It´s DA B....!

Life´s full of roses, isn´t it?

Hmmm, not always.

The problem is that no matter how great your intentions and actions may be you´ll always find hard times ahead and people who disappoint you (as we´ve disappointed others, knowingly or not); no matter how amazing our challenges and victories are, no one - except the person who actually DOES the WORK - knows how hard and testing they can be.

I´m editing my "other" (bombastic) book right now and let me tell you this (diplomatic words aside): EDITING your own book (800 pages, no less!) is DA BITCH. There aren´t other words to describe the experience - there REALLY aren´t. Shakespeare and Fernando Pessoa would not have found better words for this particular experience: DA BITCH (not even "the" bitch...NO!).

 

After writing, editing (all by myself) and publishing my first Book "The Secrets of Egypt - Dance, Life & Beyond" it´s known that I am working (second and final editing) of a book I wrote around two years ago - the same book that took me to Egypt in the first place.

I wrote it, edited it and left it resting* for a while - thanks God! Life can also be a b... (see, now I´m being a polite sweet heart) but WISDOM  is revealed in its timing and unexpected events. I HAD to let this other* book rest for a while in order to have the clear mind to REALLY look at it and see what´s worth keeping and what´s not.

 

I think it was Hemmingway who said: "write drunk and edit sober" (something like this). So spot on: I indeed wrote it drunk (with love, passion, anger, rebellion, etc) and had to wait for more than one year until I was sober enough to SEE it clearly. What a drunk! It took me one year to get clean from the Neptunian fog of Egypt, to calm down after all the trials, tragedies and victories I went through and be LUCID enough to see things/event/people for what/whom they really are.

 

 

While "The Secrets of Egypt" is still hot (out of the stove), I´m working on this baby and it´s killing me. Killing me, ladies & gentlemen.

The usual challenge of juggling my Dance career, constant travelling (plus new challenges I put myself into right now) and personal life with the WRITING work is still an issue. I´m a Dancer (or part of me is), for God´s sake - it´s not natural or easy to sit for hours, day after day, staring at thousands of words that stand as motionless and silent as I do. I´m used to movement and music and this incredible (some times violent) introspection that the writing job demands can literally drive me nuts. I love it and I am terrified of it.

 

Insecurities also join the party, of course. It doesn´t matter that I know I can do it greatly - it doesn´t matter. It doesn´t matter that experience tells me I´m perfectly capable of climbing one more mountain top - it doesn´t matter. The damned insecurities (that can also be the friend who push you to do better and better) always find a way to sneak in and trouble my peace of mind.

 

Plus: you learn by DOING. After writing and editing my first book (in a language that is not my own), I surely gained a little experience on the craft and now the standard is way higher than before: I see mistakes, repetitions and empty text all over the place (mad,mad,mad); I feel the rhythm of the words and the need to create a story that catches me (also a reader) by the balls (or uterus) at every single phrase. In other words: the jig is up, so up that I´m ripping my hair off.

 

Yelling to the wind: EDITING is DA BITCH and that´s all there is, folks!

(release it, baby, let it out and...DO IT).

 

P.S. Life´s sweet, isn´t it? Isn´t it?
Repeat after me...