Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
04. From Dancer to 2x Published Author with Lucy Ashe
214 Plays1 year ago
Lucy Ashe is the author of CLARA & OLIVIA (Magpie, Oneworld publications, UK)/ THE DANCE OF THE DOLLS (Union Square & Co, US)
Her second novel, THE SLEEPING BEAUTIES, is out now in the UK and is coming to the US in September 2024.
Lucy trained at The Royal Ballet School for eight years, first as a Junior Associate and then at White Lodge. She has a Diploma in Dance Teaching with the British Ballet Organisation.
She studied English Literature at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, while continuing to dance and perform. After graduation, she obtained a PGCE teaching qualification and became an English teacher.
Her poetry and short stories have been published in a number of literary journals and she was shortlisted for the 2020 Impress Prize for New Writers. She reviews theatre, in particular ballet, writing for the website PlaysToSee.com.
In this episode we talk about Lucy’s training at the Royal Ballet School, her journey from dancer to 2x published writer and where she draws inspiration for her novels.
Key Moments:
- Early training at The Royal Ballet [1:45]
- Transitioning from dance to college [9:55]
- The process of writing your first novel [14:05]
- A look inside Clara & Olivia/The Dance of the Dolls [19:15]
- A look inside The Sleeping Beauties [23:06]
- How Lucy stays motivated as a writer [26:58]
- Her biggest piece of advice for dancers pursuing a career [36:05]
Connect with Lucy:
HER WEBSITE: Lucyashe.com
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/lucyashe_author
Links and Resources:
Join the Brainy Ballerina Book Club
Let’s connect!
My WEBSITE: thebrainyballerina.com
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thebrainyballerina
Questions/comments? Email me at caitlin@thebrainyballerina.com
Recommended
Transcript
The Art of Perseverance in Writing
00:00:00
Speaker
That is part of the process of writing. You just keep going, you keep trying. And I suppose I never gave up. I always had this hope that I was going to write a book that was going to be published. For me, I find it interesting that it's when I came back to ballet that it started to be successful.
Meet Caitlin and Lucy: Ballet and Beyond
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm Caitlin, a former professional ballerina turned dance educator and career mentor, and this is the Brain New Ballerina podcast. I am here for the aspiring professional ballerina who wants to learn what it really takes to build a smart and sustainable career in the dance industry. I'm peeling back the curtain of the professional dance world with open and honest conversations about the realities of becoming a professional dancer. Come along to gain the knowledge and inspiration you need
00:00:46
Speaker
to succeed in a dance career on your terms. Hello and welcome to the Brainy Valorina podcast. I am your host, Caitlin Sloan, and I'm here today with Lucy Ash. Lucy trained at the Royal Ballet School before going on to study English literature at St. Hughes College in Oxford. After graduation, she obtained her teaching qualification and became an English teacher. She's the author of multiple books, including her second novel, The Sleeping Beauties,
00:01:15
Speaker
which is out now in the UK and is coming to the US in September 2024. I am a huge fan of Lucy's work and I am so excited to chat with her today. Hi, Lucy. Hi, Caitlin. Thank you so much for inviting me on. It's really great to be here.
00:01:27
Speaker
Of course, I'm so excited to talk to you more. I actually am about halfway through with The Sleeping Beauties, and I am just dying to get back to reading, but we can talk about that more a little bit before I even get there. I want to just first talk about your journey in the ballet world, and I just want to start from the beginning. Why did you take your very first dance class? What made you step into the studio?
First Steps in Ballet: Lucy's Story
00:01:49
Speaker
So I started ballet when I was five years old and I went with my twin sister and it was very much sort of a fun thing to do. My mom used to do contemporary dance and she thought, you know, send them along. But apparently in my first ballet class, I screamed and cried so much that I had to leave. So it wasn't a very good start, but my twin sister was always very much like my support. So with her, I could like go back in, like try again.
00:02:17
Speaker
It was great and I loved it so quickly and when I was seven my ballet teacher recommended that I audition for the Royal Ballet School Junior Associates which is this great program which is once a week and you go and it was ballet but you also do like
00:02:32
Speaker
historical dance and conditioning and all sorts of things. So I got into that. And, you know, my first ever audition, I remember how terrifying that was. I remember my number 13 was now my lucky number as a result. So I did the Royal Ballet Junior Associates. And then when I was 11, I auditioned for the Royal Ballet boarding school, which is a residential school in Richmond Park in London. So that I went there from the age of 11 to 16, did
00:03:00
Speaker
academic exams there as well and did really love that intensity of the ballet training. But while I was there towards the end of my time, it sort of became clear that maybe this wasn't going to be my career.
Pivotal Decisions: From Ballet to Academia
00:03:14
Speaker
I had some issues with my body. I don't feel like I was progressing perhaps as quickly as I needed to. I was very much focused on classical ballet and I think my body wasn't quite right for classical ballet. I didn't have
00:03:27
Speaker
I have a curved spine, which was creating a lot of misalignment. And I was very lucky that I had these fantastic teachers who sort of recognized that I could take things in a different direction. And they recommended that maybe I go and do my A levels and sort of see where that took me. So I did that. I continued dancing. I started dancing at the British Ballet Organization, which is a fantastic school, which I was a scholar for them. So I was doing quite a lot of dancing with them. I did all my exams, my ballet exams that I hadn't
00:03:56
Speaker
done when I was at Royal Ballet School and then went to Oxford University to study English Literature and that was like a real a real change for me you know I was going to be a classical ballet dancer and then I was at Oxford studying and like my life was completely different but I really couldn't leave
00:04:14
Speaker
ballet behind. I didn't want to be a ballet behind. So in my first year at Oxford, I went back to London kind of each weekend to do a ballet diploma in dance teaching with the British Ballet organization. So I got this diploma and I was then teaching ballet at university to adults, to students. And that's an area I've always loved is like bringing ballet to everyone. You know, you don't have to have done ballet from the age of five.
00:04:42
Speaker
to do ballet as an adult. So yeah, I did that and I became an English teacher. I was teaching ballet as well in the school, but I was teaching English. And then eventually I decided to write about ballet. So my first novel, The Dance of the Dolls is, I suppose, coming back kind of a full circle for me. It's like coming back to the ballet world, but through writing.
00:05:07
Speaker
I've sort of taken those, those loves of my, my live literature and ballet and brought them together into this novel.
Comparative Dance Experiences: Caitlin and Lucy
00:05:13
Speaker
Amazing. Okay. That's, I have so many questions and it's actually funny that you say your very first class that you were kind of like just wanting to run around because I had the same exact experience when I took my first class at age three and I, I wanted to wear the two-two. I wanted to just run around and I did not want to stand still on a spot. And they actually said to my mom, you know, I don't think she's quite ready for dance yet. And I didn't go back until I was 10. And so I'm glad that your sister was there.
00:05:36
Speaker
for you to have this person to keep going with you. Did she end up going as far as you did in dance? No, so she she continued doing ballet kind of until I left for boarding school when I was 11. But she never really had the same love of it that I did. She was very, she's very musical. So she was playing lots of instruments. She also did like jazz, modern dance, but she didn't have the love of classical ballet that I
The Emotional Journey of Ballet Education
00:06:03
Speaker
did.
00:06:03
Speaker
Yeah, what was it like studying at the Royal Valley School? I feel like for somebody like me, it just is so prestigious. And just the thought of studying there just feels so I'm in such awe. You know, what was that experience like? Yeah, it's, I suppose, you know, it was a long time ago. And I suppose once memories of these things, you know, you keep
00:06:22
Speaker
certain memories and some probably buried and I remember very clearly arriving for the first day and the dormitory is this in the first years is this long corridor of 12 beds for the first first year girls so you know you have no privacy you're there with like these other 12 girls and it's just so exciting this is like your dream to have made it but I also remember you know I was 11 and I was homesick and I was I suppose intimidated by
00:06:52
Speaker
what this was going to be like, what it was going to be like to be away from home. So my memories of the first few years of school are kind of wonderful, being able to dance every day, there's incredible teachers, making friends who had the same passions as me, performing in the Nutcracker, you know, performing on the Royal Opera House stage, but kind of underneath all of that was
00:07:16
Speaker
I suppose an 11 year old homesick girl. So it's a very, I suppose I have kind of mixed memories of that time, but I feel that it gave me so much, you know, the kind of resilience, the strength to pursue a desire or a passion. It was a very, very special five years, certainly.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, 11 is just so young. I feel like even when I had the opportunity to go away to study at 16, I was still at that time like, I don't think I'm ready. I want to stay home and 11 is just so young. I wonder how I can't even imagine like I have a four year old. I'm like, that's seven years from now he would move away. It just feels so wild to think about. How did your parents feel about that? Lots of people who go to boarding school, especially sort of British boarding schools, they're going because their parents want them to go to this school. You know, they've chosen the school for them and
00:08:08
Speaker
it's probably quite a traumatic experience. Whereas for me, I was the one driving going to this school. It was my decision. I was desperate to go. And they really wanted that for me. They were happy for me to go. So it kind of made that homesickness quite complicated because I both were desperate to be there and felt so lucky to be there. I'd made it, the 12 girls, 12 boys out of the hundreds who have auditioned. You really feel that you're so
00:08:37
Speaker
privileged to be there. So therefore, you almost don't really feel that you have a right to be sad about it at the same time. So I suppose it was a sort of complicated, a complicated homesickness. And I know my parents found it really hard that I was away from home, but also really wanted to support my my love of dance. And you know, I didn't need to be there if I wanted to train with that intensity.
00:09:03
Speaker
So how far were you from home? So I was really lucky that I was not very far. It was about an hour's drive. So I went home on weekends on sort of Saturday afternoon after we had ballet lessons and rehearsals on Saturday mornings. And I'd go home on Saturday late afternoon and then come back on Sunday evening. But whereas there were a lot of students who live much further away and would only go home half terms and
00:09:28
Speaker
holidays. So they could be there for like five, six weeks without seeing their parents. So I was very fortunate in that sense.
Life After Ballet: Adjustments and Connections
00:09:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's good. That that would make me feel better. I think I just think that's so yeah, I'm really in awe that you at that age, we're so sure like this is what I want to do. And so I guess I'm curious, you know, you kind of said like at around 16, you started thinking maybe this isn't the path for me. Was that really hard to make that change? Yeah, it was really, really difficult. Your identity
00:09:58
Speaker
as a teenager training at an elite ballet school, full-time ballet school, is very much you're going to be a dancer. You don't go there for fun, you know, you're there because that's what you are. And I think my identity had become very much wrapped up in ballet. So the whole idea of not doing it at that level was very hard to come to terms with. And I think I did really, really struggle with that. It really helped that I went to
00:10:24
Speaker
a great school to do my A levels. One of the matrons of one of the boarding houses was a senior ballet examiner for the British Ballet organisation. So she really took me under her wing and I had regular ballet classes with her. I think she really understood that how big this transition was for me. And I suppose that's one of the reasons why I couldn't
00:10:45
Speaker
I didn't want to let ballet go from my life. But I did find that when I left the Royal Ballet School and gone to this academic school, that I struggled a little bit to keep some of the connections to my Royal Ballet School friends. It took quite a few years to come back. I would say to connecting again with some of them because I felt like my life was in such a different direction now. And I think that was definitely something that was a bit difficult to come to terms with.
00:11:11
Speaker
I felt that even when I retired from dance scene like I would go and take company class or something or go watch a rehearsal and it was so strange because it was like all of a sudden I was on the other side of this this group of people that I've been so close to these were my closest friends my community and and they were still my friends but it was like oh I'm not part of this anymore you know they would talk about things that happened in rehearsal or like who they were working with and I was just like this isn't
00:11:36
Speaker
I'm outside of this and it was a very strange feeling and I kind of stopped going for a while. It took a while for me to come back to being like, okay, I can come back to this now. I can watch a show and not feel such sadness about it.
00:11:51
Speaker
it's really hard. I think it's really difficult. I remember not being able to even listen to the Nutcracker music for a while. I was in the Nutcracker over three years. I was in it. I made maybe like 90 performances, you know, both casts as like mouse, naughty child. And it was amazing. But I think the first time I went to go and see the Nutcracker again was actually this year.
00:12:15
Speaker
Wow. That's a long time. I think when you are so wrapped up in that world and it is your life, stepping away and looking at it from another perspective is difficult, but I am so glad that I was able to come back to it because it has brought me so much joy in a different direction.
Writing as Therapy: Blending Literature and Dance
00:12:31
Speaker
Now as a writer,
00:12:33
Speaker
about dance, the historical research that I did when I was writing the Dance of the Dolls and the Sleeping Beauties about the history of what is now the Royal Ballet, those kind of key figures in the British Ballet scene. It gave me so much joy to do that and then to bring sort of elements of my own experience of ballet in a very fictionalised way.
00:12:55
Speaker
into these stories. I suppose it was almost kind of quite therapeutic as a way of processing some of the difficult things that I had experienced coming out of ballet. I could sort of go through those a little bit through my writing.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, let's shift a little bit more into that world. So when you decided to go to college and go into English, are you still teaching English? So I was teaching English up until July last year when I moved to New York City. So I was teaching English at an all-boys school in London for nine years and I was in another school before that. So I was a teacher for 13 years.
00:13:34
Speaker
But I am going to be starting to do some English teaching again from September because I really missed it. This year has been great. It's been really fun to be in a new city and write my next novel and bring out the Sleeping Duties and the Dance of the Dolls. But I've felt this real lack, this real hole because of not teaching. So I'm excited to go back into it soon. That's amazing. And so when you got into teaching everything, did you always see yourself writing? I think I started writing a novel
00:14:04
Speaker
pretty much immediately when I became a teacher. And it was a really bad novel. I kind of remember, I don't think I've finished that one. No, I think I maybe wrote like 10,000 words and then that disappeared. So I started writing very, you know, in my early twenties and I wrote two novels, full novels, before I wrote The Dance of the Dolls and got an agent and got a publishing deal.
00:14:28
Speaker
For me, it wasn't like a very quick journey to being published. And yes, in my first two, one of them was a boarding school thriller. The other one was kind of a feminist dystopian novel. And I love writing them. And I got so many rejections from agents. I don't know. I don't even keep count of how many rejections I got.
00:14:51
Speaker
That is part of the process of writing. You just keep going, you keep trying. And I suppose I never gave up. I always had this hope that I was going to write a book that was going to be published. For me, I find it interesting that it's when I came back to ballet that it started to be successful. It felt like a very different experience writing.
00:15:12
Speaker
The Dance for the Dolls did the previous two books, but I definitely wouldn't say that those first two books were sort of wasted.
Handling Rejection and Building Confidence
00:15:18
Speaker
You know, yes, they'll never get published and they never should get published because they're not very good, but they were my practice, you know, my craft. They were the years of training that you do before you get your first big role. That's what they were, I suppose, in sort of ballet terms for me. If you're enjoying this episode, then you're going to love the Brainy Valerina book club.
00:15:42
Speaker
I have been an avid reader for as long as I can remember. I am fascinated by other stories and am always applying the lessons I learned in books to my own life, both personally and professionally. What started out as sharing my currently reading list on Instagram stories has since grown into a full fledged book club with hundreds of members. Each month we dive into a new story thoughtfully chosen to inspire and challenge us with original ideas and experiences.
00:16:09
Speaker
Whether you are an avid reader or looking to get into the habit, the Brainy Ballerina Book Club welcomes you with open arms. It's free to join and there is no catch. Just a community of dance lovers who are eager to expand our knowledge, feed our souls, and make meaningful connections. Head on over to the show notes to join the Brainy Ballerina Book Club today.
00:16:31
Speaker
Yeah, I was gonna ask you if you feel like, you know, all those years of value training prepared you for the level of rejection and just having to keep going through all of that. Rejections always hurt. I think for me, it's been easier accepting that I will find rejection difficult. And I don't think we should ever try and persuade ourselves that that's not going to be the case. Like, it's fine to feel sad about something.
00:16:57
Speaker
But I definitely feel that the level of intensity for each rejection is a little bit less and lasts for a little bit less as well. I suppose coming up with the emotional tools to be able to cope with it a bit better.
00:17:12
Speaker
I think when I was at the Royal Ballet School, it was difficult, you know, a cast list would go up on the board and you might be on it, you might not be on it. But there was never any kind of explanation about why, why, why am I, why have I not been chosen for this or why that role and not that one. And I think sometimes as a dancer, you're so
00:17:32
Speaker
grateful for what you are given, that it can be too easy to lose your voice and to start to lose confidence or to think, well, I just need to keep going and be quiet and it'll be fine. But actually, I think it's important to think through the rejections and learn from them and not be squashed by them. And every rejection I had for my writing, yes, it was difficult, but I would think about
00:18:02
Speaker
What does this mean? Most of the time it means that actually this agent probably received 100 manuscripts this week and it doesn't really mean that my book isn't good. It means I need to keep trying and I think a lot of it can be the same with dancing but it can be so dispiriting if you're going to audition after audition and you're not.
00:18:22
Speaker
getting the roles. A lot of that is not because you're not good enough or because there's so many people applying for these things that you have to find ways through that. And writing, you do have to be resilient and you have to keep going. And sometimes it's actually about saying, this project is not the right project right now. I'm going to write another book. So writing that third book, The Dance of the Dolls, was the right decision for me. I've got how many thousands of words of
00:18:48
Speaker
you know, text that I've written. What's that for? And I think it's important, like with dancing, to think it's not for nothing. No, those auditions are not for nothing. They're part of the process. They're part of the learning process. Yeah,
Inspiration Behind the Novels
00:18:59
Speaker
absolutely. You wouldn't have gotten to this novel if you hadn't done those ones before. Exactly. Where did the idea for Claire and Olivia or the Dance of the Dolls come from?
00:19:08
Speaker
I knew I wanted to set a novel around that time period. I was interested in the beginnings of British Ballet, the Vicwells Ballet Company, which is what is now the Royal Ballet Company, started or was founded in 1931. And I thought this would be a really interesting time. Things are very new. There's lots of challenges that the company is having to work through. So I just started off by doing a lot of reading and research around that
00:19:32
Speaker
that time period. And I came across this production of Coppelia that the company put on in 1933. And Coppelia has always been one of my favorite ballets. It's this fantastic kind of comic ballet, but also kind of darker undercurrents if you really strip away the comedy. It's inspired by a very dark short story called Dear Sandman by a writer called Hoffman about a man who falls in love with a dog. And you become so obsessed with her.
00:20:00
Speaker
that he loses sight of reality. And he's got this wonderful fiance called Clara. She's great, she's fun, she's intelligent, but this man Nathaniel, all he can see is this doll. She's perfect, she's beautiful, but that's because she's a doll and she never changes. And so I was really interested in the ballet of Capalia and the influence for it. And I thought, okay, well, maybe my characters can be putting on a production. They can be preparing this ballet of Capalia.
00:20:29
Speaker
But what if I could also sort of retell in a different way the darker story of Capalia alongside it? So in the novel, The Dance of the Dolls, you've got these twin sisters, Clara and Olivia rehearsing for the ballet, Capalia. But there are two men in their lives, a point shoemaker and a piano player who do become obsessed with them. And it's how the air obsessions lead everything to unravel. So I love being inspired by other stories. And so this is very much inspired by another ballet.
00:20:59
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. I think that it was just like you said, when you started writing about ballet, it kind of all clicked. And I felt when reading it, you know, it was like, yeah, the details were just so good. And I felt like I was there, you know, and as a dancer, it was like so many little things that if you were not a dancer who had trained at that level, you wouldn't know to write about because sometimes you can read books about ballet. And it's like,
00:21:22
Speaker
or just the idea of what they think it's like. And it was so much like, no, this is what it's really like. And I could really see the story playing out. And of course there are some, like you said, really dark themes and I don't want to give anything away, but you know, a lot of just the day-to-day things that they were doing, it was like, yeah, that's how it is. Yeah, I really wanted to tell a ballet story where the lives of the dancers, it's like a job, like anyone else's job, isn't it? And I think sometimes ballet films and books
00:21:51
Speaker
can over romanticize it. And actually, yeah, it's hard work. Lots of jobs are hard work. Lots of people's lives are hard. And I was trying to position these girls' lives as like, okay, they're growing up in the 1930s. They're battling through lots of different things. And they're sewing hundreds of pairs of pointe shoes and going to class every day and trying to pay the rent. And it's a job like any other.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah, those nitty gritty details, like you said, it was like, okay, I have to go home and wash my tights and sew my pointe shoes. And it's like, yeah, it was like, oh my gosh, this is just so real. And if you think of a movie like Black Swan, everyone's always like, is that what it's really like? No, it's not, you know, that's not, like you said, it's a job that we go to. And we have things we have to do to perform our job. And it can be mundane sometimes. It's not always glitz and glamor. Like there are really cool moments that are definitely more glamorous than
00:22:43
Speaker
you know, maybe other jobs might be but there's a lot of just
00:22:47
Speaker
of the daily grind. And I love how you captured that, you know, in reading The Sleeping Beauties, I love Dance of the Dolls so much. And I feel like this is already a whole nother level of writing, you know, that you've reached that I'm like, wow, this is even more, you know, intricate and just so well woven. And did you feel like after doing Dance of the Dolls and Exploring Coppelia, was it like, okay, I really like this idea of delving into the classical ballet and making it the story surrounding that? Yeah, I
00:23:15
Speaker
I really loved that, the writing process that's inspired by other art. And I think all writers are inspired by other things. We all steal from all over the place. But I do that in a very kind of open, unashamed way. The Sleeping Beauties is inspired by the ballet, The Sleeping Beauty. And it's set at the time of the reopening of
00:23:36
Speaker
the Royal Opera House after the Second World War and it's this very famous moment in British ballet history of February 1946. The Royal Opera House reopens and they put on the Sleeping Beauty and there's
00:23:48
Speaker
still those rationing that they're having to get their heads around you know there's how they're going to make these costumes it's a new design new costume and scenery designed by Oliver Messle and the theatre has been closed throughout the war it was well it was not closed it wasn't a theatre it was a dance floor so had this kind of dance floor and troops and Londoners would come and there'd be a jazz band and so it was turned back into a theatre again. The level of
00:24:14
Speaker
research that I was able to do for the Sleeping Beauties was amazing. I think even more so than for the Dance of the Dolls, there wasn't quite as much archival material in 1931 and British Ballet as there was for 1946. There's just so much and different accounts of the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company during the second one born, where they went, their tours. Margot Fontaine has got an amazing autobiography, Dame Lynette de Balois. So just being able to immerse myself in that world, as well as creating my own fictional
00:24:43
Speaker
story alongside it.
Research and Writing Balance
00:24:44
Speaker
It was really exciting. I love to hear more about that process of researching and where do you find the research? How long is it taking you to do all of this? Because it is so, so deep and intricate. Before I come up with a plot, like a synopsis, I like to keep things as open as possible, not fix myself to one thing. So while I'm doing
00:25:06
Speaker
the reading and research, I'm sort of allowing the reading research to inspire the story. So for this, I just delved into as much as I could about that production, Sleeping Beauty, and read as many accounts of it as I could. The Roll Opera House online archives has got a lot. I also went to the
00:25:24
Speaker
archives at the Royal Ballet School, manager of the special collections there, Anna Meadwall was very kind and letting me come in and spend a day just looking through everything that they've got there. But there are just so many different approaches that you can, different books about it. There's like books of photographs. I am really lucky that I live in New York City quite close to the New York Performing Arts Library in the Lincoln Center. And
00:25:49
Speaker
When I first went there, I thought, surely this is probably going to be mostly American ballet books, but actually they have this whole corridor full of books about British Ballet and British Ballet history. This is like my home.
00:26:03
Speaker
I spent so long there just reading all of these different books, most of them out of print. So to be able to have them in this library was fantastic. I spent quite a long time just doing that. And then when I found ideas of a story emerging from that, I was able to go, okay, that's enough. Let's stop and let's start actually writing the synopsis. Then when I'm writing the book, I would do more detailed research in different moments. So I would say, okay, so
00:26:30
Speaker
I'm describing a particular costume, I need to go and really find out more about this at that point. So it's sort of two layers to the research, really. That sounds like such a dream, but also probably hard. I do ever feel like it's difficult to self-motivate. I feel like as a dancer, there is a lot of self-motivation you have to do, but you also have a schedule. You also have to be in class this time, rehearsal this time. There is somebody telling you what to do. Of course, if you want to
00:26:56
Speaker
do more on your own, there is that motivation there. But like as a writer, how do you make a schedule for yourself and keep going every day, you know, when it's really yourself pushing you? Yeah, it's a really great question. And I think my, the writing of the Sleeping Beauties and the Dance of the Dolls, I did that when I was still an English teacher. So my time was actually very limited. I was only writing in my school holidays.
00:27:18
Speaker
So I almost had that time pressure of like, well, I've got to go back to school in a week. So I need to make the most of this time. So I actually found that fine. There were no issues. What has been more challenging is actually now that this whole kind of academic year, I haven't been teaching and I have so much time and I wake up and say, well, I do a bit of tutoring. But I have a day to myself to plan.
00:27:45
Speaker
And I think what helps is if you're really passionate about your project. So the book that I've been writing, I'm completely obsessed with and I want to be researching all the time. Once I'd planned the book,
00:27:57
Speaker
I almost had this feeling of it needs to be written. I can't relax until the first draft is written. So I actually always tend to write first drafts quite quickly. It took over maybe four or five months, which is not that long for something about 100,000 words. And I think it is that I'm just driven by the passion for the project. But I do think that my time as a ballet dancer has helped with self-motivation.
00:28:26
Speaker
because you know that no one else is going to do it for you. If you don't practice, if you don't do your exercises, then you're not going to progress. And it's the same for writing. No one is going to tell you to
00:28:39
Speaker
to do it. No one is going to be saying, where's this book? You know, it's totally up to me whether this book is written. Yeah, it's certainly a different way of working. You know, as dancers, we are used to how long it takes to get
Trust and Community in Creative Pursuits
00:28:54
Speaker
good at something. We're not expecting it to be an overnight success. We know that you have to go to the studio every day. You start with plies every single day. Like there is a very almost simple in a way formula.
00:29:06
Speaker
to what you have to do to keep going and keep growing in it. And I feel like that probably, I would imagine, helps too. It's not like I can just overnight turn out a book. It's gonna take a lot of time and effort, but I know that if I put that in, I will get something really amazing out of it, and you've seen that process play out.
00:29:22
Speaker
Yeah it's it's really challenging I think even though it's something I'm very used to I think the process of writing and dancing and that slowness of the progress and also the fact that you know I was writing The Sleeping Beauties you know I had no one gave me any feedback on that until it was written
00:29:41
Speaker
And then it was, you know, my editor, my agent would give me feedback. My husband is always my first reader. She's great. But you have to spend a long time just hoping that it's working. Just really hoping that this is going to create something worth reading. So it takes quite a lot of trust in, yeah, I have to really trust myself and the process that
00:30:02
Speaker
this is, this is going to be good enough. And of course there are all these moments of self-doubt when you read a chapter like, oh this is absolutely terrible and there's that temptation just to delete it all, but you know that there's going to be opportunities to find things, to work on things, and there will be eventually that moment of publication, of people reading, of seeing the book,
00:30:26
Speaker
It was where you very kindly came to my Steeping Beauties book launch in London. I knew that was a moment for me of just almost an indescribable high because I was trying to think how long it was writing the first word of the Steeping Beauties to that moment of being published.
00:30:46
Speaker
quite a few years of building to that moment. So writing is definitely not the career for someone who likes instant gratification, or needs instant gratification, because you're not going to get it. That's for sure. Well, Netflix launch was so cool, because I never been to London before. That was my first time going. And it was just so funny, because I just thought I'm just gonna reach out to Lucy and just see if she's
00:31:10
Speaker
around or available just for like a cup of coffee or something the fact that you were having that launch the night I got in and of course I got there and I was like oh this is really for Lucy's friends and family you know like I thought it was more for the general public and I was like oh my gosh this is your nearest and dearest people and they were just
00:31:27
Speaker
the sweetest people I've ever met. They were so kind to me every single person very quickly realized that I was just didn't know anyone else and came up and talked to me and we're just so kind and it was just being welcomed into your little orbit and just seeing all of the people who are behind you and we're just so excited for you the way they talked about you and your and your book it was just like
00:31:47
Speaker
It was very cool. It meant so much to me that you could come to it and it was very special because I was back in London myself for only two weeks and I hadn't seen my friends and family for quite a long time because of moving to the US and to be able to link
00:32:06
Speaker
bringing out this book with reconnecting with people. It's very exciting and I also think it was one of the reasons it was so special having you there is the writing world and the performing arts world is made more manageable and exciting by the connections that we make and I have found since becoming a writer and publishing these two books that
00:32:27
Speaker
So many people have been so friendly and supportive and reaching out and wanting to do collaborations and here in New York City I moved to I Didn't Know Anyone and just really very quickly made friends. I started a book club and just making those connections with dancers and writers has been wonderful.
00:32:47
Speaker
I love that. And I feel like there is this conception kind of sometimes, at least in the dance world, that it can be cutthroat and that everyone's against each other. And, and of course there are, there are moments, but I think overall, this community is very supportive and we are there for each other. And I feel like, yeah, anyway, I've reached out to and just want to start conversation with or ask for advice or help. It's been so giving. So I do think that's really cool.
00:33:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think competitiveness is interesting, isn't it? I sometimes think about that from my time at the Royal Ballet School because, yeah, the reality was we were competing against one another for roles and for even to get into the next stage of the school, the upper school, the company. But it never felt like that. It never felt like we were competing against one another. It felt like we were sharing an experience.
00:33:32
Speaker
And I found that with the writing world as well. Like, yes, obviously, if you have two people have their books published on the same day, you know, there is a kind of competitive element to that, but it never feels like a competition. It just feels like a shared process. And I think it's when people understand the journey that you're going through, it can be a really wonderful thing.
00:33:52
Speaker
It really is. Yeah, I love that. Can you talk about your next work yet? Or is it still under wraps?
Future Works and Embracing Ballet
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah, still under wraps in the moment. I can say it's very different. So my my third novel is is not ballet focused. It's still historical set in the 1960s, but it's not got the dance in it this time.
00:34:08
Speaker
Okay, well I'm excited to hear more as we can. I love everything that you're doing and the path that you've taken and it's just so inspiring I think for dancers to see that there are other paths you can take and ways that you can really find fulfillment and happiness if you decide that having a career in as a performing dancer is not for you but you can still have dance in your life and it can still enrich so many things that you do. I think having the courage to make that step can be really difficult and I'm not
00:34:38
Speaker
to pretend it was easy definitely took quite a few years to be able to come back to dance in this really exciting way for me but I think being able to do so and to be able to process some of the challenges of training to be a dancer and learn from them and take all of the wonderful things you get from from being a dancer is fantastic and I still dance now I love going to ballet class and you know it's only once a week
00:35:02
Speaker
and you know I can't get my leg very high and my body always feels like it's falling apart afterwards but I love doing it. I know I feel the same way I was doing a photo shoot today and I was it was more business I guess poses but she was asking what kind of dance poses can you do and not much but it still feels good too yeah I'm moving that way and just it still does have that sense of oh this feels right in my body even if it doesn't
00:35:29
Speaker
look the way it used to or the legs aren't as high, it still has that same feeling for sure. Yeah, and lovely to be able to dance without the pressure of having to get the legs really high or do a triple pirouette or whatever it is and just enjoy it. Before we wrap up, if you could give one piece of advice to aspiring dancers, what would you say to them? I think I want to think back to what I would say to myself when I was a teenager, if I could say something to myself now,
00:35:58
Speaker
what would it be? And I would suppose I would say try not to define yourself by every moment of difficulty. I took the difficult moments as representative of sort of who I was when I would say actually you know that's that what everyone says is you're only as good as your last performance. I think that's a really terrible advice.
00:36:18
Speaker
I think actually we should try and hold on to the really special moments and the really positive moments, the moments of joy. And even if there are difficult things in between, don't lose the passion and the warmth that you have for dance despite the challenges.
00:36:36
Speaker
Amazing. That's great advice. Okay, so Lucy, if any of the listeners want to reach out to you or follow you or read any of your books, where should they go? So I have an Instagram account, Lucy Ash author, under Twitter as well. Yeah, so the dance of the dolls is out now and get it from
00:36:55
Speaker
most bookstores in the US. It's called Clara and Olivia in the UK. It's coming out in paperback in September at the moment, it's hardback and The Sleeping Beauties comes out in September as well. Well, I can't wait for us to visit Sleeping Beauties at the book club later in the year when it comes out in the US. I have, like I said, I've just been
00:37:12
Speaker
riveted by it stayed up much too late every night reading and I just finished act two and I'm just dying to get back to it. So I can't wait to see what happens but I just love talking to you and thank you for all of your insight and wisdom. Thank you so much.
00:37:29
Speaker
Thank you for tuning into the Brainy Ballerina podcast. If you found this episode insightful, entertaining, or maybe a bit of both, I would so appreciate you taking a moment to leave a rating and hit subscribe. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode. And you'll join our community of dancers passionate about building a smart and sustainable career in the dance industry. Plus, your ratings help others discover the show too.
00:37:55
Speaker
I'll be back with a new episode next week. In the meantime, be sure to follow along on Instagram at The Brainy Valorina for your daily dose of dance career guidance.