Finding your story
I was one of those little girls who was always writing. When I was about 10, I wrote a series of plays for my neighborhood friends about princesses and their dog. (My sister always played the dog, happily.) We put on these shows for our parents in our backyards, wearing nightgowns and headbands as tiaras. (The royal dog did not wear a tiara or gown.) I believed in my bones I would be a novelist or a playwright.
But life got in the way. I majored in Journalism and English and then went to law school and embarked on a career as a business journalist. I was busy all day writing, but not on particularly creative projects. On weekends and nights, I would work on little bits of writing – a start to a story here, a few character sketches there. But these did not come to much of anything. When journalism in general (and business journalism in particular) failed, I turned to “content marketing,” which was far from creative. The years went by.
Soon after I turned 50, I went to a Friday night dance party at my local ballroom studio. That night played out just about exactly as did The Steps Between Us protagonist Ava’s introduction to ballroom. Like Ava, I was scarred by traumatic early dance experiences (I, too, was fired from ballet.) But I was utterly transfixed by the dance scene I saw at the studio that night. So many people who knew how to dance, so many different dances. It was a revelation, a shimmering realm I wanted to join more than I have wanted just about anything.
Imre Gombkötő
But I might have left that evening with nothing more than a feeling of longing except for the fact that Hungarian dance pro Imre Gombkötő – Imi – seized upon me (as he did all potential new clients) and insisted I dance with him and then take a free lesson the next week. It was terrifying but exhilarating. And that’s how it has been, ever since. Fear plus excitement. Frustration and suffering, embarrassment and shame, always. But so much joy. I fell deeply in love with everything ballroom. I made the most magnificent friends in this community, and we have had the best times. My attention to the lessons has always taken a backseat to me observing the environment.
That’s because, almost immediately after starting my lessons, I realized I wanted to write about Ballroom World. I wasn’t sure then what form it would take – maybe non-fiction, maybe a screenplay, maybe a novel. I took notes, did interviews with clients and pros, tried out different things. I wrote the pilot episode of a TV series called Swirl I still hope to come back to. (I didn’t pick a great time to try to break into Hollywood! A young producer told me I would never make it because “you live in Boston, you’re a nobody, and you’re old.”) I decided to recast the material as a novel, The Steps Between Us.
As a first-time novelist of a certain age, I guess I’d have to call myself a late bloomer. I don’t know why for all those decades I still believed I would write a novel, but I did. At this point, I’m just delighted to have found my subject, an absorbing world I hope to keep writing about. It has glamour on a scale I could only have dreamt about in my backyard-princess days. And so many compelling human stories.
Before that first night at the studio, I could not dance a step. And I had no story to tell. Imi gave me both. I am forever grateful. Thank you, Imi, for introducing me to dance, for bringing me your world. I owe you so much. As you like to tease, I will still need lessons from you when I’m 90 and you are merely 70. I hope so.