The Roaring Flower

I put off the library trip until today because yesterday was cold and wet. Today is sunny and a bit warmer, and I need the walk. I didn't need exercise yesterday because I had dance class last night. It was a really good class, too. Only a few of us braved the cold, so we had lots of space, and I seemed to be dancing better than normal. I will have to do some experimenting to see if I'm right about the reason. My theory is that I'm such a delicate flower that my tights are messing me up. Almost all dance tights these days are "convertible," which means they have a hole on the sole that allows you to wear them in the normal way, covering the foot, or to roll them up so you can be barefoot. That's also so that you can pull back the tights to do whatever adjustments need to be done for wearing pointe shoes. But that hole seems to mess me up. Last night, since it was cold I wore leggings instead of tights and then wore socks. Without that funny thing on the bottom of my foot, my balance was better and my turns were better. Next week, I'll roll my tights up to the ankle and wear socks and see if it was a fluke. And if I'm right, then I'll have to either search for full-foot tights or just buy footless tights and wear socks. Next, I'll see how well I sleep if I put a pea under my mattress. The funny thing is, my ballet teacher didn't think it was weird at all. She totally believed it could make a difference.

I've reached the part in the book I'm revising where I need to start rewriting. It's been little tweaks up to this point, but the ending was a problem. I have a big-picture idea of what I need to do, but now I need to figure out the details. Cue whimpering. That's why taking a walk today will be part of my process. It'll help me figure things out. I hope.

I think next week I'll go back to doing my regular writing posts, but I don't know what to write about. Does anyone have any burning questions about the craft or business of writing that you'd like me to answer? I need to start a new list of questions to address to give me subject matter.

And I also need a lesson plan for the kids for tonight. I think my co-teacher is bringing a craft project, so that'll eat up some time. We'll probably talk about high and low notes as part of learning our new song. I may play the "sound" and "silence" game we did last week. It's leading into learning the difference between notes and rests, but it uses animal pictures. If the animal's mouth is open, it's making a sound, but if its mouth is closed, it's silent. We read the chart like it's a piece of music, making the right animal sound if the mouth is open and being quiet when the mouth is closed. They really like getting to make animal sounds. I impressed the kids with my lion roar (something I generally use to scare off unrestrained small, yappy dogs who are rushing at me). One of the kids said, "That was amazing!" and then another said, in a very "well, duh" tone of voice, "Well, she is in the choir." Yes, because roaring like a lion is something we often do in choir. At any rate, I get several minutes of awe from the kids when I roar at them, so I need to find ways to work that into the sessions as often as possible.

Hmm, a delicate flower with a fierce roar. That's pretty much me in a nutshell.