The Annual Goalpost

I love and hate making these posts.

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.

Anyway, here goes. It might look a little different this year.

- At least two new dance films.

I think I know which two. I just have to DO them (this includes memorising!).

- Create a long-ish (15+ minute) dance show.

- Audition for three shows.

- Make a plan of attack to rewrite Kyrie again.

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.

- Start pitching to magazines.

- Write at least four articles/stories a week.

- Enter a writing contest.

- At least one date night every two weeks.

- Read more (soft goal of nine books in 2024).

- More watercolour painting. I am deliberately not putting a number here.

- Sustainably cut back hours at the day job.

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.

- Save $1000 for a house.

STRETCH GOALS:

- Apply for at least one festival (ideally with above longer dance show).

- Take at least three dance classes (or courses of some kind).

- Crochet myself a sweater.

- Make a third dance film.

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 and being married.

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. Sottovoce took me 58 days -- nearly two months (granted, I am including the choreography time in this), and that was very much a speedrun. Inside Of You -- 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.

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.

What is Good?

The last two days have been full of despair and fear. I have exactly $20 cash to my name. One of my most promising opportunities for the summer may not even happen -- leaving me very much in the lurch and forcing me to make long-term decisions sooner than I anticipated. And overall I've been feeling very alone. I just want to spend time with someone, but it seems everyone's busy. And this makes me frustrated because I feel guilty for needing so much people-time.

I was reading over the last few posts on this blog the other day and I realised that it's been pretty depressing here as of late. I want to do a 'good' post, a sort of hopeful post, but I didn't know how or what about. So I'm just going to bullet-point it.

- This past week I've finally started work on Kyrie again. I'm truly loving writing this story right now. I'm trying not to think too much about how many plot holes and loose ends there still are and how many characters are severely underdeveloped.

- Peanut butter banana smoothies. Some days this is literally the only thing that makes me happy.

- I recently obtained a copy of Crumbächer's incredible album Escape From The Fallen Planet on vinyl. This is one of my top five favourite albums of all time, and I've wanted it on vinyl for several years. I finally got a chance to listen to it today, while reading the lyric sheet.
I've known and loved this album (on CD) for years now. It was one of only three albums that I could stand to hear for about six months following my cousin's sudden death, so I played it a LOT. But there were always a few lyrics that eluded me, and now, reading them in full, soaking in the rich, full sound of the vinyl, I discovered (as I had rather hoped) another layer of conceptual and sonic depth to this album. This is what I love in good music. This is what I look for -- I look for the music that will give me new things for years and years to come, no matter how many times I play it.

- My mom and my brother came to visit for a few days. It was nice to walk around campus actually talking to someone rather than wandering about all by myself.

- On Friday one of my friends came up and gave me a hug.

- Michael W. Smith's '80s output. (i 2 (EYE) and The Big Picture.) Also the Imperials' ...This Year's Model.

Things That You Think Help A Depressed Person But Don't

15 July 2017, 11.43pm.

(In no particular order...)

1. "You're beautiful."

Maybe this works for those with body image issues, but here's a news flash -- not all depressed people have body image issues. I personally am quite happy with my appearance. I have come to terms with my height (or lack thereof), I like my hair, my hands, my strong feet, and I would absolutely not trade my eyes for the world. My self-hatred runs deeper -- I hate my personality. While I understand that you're trying to combat my self-hatred, you're not actually addressing it at all.

2. "Go shopping."

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe one of the biggest triggers for my despondency is the HUGE amount of financial stress I'm under as a college student? Yes, buying fifty vinyl records might make me feel better, but right now there is no way in hell I can afford even one. I am at the point where food -- like actual nourishing food -- is a luxury.

3. "Take some time for yourself."

...not the best advice to give to someone whose depression is triggered/worsened by feelings of rejection and abandonment. The way my life is now, I am alone literally twenty hours a day. And the other four hours consist of me backstage with forty-seven other people who are physically there but not actually talking to me. I'm still very much alone. I have time for myself up the wazoo. I don't need any more.

4. "Just find someone who listens to you."

And you don't fit under this category why, exactly?

5. "You are enough."

This probably gets the award for 'dumb vague statement of the year.' Enough? Enough what? When I hear the word 'enough,' I think of every father who's ever tried to get their kids to stop arguing in the car: "Now that's enough!" It is not necessarily a positive association. Not an overly negative one -- but not a positive one either.

6. "You are loved."

I notice that you yourself are not willing to commit to saying you personally love/care about me. You're deflecting it onto the nameless 'other' and hoping like hell they back you up so you don't have to actually dig into your heart and get emotionally involved.

7. "It's always darkest before the dawn."

That may be true. But right now, it is not dawn, it is very dark, and the wolves in my mind are circling, closing in for the kill. I have no guarantee I'll even survive till dawn. Sure, dawn is coming, great. Fat lot of good that will do me if I don't survive the wolves in the dark.

Not-Resolutions

I've never been one to make a big pie-in-the-sky new year's resolution. What's the point in picking a random thing like 'eat healthy' when you either 1. know you're not going to do it, or 2. don't need to make a major adjustment in that area of your life?

But in the past couple years I have usually sketched out a list of goals. Most of them are usually dance-related and I only accomplish maybe half of them, but I suppose I could say, 'hey -- at least I managed half of them.'

Inspired by the Big Fun Scary Things forum on the NaNoWriMo website, I now offer you my 'Big Fun Scary' list of goals for this year.

- Finish writing scenes for Kyrie.
As I've been trying to revise it, I'm realising that there are a lot of things that need to be fleshed out. So right now I'm in the process of writing the missing-but-needed scenes.

- Put Kyrie back together (however temporarily) and get beta readers for it.

- Finish my 2016 NaNoWriMo novel.
I only have 11k left and I know where I want the story to go but I couldn't finish during November because although there was a point where I did not sleep for four straight days (right after the biggest show of my performance season and during the week of all the voice finals), it was solely for the purpose of writing academic papers, not my novel. My $72,000 undergraduate degree was at stake and I could no longer justify putting NaNoWriMo before my homework.

- Publish a short story.
I mean, I could include 'novel' in this category, but somehow I don't really anticipate that I'm going to be THAT happy with Kyrie by December. Progress on Kyrie is very much dependent on how busy I'm going to be with school (hopefully) and work (also hopefully).

- Choreograph one dance per month.
This can also be read as 'choreograph a minimum of twelve dances this year.'
(NOTE: Official National Choreography Month post will be written separately. Once I get my crap together on that thing.)

- Finish choreography works-in-progress.
Somehow I've accumulated nearly a dozen half-done works. I'm pretty sure the one is literally like four sets of eight away from being complete.

- Get some choreography into the school's year-end dance recital.

- Film at least three dance videos (of my choreography).
Believe it or not, the hardest thing will be finding a videographer. And locations. And scheduling rehearsals.

- Audition for at least one dance company.
Partly just to be able to say that I did. But hey -- you never know what could happen.

- Actually memorise the RAD Advanced Two syllabus.
This thing has seriously been the most frustrating thing in my entire life over the past four months (outside of the music history final and the modern philosophy paper). I'm physically capable of doing everything they ask, but after four months I still don't actually remember the exercises, which, of course, makes it impossible to execute them properly because you're constantly playing catch-up.

- Practice dance for a minimum of half an hour a day.
I did this all summer, but only managed one practice session over the entire semester after I went back to school.

- Operation Tap's Technique Tuesday challenge.
TTC V starts next week! Hopefully this time I can participate.

- Basic stretch and strengthen regime.
And by 'regime' I mean split stretches after dance practice sessions (goal: to be able to hold my leg above 90 degrees without 'help' of any kind, whether from a grande battement or developpé or my hands -- we're talking battement lent and hold), and run through the ab workout from class.

- Triple pirouettes, both sides, both directions, no hopping around, no falling over like a dead tree. Work up to quadruples.

- Ten fouettès on the right, every time, no exceptions, on pointe. Work up to twelve.

- Work up to ten fouettès on the left, every time et. al.

- Master wings on one foot.

- Master pullbacks, without relying on heels for leverage.

- Write at least two letters (whether to friends or family) per month.
My siblings' birthday letters don't count.

- Learn to French braid my own hair.

- 365 Challenges: choreograph a minimum of two sets of eight every single day, and write down three things I'm grateful for every single day.

This list actually freaks me out. On one hand, a lot of it (especially the writing and choreography things) are things that are usually on the list in some form every year. Yes, they're quantified, and yes, I frequently do meet the number goals, but the fact that pretty much the same sentence makes it on this list every year is starting to make me feel like I'm going nowhere. As a result, the list feels small. I feel like I should add more things. But at the same time, the list feels huge. All these little daily things -- and I just know they're going to go out the window during March when I'm writing six million papers and presentations and catching up on readings and listening assignments and stuff.

It's hard to know what's realistic because at this point in my life I honestly do not know what province I'm going to be in at this time next week and for how long. My life is very much in flux right now and fairly big things are changing at the drop of a hat as of late. This makes (realistic) daily-schedule-based goal-setting difficult. I hate myself enough already -- I don't want to fail so badly at these goals because of a major change in my circumstances that I have an excuse to hate myself even more for failing.

We'll see how it goes, I guess.

Focus

So I was kind of throwing myself a little pity party again (when will I ever learn to stop that?) -- an old youth group acquaintance just got a huge break into the industry he's been dreaming of for years, my sister is getting her stage script read by a local theatre producer, and a friend of mine got some of her artwork published (it was a fairly small scale, but published nonetheless).

And me... I was just kind of sitting and listening to the same fifteen seconds of the same song over and over and over trying to come up with the next sequence. Like I have for the past year.

Separately, those were all genuine 'congratulations that's awesome!' moments, but all of them in the same week had me reeling a little. Why are they getting results that have people going 'wow, good for you' and I continue to just sit here and be criticised for not having a 'real' job?

Then last night while looking through a drawer in my filing cabinet I found a pink piece of paper with my writing on it -- a list of steps I needed to take to draw me closer to my dancing goal. I remember writing that list -- it was probably only about four to six months ago.

As I read it, I realised I could already check off three things. Things that had seemed insurmountable then. So I did. I literally got out my trusty pencil and checked them off.

Then I started thinking about what I do have going for me now. I have a dance teacher who is totally excited about the fact that I'm so interested in choreography (she let me borrow one book she had on Benesh notation and just this week gave me another booklet she had that talks about it). I have one dance right now that's been absolutely on fire since I picked it up again after NaNoWriMo. In just ten and a half months, I've choreographed eleven dances -- over forty minutes' worth. That's well on the way to being enough for a respectable concert. I now have enough foundational tap that I can begin to experiment -- to choreograph (to say nothing of the fact that I now have tap shoes with which to do it).

I had none of this a year ago.

It may not feel like it, but I am moving closer, closer, closer to the dream...

So I keep working, keep practicing.

NaNoWriMo Eve

Pre-NaNoWriMo checklist:

Some idea of plot?
Check.

Research?

Nope.

Names for most of supporting cast?

Nope.

Food?
Check.

Tea (kindly supplied by friend)?
It was here, but I can't seem to find it...

Writing buddies?
Check.

Work done on choreography that I planned on getting out of the way before NaNoWriMo starts?
...Not really.

Barely-suppressible heart-rate-elevating excitement?
Check.

Writing music (classicchristian247.com)?
Uncertain as of yet. (Thanks a lot, superstorm Sandy.)

Writing music (iTunes)?
Check.

Furnace running?
Check.

Second plot for when I finish the first one early?
Check.

Blankets?
Check.

Fresh batteries for Lila?
Check.

MacBook?
Check.

Annual final-hour-countdown freakout with writing buddy over Facebook?
Check.

(Well, all the important stuff is covered, anyway.)

And now, fellow writers, let us charge forth to the path of glorious exuberant creativity! For the rest of the month may our battle cry shall echo the words of what's-his-face from Mythbusters, "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

Bring on National Novel Writing Month!


EDIT: 9 November 2012
It wasn't even NaNoWriMo yet and already I was making NaNoisms? Are you KIDDING me?