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My Minnesota Brass drum corps adventure came to an exciting close this weekend--we won the world championships in Rochester, NY! It's the first time in the 30+ years that Minnesota Brass has been competing in DCA that we've won the championship. How lucky am I to have picked this year to participate!?

I'm sure I'll have a few more observations/thoughts about this challenging and rewarding adventure to share once a few more days pass. Right now, my aching body is relieved that the season is over, and I'm thrilled to turn my attention to writing again--finally! It's fall (I don't care what the calendar says; it's fall when school starts), and I am excited to be back to my routine and to have a new work-for-hire book assignment to start. Meanwhile, here are a few pix from this past weekend.


Randy and I after prelims on Saturday


The whole color guard (I'm in the hat in the back row)--what a talented bunch of people!



We take the field in our boat formation (more visible from higher up). I'm the front oar on the right. The guy in the cape is our Viking hero, who dies in battle but lives again in Valhalla, the heaven for Viking warriors.


Guard and staff after the win. We stayed and celebrated on the field in the rain, dancing around and clutching our medals and hugging each other. So many of them (the whole corps, not just color guard) have been in MBI for quite a while, and have been working toward this win year after year.


Whew! We made it. There were times I wasn't sure we would...

Thank you, all of you online friends who have been offering me support and encouragement since I started this adventure in January. Your words always meant a lot to me -- I was so far out of my comfort zone, but I knew I had people cheering me on. You rock.

One of the biggest things I've realized over the course of my drum corps adventures is that I have a very inaccurate sense of what my body's doing when it comes to learning flag work. In slow motion, I have excellent body control, so I'm fine in yoga, workout classes, weights, etc. But the speed and the unfamiliarity of spinning flags and running through drill make flagwork so tough for me! Staff will show us a move, and I'll do it. But it turns out I only think I'm doing it. Really, I'm doing my feet differently, or my hands, or my flag, or something. They'll correct me, and I could swear I was already doing what they're saying I need to do. It's so messed up! Often, it's not until I can see it on video later that I really see what they mean and can try to correct it.


Photo: Jessica Hammond - Saturday was Ke$ha day for the color guard. Animal prints, fishnets, and glitter
galore. I stuck with just glitter eyeshadow:>)

Sometimes in the course of working with beginning writers, I'll ask them to try changing some aspect of their manuscript. I'll be very concrete and specific and they'll revise it.

And the aspect I've asked that they focus on is not any better the next time around! I'm always patient, because all writers deserve that. But I've been puzzled. How can they not see that they still have way too much description--they just changed what they are describing? (Or whatever aspect of their manuscript we're talking about.) Now I get it. Their manuscript awareness is as bad as my flag-spinning awareness.

That doesn't mean it's hopeless, though! Focusing on small, very specific changes can produce progress. Going through the same segment (or manuscript) many, many times will be helpful. Writers with a really accurate manuscript perception might be able to revise much more quickly or incorporate new techniques easily into their next manuscript. Others may have to take a more painstaking approach and work a lot harder at it.

But if you end up with a great manuscript (or a decent drum corps show performance), the reader (audience) won't know it was 10 times harder for you than for anyone else. Which I guess, in the end, is an encouraging thing.

From Thursday evening to Sunday evening, I was on a drum corps bus trip from Minneapolis to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. We took charter buses for the almost 24-hour trips there and back. Randy and I rode the "baby bus." The "wine and cheese bus" (adults, light drinking) was full, so we had to choose between the "party bus" (drink lots, up late, usually puking involved) and the baby bus (under 21 has to ride there, no alcohol). No contest. Our bus was full of funny kids and great energy. And no vomit smell. Yay! This was my first ever bus trip like this with a team. It was exhausting and fun, and here are a few things I learned.

1. Never test the cologne in a men's bathroom at a truck stop. Ryan did, and he got back on the bus in a cloud of Obsession and laughter. I couldn't write on the bus, but you'd better believe the Obsession incident will make it into a story someday!

2. When a big bus pulls up to a truck stop at 1 a.m., a Subway worker might put up a "Closed. Computer down" sign rather than make 40 sandwiches. Lame.

3. "Sleeping" on a charter bus works out better for 17-year-olds than for me.

4. A hotel bed never feels better than when you spent the previous night on a bus.

5. Front of the bus=first in line for food and bathrooms plus the most air-conditioned, least stinky part of the bus.

6. Bananas do not travel well.

7. Snuggies have ridiculous commercials, but they make awesome bus blankets.

8. Lines on maps don't mean a lot. Rural Pennsylvania looked and felt a lot like rural Minnesota. 

9. Being the weakest link on a team stinks, but being part of a talented collaboration is awesome. I can't believe how talented and dedicated this drum corps is. I never did anything like this as a kid, but I wish I had.

10. Your seat-mate matters. Choose your partner well and travel with a fantastic group of people, and you can't go wrong.

Thanks, Minnesota Brass, for an unforgettable adventure.

Photo: Patty McKenna (This pic is from our very first show.)

I've been feeling in waaaaaaaaaaaaay over my head in color guard. Staffers will call out commands that I have no idea of the meaning of, like, "If it's windy, spin outside the silk more." Or something like that. Anyway, there's just so much stuff that everyone seems to know except me, and there are only so many times I can bug the person next to me for help.

It's like when you audition for a writing assignment and you get it. And then you realize you don't know if you can actually DO the writing to the editor's/publisher's standards. And you think, uh oh. What have I done?

But we've done three shows now, and I'm getting better, tiny bit by tiny bit. At each practice, I learn more of what I'm doing wrong and how to make it right. The hope is that by the finals in September, I'll actually be able to complete the show without major errors!

Anyway, here's our show from DCI Minnesota, last Saturday here in the Twin Cities. You can't tell who's who in uniform, but I'm the front oar on the right side, both in the entrance onto the field and in the opener oar work. I'm calling your attention to the oar work, because next week, I'll share an embarrassing snippet of my trying to learn this oar work. Yikes.

(Previous drum corps posts here.)

Well, I survived my first two drum corps shows.



After a disastrous run-through at practice, I said to staffer Heather, "I'm clearly not ready to do the opener." That's the opening number that includes the oar work above. "You need to," she said. And that was that.

So I did all my planned songs in both shows. Did I do them right? Well, some things were good, and some things were really not!

But, honestly, if I waited until I thought I was ready to do the different pieces in shows, I'd probably never perform them. So, Heather was right, dang her.

A lot of writers just beginning to submit their work are the same way. But an editor can't buy your work if it's sitting in a drawer! So, set a deadline and work as hard as you can to make your cover letter or query letter or manuscript as good as it can possibly be by that date. And then send it. And that's that. Then you move on to making your next show, your next manuscript, your next submission even better.

(Previous drum corps posts here.)

In color guard, there are two conflicting techniques for how to know where you should be on the field at any given beat of music:

March Your Dots - Know exactly what your position should be for every step--for instance, 3 steps outside the 45-yard line and 8 steps behind the front hash mark.

Guide to the Rest of the Guard - Know that if you're in a group of guard members creating an arc, you should be able to tell where you belong because you're forming an arc.

The reality is some combination of the two.

Last week at practice, though, the person next to me in a big chunk of the opening number sat out of the end-of-the-night run-through. She was there all night, and suddenly she wasn't. And the next person in the group was absent that night. So there we were on the field, all 100+ hornline, percussion, and guard members, and I got totally lost. I couldn't see the rest of the line I was supposed to line up with. I ended up getting so flustered I skipped about 24 beats of drill, so I was way ahead of everyone else in the music. That means I was in the completely wrong place for the rest of the song, running into brass players, ending up at the front of the field all by myself, finishing way too early--the whole thing was a disaster. Clearly, more of marching my dots was needed there. Yikes.

I think a balance is needed for writing, too. You have to write what you're passionate about, in the forms and genres and audience range that calls to you. That's marching your dots, being true to who you are and where you need to be.

But guiding doesn't hurt, either. You have to be aware of the industry, what other writers are doing, and where you fit in. In fact, it can be really helpful to have a few people to guide by: one writer who is writing the range and kind of books you want to write; another who has created the kind of day-to-day writing career you want; maybe another who promotes him- or herself in a way that you're comfortable with and can use as a model.

I'm going to see if I can identify one for each of the above categories. I already know the writing one--J. Patrick Lewis. Hey, aim high, right? His range astonishes me, and I love that he makes writing so many different kinds of poetry (and now fantastic easy readers) work for him. And he publishes with tons of different publishers. I'm going to think about the career one and marketing one today.

Do you have any particular writers or illustrators you use as guides for your own career?


(See more posts about my color guard experience here.)

I've said how hard my color guard experience has been. (Here's how my color guard adventure started out...) It's tough on everything--my body, my schedule, my brain...My body's taking the most beating, though. I've had two black eyes, too many big bruises to count, swollen fingers, and a knee that now seems to be permanently swollen. On the plus side, I'm getting lots of exercise and haven't really needed to work out--not from a calorie-burning viewpoint, anyway.

Still, I've been trying to make it to yoga 2-3 times a week. I find that even though yoga is way more strenuous than I ever expected it to be when I started it last December, my body needs it! Yoga is kind to me and forgiving in a way that color guard is not, so it helps offset some of the abuse I'm putting myself through. It gives my physical self some balance.

In writing, it's the same thing. I've been--ok, abusing seems like the wrong word--forcing my mind to concentrate on various income-producing projects for several months. Copyediting, fiction for hire, coursework, etc., have filled my weeks. You'd think I'd be tired of words by now. But I'm not. I'm just tired of that forced focus.

And I'm so excited that over the next two weeks, I have four whole days set aside to focus on a poetry project. I've been revising one poem every day for a while, but now I'm going to have four blocks of time, about 5 hours each, to devote to this project--yay! I'll be able to really immerse myself into it.

On Facebook recently, Anne Marie Pace posted that her agent told her she had to work on a novel for an hour and then she could reward herself with a bit of work on a picture book. I love that, because I strike those kinds of bargains with myself all the time. Sometimes, in the rush to get all my work done, though, I forget to reward myself with the time to write what I really love to write. But with encouragement from Susan Taylor Brown and Lisa Bullard, I've put those four days on my calendar and can't wait for them!

What are your balanced pairs--the things that seem similar to other people, but one is really more work, and the other one is fun?

I got word on Friday--I made it!

If you've been following my Minnesota Brass adventure, you know I had official auditions for the color guard 2-1/2 weeks ago. Thank you to all of you who have been encouraging me over the past few months as I've struggled with this new activity. You've made me feel better for trying, regardless of how things turned out!

The staff acknowledged that my tryout was a little rough--um, that would be the part I told you about where we learned the new part of the routine and I just couldn't put it together fast enough to do it with the group. But they like my determination and attitude, so I'm in! I'm sure I won't be in the whole show (especially after seeing how long I take to learn 30 seconds of complicated choreography--and the show is 9 to 11 minutes long), but I'll be able to participate, which should be a blast!

Except for one thing.

You know how if you try to get a job/assignment (freelance writing or otherwise), you put on your most confident face and sell yourself? And then if you get the assignment, you're really happy and excited? Except then reality hits and you realize you have to actually DO this thing you've been trying to convince someone else you can do?

That's me, right now. I'm terrified. Because what if I can't do it? What if I freeze in front of thousands of people? What if I suck?

I actually have a writing/editing assignment right now that's giving me the same self-doubt. It's scary stretching beyond my comfort zone, whether in my writing work or in a sport/activity. If I crash and burn in color guard, it will be very publicly. In front of an audience. Oh well, that will be a post for another day.

For now, until practice this week, I'm just going to bask in: "I made it!"

Minnesota Brass auditions were Wednesday night.

You know how on So You Think You Can Dance, there are always dancers that do really well with their routine they've been perfecting for ages? And then Nigel and Mia and Adam send them on to choreography to see how well they can pick up new stuff? And you know how there's always someone flailing about in choreography, three beats behind and running into the other dancers?

I wish I had done that well.

From the beginning of my Minnesota Brass adventure, picking up the routines has been the hard part for me. Once I learn something (by videotaping the staffers and then practicing it endlessly at home, one frame at a time), I can do it pretty well.

So Wednesday, on all the floor routines and flag routines we've been learning at rookie nights, I did well. Yay!

Then they added "just a little bit on to the audition piece, to see well you can pick things up." Crap.

They more than doubled the length of the audition piece, and even with some one-on-one help, I just couldn't keep up. I can't memorize things that quickly. So when we ran through the entire piece, start to finish with the new stuff, I just stood there once we got to the new stuff. Everybody else was spinning, tossing, sitting, turning--not perfectly, but at least you could tell they were doing the same basic stuff.

I was just standing there. My body didn't know what to do.

Blech.

They haven't posted the list of people who made it yet. It sounds like they rarely cut people entirely, but it also sounds like they'll be doing just that for a few people this year.

At any rate, I'm relieved auditions are over! I had a blast learning new stuff, and we'll see what happens. I did my best and I'm glad I tried out--thanks for all your encouragement the past two months. I'll let you know when I find out the results.

I already knew that perfectionism had no place in my Minnesota Brass adventure. As a first-time spinner, I have no hope nor expection of perfection, and I'm not a perfectionist, anyway, in any areas of my life. I'm a pretty-darn-goodist at best. 

But, when I know I need to improve in something, I will practice it fairly relentlessly until forced to move along to the next thing.

So last week at practice, I was thinking, "Hey, I'm doing sort of OK, here!" I could keep up with what was going on during the spinning (flag-spinning and tossing) part of practice. My moved weren't sharp enough or precise enough or fast enough. But I could at least complete the exercises reasonably well.

But before I could give myself a big pat on the back, Heather said, "OK, now we're going to try this left-handed."

WHAT?!

Drop spins, under flats, triplets, thumb flips, and some combination of single tosses while traveling in plies that I don't know the name of--I had just barely been able to handle those with my right hand. When I tried to do them with my left hand, I didn't even know where to start, other than constantly dropping the flag and/or hitting myself with it.

But here's the weird thing. As I've been practicing the left-handed stuff at home since that practice, I've realized that moving ahead to something even harder has made the right-handed version feel so much easier! And by trying to learn something that builds on the prior skill, I'm still improving the prior skill while focusing on the new skill. In some bizarre way, the overwhelming new task moved me forward in my old task, too.

Or maybe my right-handed stuff just looks better to me because the left-handed stuff is so pathetic!

This has me wondering about writing, too, though. Do I keep "working on" certain things in my writing because I'm really trying to improve them? Or is it just habit? Is it time to say good enough on certain levels of skill and try to take them a step further? Is that when the real improvement will happen on the good enough ones? As I struggle with the brand new and totally overwhelming ones?

Writing isn't visual nor quantifiable like flag-spinning is. When I drop the flag or catch it before it rotates the proper number of times, that's pretty obvious. I know I didn't do it well enough. Writing and other artistic pursuits are much harder to judge. Still, I know there are techniques I work on, whether it's coming up with better titles or using stronger imagery in my poems, that I've been working on a long time. So I'm wondering if there are ways I can push myself beyond those expectations to something harder, a new level of those same areas. I might not hit the something harder, but maybe the titles and imagery will get stronger as I struggle to reach for what seems totally unreachable. (Huh. Cue "The Impossible Dream" here.)

What do you think? Am I crazy? Has this happened to you, too?

P.S. I'll be at the hospital today with my daughter, who's having an evaluative procedure. Please keep your fingers crossed for good results--thanks!

News flash: Making your body do stuff it's not used to causes soreness. OK, I know that's no surprise, but I'm being reminded of it now. It's been 7 or 8 weeks of learning across-the-floors and flag spins and tosses for my Minnesota Brass adventure, and my body is feeling it. I've been black and blue from hitting myself with the metal flagpole (that sucker is big and unwieldy!--at least in my hands). My knees ache, my back hurts, and my arms are really fatigued after a session working on spins and tosses. Sometimes I think, "What the heck am I doing?"

But then I look at how much I've improved. And how I like feeling the muscles wake up and do something different. And how this is challenging both my body and brain. And that's what the heck I'm doing.

I think it's the same thing with writing. If you don't have occasional aches and pains, maybe you're not pushing yourself. I'm guilty of that. I don't think writing should be actually painful, most of the time. But I also think if it's too easy, that maybe I'm not doing my best work. Getting better at something--anything--means pushing beyond my comfort zone. It means ignoring the "I don't really feel like it" thoughts and the "I'm just not cut out for this" thoughts and--most of all--the "I don't think I can do this" thoughts and just buckling down and doing it. Again and again and again. Studying the results. Practicing some more. Studying the results. Getting feedback from other people. And, finally, recognizing that even if I'm not as good as I want to be at something, at least I'm improving.

What do you think? Do you agree? Or am I crazy? What in your life (doesn't need to be writing-related) are you learning/improving that's causing you some growing pains right now?

Time for another Minnesota Brass update. Ever since I started this adventure about six weeks ago, I've felt out of place. I still do. And that's one of the reasons I think I have to keep doing it.

Last week the entire color guard was supposed to come. The veterans haven't been coming to practice because they already know all the basic moves, having done color guard for years either in high school or with a DCI drum corps or with Minnesota Brass itself. It's been mostly just the rookies (I'm the only one left who's totally new to spinning) or a few people working on rifles. I've enjoyed our very tiny Wed. night practices.

Then last week there were suddenly 20 people or so, mostly under age 25. It was like being back in high school. Before we got started, everyone was divided into their little groups, catching up with color guard friends they hadn't seen since last autumn. I just sat there. Every minute dragged on for ages.

It was like being the new kid in class, the one nobody really wants there because they were doing just fine without you there, thank you very much.

As I sat there, I thought about how much I felt this way as a kid (and sometimes as an adult, too, like when I first started going to writers' conferences). You know, when you feel like a big, obvious statue in the middle of a room--an ungainly, out-of-place element that people avoid but can't really ignore? Or maybe that's just me!

Anyway, I felt so awkward, so I started daydreaming about stories and wondering if I have a character that feels this way. And if I do, I have a new empathy I can put to work in the story. Because even when I felt self-conscious at writers' conferences, I knew these were my people--I just didn't actually know them yet. But color guard, these are totally not my people! I am out of place. They know it. I know it.

So, in order to not waste the hideous feelings of not belonging, I'm going to use it in my writing. Oh, the sacrifices we make:>)

Several weeks into my adventures with Minnesota Brass, I’ve realized that where I stand during practice really matters. When we do across-the-floors, my first instinct was to get at the end of the line. Then I realized that when my turn came, I was passe-ing and chasse-ing and jazz-running across the floor right toward a line of people watching me, because the people who had finished were now lined up facing my direction. Ack. NOT what I intended.

And when we work on flag spinning, same thing. I gravitate toward the back of the group. But between other bodies and that dang silk waving in my face, I can’t see the instructor half the time! And also, in the parts of an exercise where you face the back, I end up at the very FRONT of the group, with nobody to copy (uh, I mean, refer to) in front of me.

So I’m learning to place myself where I can feel the least self-conscious and also learn most efficiently.

It’s what I try to do in my writing life, too. Stand where I can clearly see and learn from writers I admire, who are farther along the trail I want to walk. I don’t stand where I make myself the center of attention—ugh. But I surround myself with other people who are working with the same attitude as me. They may be more or less skilled at this point, but they have a great time, work hard, and dance when the music comes on.

Where do YOU like to stand, either in your writing life or in your day job or in your hobbies? Are you hiding near the back, like me? Or does someplace else in the group work better for you? Do you naturally place yourself in the spot that works best for you, or do you have to fight your instincts and purposefully stand somewhere that makes you feel a bit uncomfortable?

That's the question you always have to ask yourself when you say you want to do something--whether that something is writing a book or joining a color guard.

Older Daughter bailed on practice this past week at the last minute. Why? Because she was going out to dinner with a friend: "We've been trying to get the 5-8 Club for like a week." This is a friend she sees several times a week, so this was a good indication of her level of commitment to color guard. She says she wants to do the color guard (total newbie, like me), but I don't think she wants it badly enough to make the commitment. Saying you want to do something isn't enough. If your life is as full and busy as most of ours are, you have to think about what you're willing to give up in order to make it happen.

I discovered that I'm willing to give up (or at least work through) some of my self-consciousness and practice across-the-floor exercises (dance stuff) along the edge of the gym, even when there are teens in there shooting hoops and I feel like a total fool. But it was hard. Totally against my nature. 

Older Daughter has no problem with self-consciousness, and I'd have no problem giving up dinner out with a friend I see frequently. What's painful to give up is different for each of us. And what we're willing to give up is, too. I don't think Older Daughter is willing to put the hours into color guard that it requires. And that's totally ok! There's no reason she has to do it! But, like with all big undertakings, you have to decide and commit one way or the other and then stick to it.

What are you committing to? And what will you have to give up to really go for it?

Maybe you saw my post last week on joining the color guard of an all-ages drum corps. I'm going to post each week, I think, on my (possibly brief) adventure there. I need a name for this series of posts--something to make them sound funnier and more relevant than they really are. Any thoughts?

Anyhow, last week, two things happened:

1) The drum corps changed its policy. The first week, they explained that they don't have tryouts. This matched everything on their site about their inclusion policy--if you want to do it and work hard, they WILL find a place for you. You might not be performing the entire show, but you'll be in there somewhere, doing something. That was the week Young Adult Daughter (aka YAD) and I confessed no color guard experience whatsoever. Last week, the second week, the color guard teachers passed out our calendar, and OH LOOK, there's now a tryout night. Hmm. I'm sure it's a complete coincidence that this is apparently the first year they're actually having auditions.

2) Last week, YAD participated, and she did better than I expected. She hadn't done the first week because she went to the meeting wearing a skirt (they didn't tell us that meeting was actually the first night of rehearsal!), so she had sat and texted in the auditorium all night. Didn't even watch the color guard group work on stuff. YAD has never done anything with choreography. Nothing. She's not athletic, doesn't work out--she has lots of great strengths, like humor and song-writing and talking, but these aren't things that help too much in learning choreography and spinning flags. This sounds awful, I know, but I assumed she'd struggle with the choreography and, you know, make me look better! I know! I'm awful! But there was that little kernel of feeling in me. Now, neither one of us will be on Broadway anytime soon, but YAD did pretty well. We both messed up a lot, don't get me wrong. But she definitely has a better memory for the choreography than I do. I was all, "Wait a second! Don't leave me behind here!" I rode a pendulum between being proud of her and feeling a bit let down.

I guess it's all about assumptions. The guard leaders perhaps assume I will be awful (since I'm a lot older than most of the members)--and I am awfully slow at learning routines. But I'm determined and enthusiastic, and I'm going to work my butt off. And I assumed YAD would do worse than me, but she didn't. We have different levels of coordination, fitness, timing, and memory. I'm stronger in some areas, and she's stronger in others.

In the writing world, it's the same thing. You meet writers who are unpublished, but they might be genius poets who just haven't found the right publisher yet. Or they might have a novel in their desk drawer that would explode everything you thought you knew about yourself. We look so much for credentials (who have you been published by) that sometimes we overlook the gifts someone has to offer. At conferences, professional writers tend to avoid the newbies like they're contagious. But we're all newbies in some area of our life--at least we are if we're constantly trying new things.

So my color guard experience is reminding me to 1) be nice to newbies (I already am, but this makes me even more determined to be inclusive and welcoming), and 2) when I'm a newbie, enthusiasm and hard work will go a long way.

One of the things I really want to do in my writing is take risks. I want to be knowledgeable about the marketplace and the "accepted" topics and approaches in kids' writing, and I want to have a career as a children's writer, but I also want to risk foolishness and non-publication by continuing to write things I think kids will devour, even if chances of the works published and getting past the gatekeepers is small.

I also like risk and change and learning new things in my non-writing life. My latest adventure has me really intimidated, though. With my husband, who marched in the drum and bugle corps Suncoast Sound in the 80s, and our 18-year-old daughter, I'm trying to join the color guard of Minnesota Brass, an all-ages corps here in the Twin Cities. The color guard is the group of people who dance and spin and toss flags, rifles, and sabres.

Don't let the all-ages label fool you. At the meeting (which actually turned out to be the first rehearsal, too, though they didn't tell us that ahead of time), I was a good 20 years older than almost everyone else in the color guard group (except one or two of the teachers). And I was one of only three people who hadn't been in a color guard or drill team or whatever. Amost everyone was in their early twenties and had just "aged out" of the top level corps, which have a max age of 22, I think.

One of the instructors mentioned that she had spun with Minnesota Brass until she "got too old."

She was younger than me.

The same instructor said to the group at the end of the night, in an encouraging voice, "Don't feel bad if you don't get it right away. It takes a while to learn, and, well, it seems to be easier in general to pick it up the younger you are." She spoke to the group, but you KNOW who she was looking at when she said it!

So, keep your fingers crossed! I'm hoping some of the risk-taking there will translate into new adventure in my writing, too.