div><div>I tend to approach my writing as an actress. I place myself in the scene and act out all the characters in the scene. I think this is why people often say that reading my writing reminds them of watching films -- I write what I see in 'real time.' This means that I share in every character's emotions and reactions, and having mined some of the darkest times in my life for this midpoint, those can be very intense, very visceral reactions.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had planned to write two scenes today. I've written one and my heart rate is already 92 (my resting rate is around 70 and I've been sitting all morning) and I needed my rescue inhaler. I don't know if I'm physically capable of writing the other scene, as it will hit even more of those 'triggers' for me.</div><div><br /></div><div>On one hand, I'm hoping that the audience will feel the same anger I'm feeling at this character. But on the other hand, it's forcing me to unpack some stuff that I haven't yet regarding some of the people in my own life who treated me this way. I don't really know how to deal with these things in a way that won't ruin my life now. A lot of those villains are no longer a part of my life... but they're now in my head. And I don't know how to get them out of my head.</div><div><br /></div><div>I am very proud of the progress I'm making in the novel, though. This midpoint scared me a lot and now I would say I'm over the hump and running downhill from here. I've already faced and worked through a lot of blockages and fears in (re)creating this work and I'm so proud of being able to look back on such a substantial document. I would say I'm just past the halfway point of the story, and most of the plot points that scared/overwhelmed me the most have already been written. I have forty-some scenes left in this novel. If I wrote one per day, I could finish before July. If (more realistically) I wrote one scene every day off of work, I will be done before September. Of <i>this year</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>I never, EVER even dreamed I would actually experience being so close to finishing a full rewrite/revision of any of my novels, even my best ones.</div><div><br /></div><div>Two big things that have helped me get this far are: 1. framing it as a 'rewrite' rather than a 'revision,' and 2. making a timeline.</div><div><br /></div><div>As long as I thought about it as 'revision,' I thought I had to completely restructure the book. 'Revision' implies 'moving stuff around,' but I couldn't find stuff to move around. I liked the structure and timing of the book exactly the way it was and couldn't find another way I thought was better. It was like trying to make a puzzle when the pieces were two different sizes. But as I soon as I started calling it a 'rewrite,' I didn't <i>have</i> to re-order anything. I could keep the general idea exactly the same and simply make it stronger.</div><div><br /></div><div>This was where the timeline came in. I already had a pretty strong idea of the timeline in my head, but I pulled up a calendar from the year in which the story was set, and wrote out a day-to-day timeline of every single thing that happens to the two main characters of the book. Some of the things don't make it in the book at all but are referenced as things that happened off-screen, or are simply there for my own orientation (grad weekend, for instance -- I don't mention grad at all in the story, but it lets me know that I can't have the characters going to classes or doing homework anymore). Some events did get rearranged here, but not nearly on the level I thought they would have to be.<br />I colour-coded certain recurring themes and printed off this timeline (all six pages of it) and have had it at my desk ever since. It's been my lifeline and has done wonders for my poor overtaxed brain. The acid-melting-my-brain-whenever-I-try-to-revise feeling completely disappeared once I did this.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm so close and so proud and so happy and so relieved and I'm feeling so accomplished. Here's to the second half of the story.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-53113495270872940272023-04-22T11:39:00.002-06:002023-04-22T11:39:37.423-06:00April Saturday<div style="text-align: left;">Saturday morning.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My asthma is acting up the worst I think it ever has. I've doubled my meds for the last two days (as my doctor advised), but I still feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest and I'm breathing through a straw. It has not escaped my attention that the anniversary of my cousin's death from this same disease is this coming Friday.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">At one time (late college), I would have welcomed this -- oncoming death? No more dealing with the world and all its neurotypical BS? Sign me up.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But now, I sit on my couch with a half-finished painting beside me, half a rewritten novel in front of me, and a crochet project that's almost done nearby, and now I think, <i>I can't go now... I'll never see how these turn out</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The painting in particular stands out to me. I really don't like how it looks so far. I would consider it the first failure of my fledgling watercolour hobby. But I want to finish it, to see if maybe the finished project doesn't look so bad after all. My husband likes it so far and knew what it was without me having to explain it, so it's at least recognisable. If I die now, I will never know if it'll turn out all right in the end.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The novel... there was a time when I would have been okay leaving it unfinished. I made several attempts on my life between drafting it and now. But now I'm around the halfway point of a proper rewrite, and I'm invested. I want to know that I <i>can</i> finish it, even if the 'final' rewrite still needs some touching up. I want to send this out to beta readers. I want to send this to an editor. I want to publish it. I want other people to get invested in this story too.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The crochet project is a small one. I've made two others like it this week. But I used less stitches and a thinner yarn for this one, and I want to see how the final product changes with those variables altered.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm still stuck in the desert with no real hope of getting out on the horizon, and it's still beyond my ability to explain just how suffocating it is to wake up to this drab, soul-draining view every morning of my life. But if I can still be creative here, then I can be creative anywhere. Right now my main goal is to fill this dead brown place with colour -- and given how vast and stubbornly brown this desert is, that means I have a LOT of work to do.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So I have to finish this painting, this novel, this crochet project. And that means I have to take care of my health -- something I've never properly done before.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-52684924175804310122023-04-03T18:32:00.001-06:002023-04-03T18:32:56.450-06:00Stop Press: Album Release!<div style="text-align: left;">Music fans, rejoice!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If, like me, you missed the Kickstarter project (in 2019!) and were too poor to afford the astronomical shipping ($75???) for the CD pre-order, Terry Scott Taylor’s This Beautiful Mystery is now FINALLY <a href="https://terryscotttaylor.bandcamp.com/album/this-beautiful-mystery?fbclid=IwAR1m9Wln9MhEX8pZWDACfhIpIoXEQ8QamKB91t1-PL-uCbyhGFeST4JRjwk">available to order from his Bandcamp page</a>!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I have deliberately avoided listening to this album. I have not bought or streamed the digital versions of any of the songs (though they have been available for a while). I want my first listen to be alone in the dark with a hard copy, with nothing to disturb or interrupt the art. I have no idea what it will be like, but I saw the email and dropped everything to order it because I am that confident it will be worth it. I have never done that ever with any purchase in my entire life. But I will not let this one get away from me again.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Terry Scott Taylor is arguably one of the greatest songwriters to walk the earth. Full stop. He has had nearly 50 years of professional songwriting experience, and it shows. His craftsmanship is unsurpassed. If you have never heard the work of Terry Scott Taylor, do yourself a favour and get this album. Your life will be the richer for it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It is FINALLY NOW AVAILABLE ON CD on Bandcamp <a href="https://terryscotttaylor.bandcamp.com/album/this-beautiful-mystery?fbclid=IwAR1m9Wln9MhEX8pZWDACfhIpIoXEQ8QamKB91t1-PL-uCbyhGFeST4JRjwk">here</a>. But hurry -- it's a limited run. Once these are gone, there will be no more.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Enjoy.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-27233376116112767422023-03-31T19:32:00.001-06:002023-03-31T19:32:24.166-06:00First Quarter Review<div style="text-align: left;">It's the end of March... the end of the first quarter of 2023. Already it's been a great year in terms of goals and stepping forward into my performing artist dreams.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Some highlights...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">- Participated in Nachmo (National Choreography Month) in January.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">- Created an entire choreographic work/dance film from scratch in 58 days.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">- Was one of only eight choreographers accepted to show their work in the Nachmo Online Film Festival.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">- Released my first-ever long-form dance work to the public.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">- Was invited to audition for a speaking role in one of the largest and most recognisable productions in Canada.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">- Passed an exam at work, resulting in me getting a new role with more responsibilities.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">- Went to a tap dance festival (met Dianne Walker and Jessie Sawyers for the first time).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">- Got my second-ever dance commission project.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">- Got to improv live again.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I have gotten more opportunities and education in the past three months than I did in my entire $80,000 college degree. This makes me both sad (about the time and money I wasted) and hopeful (that I am capable of doing this myself no matter what anybody else says).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now for the hard part... trying not to coast.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1017720918516507228.post-65622659051219200742023-03-10T17:15:00.000-07:002023-03-10T17:15:23.834-07:00Checkmate<div style="text-align: left;">I've talked before about my struggles with memory loss. This frustration with myself came to a head while producing my most recent dance film, but it has long been seeping into every aspect of my creative life and eroding my confidence.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In mid-February, I attended a tap festival. For an extra fee, one could present a piece before the festival faculty for feedback. Terrified but wanting to know where I stood in such a diverse field, I paid the fee and then agonised over which piece to present.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I've choreographed so many pieces, and since my college years, a good many of them have been solo tap dances (because they were easy to film and post on Instagram to show that I really was working on my performance skills -- not that that convinced anybody, apparently). At first my plan was to memorise one of the more recent works, but as the film became a behemoth that demanded every single second of my free time, I decided to fall back onto a much older piece that's been my mental noodling piece since I choreographed it in 2018. This was -- ironically -- mostly because I had it completely memorised and could whip it out at will. My feet ran through it on my work break at least every other day without much thought. I <i>had</i> this piece.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But as the presentation time drew near, the looming dark cloud of dread that I would find a way to forget this piece threatened to eat me alive. I couldn't remember <i>anything</i> else. What made me think I could remember this?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I tried to shove the fear away, knowing that if I focused on a poor outcome, of course I would produce a poor performance. I ran it through mentally a couple times with nary a pause. I <i>knew</i> this piece. I <i>knew</i> this piece.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Thirty seconds into performing it, I completely blanked.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I was in front of Dianne Walker, of all people. I couldn't just stop. So I jumped to the next thing I could remember -- my placeholder set of 32 counts of buck single time steps. And I camped on it for 64 counts -- nearly half the dance. I threw in the few phrases I could remember, but all I could think was <i>I'm presenting my own choreography in front of Dianne Walker and not only am I not doing the choreography, I'm doing beginner time steps of all things.</i> But I smiled and eventually I remembered some other sections and managed to at least sort of land the ending.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Of course, after such a showing, the consensus of the feedback session was, 'it was simplistic.' I was frustrated, don't get me wrong. That choreography was so complicated and so intricate and I hadn't even done half of it. They hadn't even seen what the dance really was. But not one of them said, 'I could tell you forgot.' These were industry professionals, most of whom have been dancing longer than I've been alive. If anybody would have noticed, it was them.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I went back to my seat after the session and told myself, defiantly, 'I <i>can</i> improv. I don't need to fear memory loss anymore. I can busk.'</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">See, for years (literally years) I've been wanting to busk. It's both extra cash and practice. What's not to love? But the problem was despite my impressive back catalogue of choreographed tap solos, I could not manage to learn even one of them. And I wanted to have a <i>solid</i> forty-five minutes of solo work in my feet before I went out busking, so my dancing would be worth paying for -- even if it was only a handful of coins. But what I learned after that experience was that I could improv an entire piece in front of a crowd -- even a very knowledgeable crowd. I was completely capable of it. Memory loss could not stop me now. So what if I forgot the dance? It completely within my abilities to improv my way through and now I knew that for a FACT.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It was a powerful moment. After three years of being cut down and shrunk to nothing because of my memory loss, I finally -- <i>finally</i> -- had something that the memory loss could not touch. I could still dance whether my stupid memory liked it or not. I had checkmated my memory loss.</div>Sarah-Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307823094722155807noreply@blogger.com0