Since I have something like a month's worth of dance classes to make up, I took the beginner class last night. In my regular intermediate class, I feel like a total klutz. In the beginner class, I feel like Anna Pavlova. It's not so much the contrast in skill level with the other students as it is my mastery of the material. In the beginner class, they really focus on form, slowing it down to really learn it the right way. Since I already know these things pretty well, that allows me to focus on making it pretty. The intermediate class moves more quickly and does more advanced work, so while I'm getting it done, it doesn't look so nice. I'm definitely more of an adagio dancer than an allegro dancer. Slow and graceful and making use of balance and strength are what I do well. Quick and bouncy don't work so well for me. I'll be taking two classes a week for the rest of the semester, so it'll be interesting to see if my dancing improves overall. I'm hoping the refresher from the beginning class starts making the intermediate class easier for me.
I've got a busy weekend ahead, with a wine tasting party tonight and a meeting/party tomorrow. Sunday's supposed to be rainy, and I've got a good book waiting for me, so that will be quality time with the sofa day. Meanwhile, I'm really close to finishing the revisions on this book. I've reached my target word count, though I imagine some of those words are about to be cut and then replaced, and I have most of the rest outlined. It would have been nice if I could have figured out this part of the book before I wrote it, but I think I had to kind of play around with the circumstances before I could know what was possible.
But I'm at the really difficult and dangerous phase of the creative process in which the creative circuits are firing full-blast and it's difficult to focus on this project because there are all these other things out there that I want to work on.
After I get this book off my plate, my agent will probably have revision notes on the insanely quirky contemporary fantasy I've written that she says she loves but has some suggestions on. But what I'm thinking the most about is a story idea I came up with while I was in college that I actually wrote (and even won a contest with) in my 20s that didn't sell. I took another look at it and found that I still like the situation, story and characters, but the actual events in the plot need work. What I hadn't considered is that the voice is very young adult and the characters are very young. So I think I'll tackle it as a young adult traditional fantasy -- yeah, one of those quasi-medieval things. I'm starting to do the world-building research for this one.
There's another book that's been lurking at the back of my mind for a couple of years, gradually taking shape. It's going to take a lot of research, and I've been doing bits and pieces of that research, so every so often it pops up to be played with. Either this one is going to be absolutely brilliant or it will drive me mad and I'll be terribly disappointed in myself once I start writing it and the words don't match the brilliance that was in my head. Now there's also that wacky portal fantasy idea that popped into my head last week, and I'm still toying with ideas for a paranormal mystery series. There are also a few other things lurking or in the works, and some of them pop up at the strangest times.
I suppose that means I should spend more time writing. But the more I write, the more ideas I get.
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