Tim is my ballroom dance instructor and my metaphor is less about him than it is about me. But I thought "Dancing
with Tim" made a great title for the Symbol Life section of my newsletter and, perhaps, one day, even for a book.
I've wanted to dance my entire life. When I was eight years old, I loved to watch The Lawrence Welk Show on
television. If you don't know how old I am, that Lawrence Welk was still airing during my childhood will give you a
clue. And, if you don't know who Lawrence Welk is and what his show was about, check out Wikipedia for a good
idea.
For me, one of the show's many highlights was the ballroom dancing segment, although the Broadway musical scenes
captured my imagination, too. I was star-struck by the beautiful costumes and the lyrical movements of the dancers. It
was almost as if they were flying.
Whenever I wanted to watch what my father referred to as the "idiot box," I had to ask permission and lobby for the
redeeming value of the show. The Lawrence Welk Show was a hard one to defend for "educational" purposes. The show just
made me happy. It wasn't any more complicated than that. Yet, my Dad was a complicated fellow who rarely did anything
just for the fun of it. So watching television purely for entertainment value didn't happen in the Greenlee household,
which regularly tuned in to The McNeil-Lehrer Report, 60 Minutes, and a myriad of PBS documentaries.
On one such Sunday, I was eight years old and had to defend why, as my father put it, "a little black girl wanted to
watch an old white man on television." As part of my argument, I announced that when I grew up I wanted to be a
professional dancer. Accordingly, watching The Lawrence Welk Show was a form of study.
With a straight face, my Dad told me that given his height - 5'11" - and that of my mother - a statuesque 5'9" - I
would grow too tall to be a dancer because all professional dancers were required to be 5'6" or under. I'd better think
about going to college instead. Postscript: I reached my full adult height at age 14, which is 5'4".
That I am unable to write this at age 46 without crying - mourning the loss of a childhood dream that was stymied
even before it reached embryonic stage - signals to me the power of metaphor. And that is what my Cheaper Than Therapy
books and this section of my newsletter are all about.
I've tapped into my dream of being a dancer on and off throughout my life by attending classes wherever I lived and
performing in community theater. I fit it in between undergraduate and graduate school, multiple relocations on behalf
of corporate employers, world travel, and now a writing career. I started ballroom dancing regularly in late December
2006 and it's been a rewarding, yet prickly, affair.
Many of my emotional issues surface on the dance floor such as the challenge of allowing a man to lead us in the
dance rather than my controlling the interaction; intimacy - positioning my body forward and dancing closely enough so
that my partner feels sufficient connection rather than distance; and the age old, "Am I good enough?"
Oy. All I wanted was to be a better dancer.
I continue to struggle with the cha-cha. My instructor Tim, an international dance champion, says that when it's
done right, the cha-cha should be "forceful and in your face." Also, he expects me to combine that force with the
Tilt-a-Whirl hip movements that rival the lower body isolations of anything I've seen performed on stage by Alvin Ailey
American Dance Theater or the American Ballet Theatre.
I've been studying for three months and I still don't have it. It's driving me nuts. And I tell Tim so. Quietly,
gently, Tim tells me, again to lean toward him, not backward. "This allows me to feel your spine, your center, and I
can guide you anywhere I want," he assures me. Hmmm. Metaphorically, I'm convinced that this - trust - is at the heart
of my challenge.
Still, I'm dancing…
My third book, which I'm totally in love with, is developing on schedule. (I love my first two books but this one is
my first baby, as you will read more about in The Leap below.) The manuscript is with readers and editors, some of whom have already
given me useful feedback I've incorporated into my revisions. Also, I'm in the middle of the selection process for a
new book designer. I'm taking a more thorough and calculated approach than I did last time. I'll write about this
process in the next installment of The Leap, as some folks have e-mailed me wanting to know more about the mechanics of
my publishing adventures.
For example, they've asked "How did you go about getting endorsements for your [second] book?" The short answer is
"I asked nicely." However, approaching well-known authors whom I don't personally know for endorsements must be handled
with aplomb so they recognize my request as legitimate. I'll outline exactly how I went about it in a future episode of
The Leap because I will be seeking endorsements for Postcards and Pearls, too.
Last time, Gina learned that success in
publishing is swiftest when she swims with the current, not against it. This approach resulted in impressive
endorsements for her second book. In this episode, Gina explains why it took her six years to finally finish her third
book, Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road.
In 1997, I sat among 74 students in a week long writing workshop taught by
Natalie Goldberg in Taos, New Mexico. A writer
friend of Natalie's, whom she'd enlisted to co-facilitate the workshop, shared the journey of his first book. Though it
was the first book he wrote, he told the group of novice and would-be writers, it would become the fifth book he'd
publish. This struck me as odd. I had no experience with how writing really happens; I assumed it was linear - the
first book you write is the first one you publish; the second book you write is the second one you publish, and so
on.
Natalie's friend didn't clearly explain why this had happened to him. I felt dissatisfied by his explanation and
filed it under the category, "Nothing to do with me."
During the past 10 years, however, I've heard variations on that story but with fuller explanations by writers I
know and by those who are extraordinarily famous such as novelist John Grisham.
Grisham's story became well-known to many as his star began to rise. However, for those
unfamiliar with it, here's the short version: after he wrote his first novel, A Time to Kill, he had difficulty getting
it published. A small publishing house eventually picked it up but the book didn't see much glitter until Grisham's
next three books became bestsellers. His celebrity invigorated exposure for A Time to Kill, making it a hot property
with a big, new publisher. The novel also became a major motion picture. I've not followed Grisham's career beyond this
early episode but when A Time to Kill hit the bestseller list, critics considered it to be his best book.
My version of the "third book is my first book" began with a solo trip around the world in 2000.
I wrote about my trip for The Hartford Courant's entertainment Web site, ctnow.com, filing a weekly column called
Journey with Gina. Throughout my trip and for months afterward, I received
e-mail from women across the United States and from the Caribbean cheering me on and asking me questions such as "Where
do you find the courage to travel alone?" "How do you keep from getting lonely?" "How do you stay safe?" These women
were less interested in the mechanics of my world trip
and more plugged into the attitudes and belief system that served as the trip's foundation.
I did not expect the volume of weekly e-mail I received in response to each posting yet it was important to me to
answer each one. After a month, I realized I was answering the same questions repeatedly. That's when the idea for an
inspirational book about women and solo travel came to me. It seemed the most efficient way to reach a large audience
of women with similar questions on their minds.
When I returned home after five months of travel, I got to work. I had a defined audience and topic, the credibility
to author the book given my world tour and previous travels, and the desire to turn my idea into a tangible product.
What I didn't have was a clue about how to get published.
By this time, I had become a frequent contributor to The Courant and so I had many journalism contacts. I tapped
into this writing network for a referral to a literary agent and to learn about the business of publishing through
trade organizations such as the National Writers Union and The Author's Guild. Also, I amassed a robust library of
how-to books on the subject.
I spent the next three years wandering the wilderness of the trade publishing machine, being put on hold with fake
bites from agents who really wanted to be writers and disappeared when their book contracts were signed (or who hung a
shingle just long enough to obtain an editor position with a publishing house).
When I did get the attention of a legitimate agent, I learned some hard lessons about whipping together half-baked
book proposals in a desperate attempt to obtain a book contract, courting A-list agents when
I had limited writing and publishing experience, and not trusting myself - feigning interest in writing a book on a
particular topic because an editor at a major house proposed the idea.
The multiple versions of proposals I had written for Postcards and Pearls, rejection letters and consequently, my
diminishing faith in my idea left me completely confused about my book's thesis. Was solo travel a metaphor for
embracing life more fully or did I want to encourage women to literally travel on their own? Or, should it be a mixture
of both and, if so, was I trying to do too much in one book? I didn't know anymore.
In the middle of all this came September 11, 2001, and rendered my book about women and solo travel completely
unsellable during what one agent called, "these dangerous times." The book that had once captivated me, motivated me to
answer questions for others felt like a menacing stranger from whom I only wanted distance. I put Postcards and Pearls
in a box.
Three years of driving hard toward my publishing goal with no success while also writing a column for The Courant
and freelancing for other periodicals completely sucked me dry. Then I started to run out of money during my hiatus
from corporate America. I had to stop, find a job, and, as a friend recently remarked about a life change his wife made
just before meeting him, "hit the reset button." Returning to the corporate world in 2003 felt like what I would
imagine it would feel like to land on Mars; I needed all of my emotional energy just to get back into that demanding
groove.
In 2004, I embraced my own mortality; my father and two friends died, and a third friend was diagnosed with cancer.
My friends were young. So, I made a short list of things I wanted to do before I died as a way to get serious about
prioritizing whatever time I have left on this earth. "Being a book author" was number one on the list. But Postcards
and Pearls still felt too raw to revisit. So, in 2005, I turned to an idea that came to me while working a part-time
job during my three-year break from the corporate world, about how
paper clips can remind us to stay on top of life's
small problems so they don't become big ones.
That was the birth of the Cheaper Than Therapy series of inspirational gift books and a check mark for my list. Not
an easy journey to be sure, but it felt far more approachable than Postcards and Pearls, which had already been a
circuitous five-year trek. This was especially true because I had made the pivotal decision to self-publish, which
meant I would be doing all of the work, not just the writing.
As rewarding as the Cheaper Than Therapy series has been (I have plans for two more books), last summer, I finally
felt ready to tell larger stories, and one in particular that had captivated my heart for six years. When I unearthed
the digital version of my Postcards and Pearls manuscript, I was thrilled to discover I was much further along than I
remembered.
My manuscript was about 60 percent complete, which reinvigorated my motivation and helped propel me forward. This
time there were no editors, literary agents, or even well-meaning friends to tell me what my book should be. At last, I
knew what my story was about and exactly how I wanted to tell it. With no fanfare or pronouncements, I took to my
computer.
When I proposed a half-time work schedule to my employer last summer,
I did it largely on a whim, spontaneously taking advantage of
changes in my department's organizational structure and climate. Looking back, I recognize it was just the time I
needed to devote to the care and feeding of my third/first book. (Note: I went back to my day job on a full-time basis
in January. I was asked to return to a full-time schedule and I agreed because it better funds my publishing
adventures.)
Every Tuesday and Thursday, my days off from the day job, I wrote. And every evening after work, and on weekends, I
wrote. I said "No" to a lot of people, and to myself when I was tempted to engage in activities that would distract me
from my goal. Michael Cunningham, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Hours said it best during an NPR
interview: "To get writing done, one must say no to things no reasonable person could ever turn down."
I began writing Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road in September of 2000. In last
issue's The Leap, I wrote that finishing my first book on December 29, 2006, was one of the happiest days of my life. I
hope now you have a better understanding as to why.
Gina's publishing adventures continue in episode 16 of The Leap as she searches (and keep your fingers crossed)
finds a new designer for Postcards and Pearls…
