The United States of Sway

The State of the Art

I'm working on an article about my recent trip to Florence. It's due Aug. 19 and will be for a business and travel publication. As with any time I have massive amounts of information to cram into a single travel article, I sometimes doubt that I'll be able to do the locale justice. I think I did manage to take some good photos, though, and hopefully, after I decide which ones I'm going to submit for printing, I'll know which ones I can post here, too.

As far as my day-to-day work goes, I'm still finding it frustrating that companies can misplace my invoices, or they might get buried in my editor's inbox, etc. And because it takes most magazines at least 30 days to pay freelancers, I can't know that the invoice has been misplaced or skipped until 30 days passes. Then by the time I let the finance department know and they rectify the mistake and cut me the check, two months may have passed. The result is an earnings spreadsheet with lots of red boxes representing thousands of outstanding dollars. Completely annoying.

On another writing front, I've legitimately given myself an ultimatum. (Can you say something is an ultimatum even if there aren't really any negative consequences?) I've told myself I have to finish my novel by my 30th birthday. I turned 27 in May, so I feel like three years should be a reasonable amount of time to accomplish this. I've had an idea brewing since 2006. I was working at a law firm in downtown Phoenix and some scenes and characters came to me. I started scribbling down some notes, and ever since then, these characters have not left my mind. And for the past half decade, I've lived with them in my head, and their story has developed more and more, and I know that it's time for me to just get it out and down on paper. The problem is, I often have a hard time justifying to myself time spent on "investment work" rather than work that's going to immediately pay the bills. Which is a lame excuse. Last year I did National Novel Writing Month and got a good start on it -- so I know what I'm capable of if I just make the stinking time.

From now on, Fridays are for fiction. Monday through Thursday I'm going to work hard to fulfill my other work obligations, and then no excuses, Fridays I'm going to sit my butt down and try to write as much as I can. Even if none of it's good. Even if none of it will be ultimately usable. I just have to get it all out and down on paper. Wish me luck with that.

The State of the Household

My boyfriend left yesterday morning for a week-long vacation with his family, so it's going to be very quiet around here. Usually I get pretty lonely whenever he's gone this long, but I honestly have so much to do and think about this week, that the time will probably just zip by. For starters, I need to crank out that travel article mentioned above, plus working ahead on other upcoming to-do's wouldn't hurt at all. And if I can get all of that to a good place by next Friday, then I won't even have to feel bad about taking Friday and Saturday to work on my fiction project.

Not to mention, I need to clean the house. With me being gone on my own week-long vacation just a few weeks ago, plus with both of us having been so busy with work and other projects these last couple of weeks, the condo is in major need of being put back together. And not to say my boyfriend is messy, but ... let's just say it will be easier for me to reclaim our living space with him gone for a week.

Plus, there are books I want to read, movies I want to watch, bubble baths I want to take, and non-boyfriend-friendly meals I want to cook. I don't know how much, if any, of these things will really happen in the next seven days, but hey, a girl can dream, right? 

The State of the Extracurricular Activities

Also, this week is my first working week as an instructor at that fitness studio I mentioned in a previous post. I have been training my fanny off the past 12 weeks, and then this past week just about did me in. I've been at the studio every single day for several hours at a time, and yesterday I was there from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. going over everything all over again. "What?" you ask. "What kind of fitness instructing requires that much intense studying?" This is one of those barre workouts -- a mix of yoga, pilates and ballet barre work. It got me into the best shape of my life and became so fun and addicting that I knew I wanted to become an instructor. Little did I know how much each instructor actually puts into teaching one of these 60-minute classes, though! As in instructor, you're leading a class through a routine, so you're talking the entire hour, giving them cues for each exercise, plus walking around and giving them individualized and positive corrective feedback. The entire time. You have to have the flow of all the exercises memorized, plus you have to stay on the beat and change the music where appropriate. If you see that most of the people in your class are having a hard time with the exercise you've set them up in, then you need to change it on the fly to something a little easier yet still challenging ... The whole thing is a blend of certain material that is etched in stone, and other material that the instructors have to improvise as they go. Plus, you have to make sure that you don't go over 60 minutes, or under 60 minutes.

I can't remember the last time I had to speak in front of people for a full hour. Maybe never. In a way, you're kind of putting on a 60-minute performance for your class that they can follow along with. It's been a little overwhelming to learn everything, but regardless, today is my first full-length class. I have to teach a full 60 minutes with real clients in the class. Another instructor will be present in case I pass out or something, but otherwise, it will be all me. And then tomorrow, Aug. 1, I'll teach my first real class, and no other instructor will be there to bail me out if, say, I forget an entire section.

It is a lot to remember, and at times, a lot of pressure. But sometimes, when the other instructors who are going through the training program start to panic, I just say, "Hey, relax. Remember, at the end of the day, you're just helping people exercise." Not that big of a deal.

Just Like Vertical Horizon, I'm Still Here

Hello, and thank you for not leaving during the intermission.

So, I know I've been MIA for about ... oh, three months ... but I promise my hiatus has come to an end.

Here's what you missed during the break ...

-I turned 27 earlier this month.

-I wrote and copy edited. A lot.

-I've spent an infuriating amount of time tracking down payments from people who have "forgotten" to pay me or have "lost" my invoices.

-I took a weeklong trip to Hong Kong in March.

-I finally had a freelance month in which my gross earnings matched my former full-time monthly salary at the magazine (where I worked survived between 2008 and 2010). I'm singing the "Hallelujah" chorus right now as I type this, because that is seriously a HUGE achievement for me.

-I took a beginner's ballet class at my local community college this past spring semester.

-I began training to become a fitness instructor. (Not as a personal trainer; I'm being trained in a specific method, it's a kind of ballet barre/Pilates/yoga technique. If all goes well, I'll be teaching classes by the end of summer.)

-I joined the Arizona Chapter of Fashion Group International.

-I kicked my professional website/portfolio into high gear -- because man, that corner of the web needed organizing in a big, big way.

-And did I already mention I did a lot of writing and copy editing?

Next week it will have been one year ago exactly that I walked through the doors of the magazine for the last time (OK, so I've been back a few times to visit former co-workers since then, but those don't count) and officially began my freelance career. So what have I thought of the ride so far?

It's sucked.

Just kidding. It's actually been so rewarding that even though opportunities to apply for other full-time, in-house writing and editing positions have come along (and some of them have even been miiighty tempting) in the past 12 months, I've ultimately shrugged them all off. The truth is, once you become your own boss and see what that kind of life can be like, the idea of going back to a 9-to-5-er seems ridiculous.

Not to say this has been a picnic. And I think my boyfriend has probably forgotten what I look like without my laptop.

But, the need to occasionally detach from work is what drove me to get out of the house and take my ballet class a few times a week, plus go to classes at the fitness studio. Actually, I got so hooked on the fitness classes that the owner invited me to become an instructor. So now once a week I attend a workshop for about an hour and a half, in addition to taking three classes per week so that I don't lose my form. I'm also required to observe the instructors in a minimum of 10 classes, then I help with correcting clients for a minimum of eight classes, and then voila! I'll be telling people to get down and give me 20. Just kidding. We don't do that at the studio. We ask much more politely. And we do yoga pushups. Not military pushups. Actually, that's a lie. We do both. But still, we do ask much more politely.

OK, that's all for now. More tales from a writing and copy editing fitness instructor and knitter later.

Promise!

In Which I Finally Jump on the Fitness DVDs Bandwagon

Despite what you may initially think, this really isn't a commercial for fitness dvds, I swear. It's a story. Kind of.

Although I appreciate working out, it still feels like working out. I have never been one of those women who really looked forward to an hour of alone time where I'd strap on the tennies and crank up the iPod and hit the jogging trail or the gym.

It might have helped to have had a regular "exercise buddy," although I doubt it, because time I spend with my friends is usually time where we catch up on one another's lives, and seriously, who still has the breath to chat in between wind sprints or while you're muttering curses at the freakin' elliptical machine? (Oh how it steals my soul ...)

And it's not as though I'm not athletic or a hater of physical activity. On the contrary, I do enjoy playing sports and dancing -- I played soccer for years, even competitively and then for my high school, and I've taken tap classes for a few years. But I just need a reason to move around that much, that's all.

Anyway, for the last several months my desire to/commitment to/time for exercise had fluctuated somewhere between zero and zero.

Until recently, one day, I had a revelation. That being that 1.) Some women are immune to cellulite, but I am not one of them, and 2.) There exist magical exercise routines that accelerate heartbeats, work an impressive number of muscles, burn big globs of calories AND last only 10 minutes. Only 10 minutes! Sign me up!

So it turns out that these days, because life is so fast-paced and people seem to find it increasingly difficult to make time for physical activity, experts have found ways to exercise smarter instead of harder. And studies are showing that even fitness routines that are only 10 minutes long -- if planned appropriately and done frequently and consistently -- can be just as effective, if not more effective, than hour-long routines that involve fewer movements, work fewer muscles, don't burn nearly as many calories or build as much lean muscle.

But where are these magical routines?!

Well, Amazon.com, of course.

And that is how it happened. That is how I, Sway Sovay, finally jumped on the bandwagon of fitness dvds. Because it's honestly the only thing that has lasted longer than a week since I stopped taking dance classes once a week.

It was so easy to make excuses before ...
I don't want to pay for a gym membership.
My gym clothes are in the laundry.
I don't want to work out alone.
I'm too tired.
I don't have enough time.
It's too hot/cold/rainy outside.

But now all those excuses are invalid. I don't have to pay to go to the gym, because now I can work out in my living room, in 20 minutes, in whatever crappy clothes I can find. And I don't need a friend to work out with me, because frankly, my living room is only big enough for one person to move around that much anyway, and also, the woman on the dvd talks enough as it is. And the "I'm too tired" excuse will hopefully never leave my lips, because it will mean that I am too dang lazy to pop in a dvd and press the Play button.

This is also how that other thing happened, that being how I became so stiff and sore that I now walk around like an automaton most days at work.