Live your dreams

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Coming to Buenos Aires to dance Argentine tango?

October 28, 2011 in Beyond this blog, Live your dreams, The tale of my book - Happy Tango

If you’ve found Sallycat’s Adventures you might be thinking of travelling to Buenos Aires, perhaps for the first time, to dance Argentine tango. That’s exactly what I did almost five years ago. You can read the first ever post I wrote on this blog where I revealed my original plan, here.

When I arrived in Argentina, I didn’t have friends here, speak Spanish or dance terribly well… actually I danced terribly, I was almost a complete beginner. It took me months to gather my confidence, get to grips with the ‘cabeceo’ (eye-contact contract to dance), work out which milongas I liked. You might only have a couple of weeks. That’s why I wrote Happy Tango: Sallycat’s Guide to Dancing in Buenos Aires. Its mission, to help you find your dancing feet as fast as possible in what might seem a very foreign tango culture, especially in the most traditional tango venues.

Happy Tango was published in paperback in June 2010 and is available worldwide via Amazon and other major online retailers. It has received nineteen 5* reviews on Amazon.co.uk and nine on Amazon.com. It has been given a great review in the UK Dance Today Magazine. It has been recommended wholeheartedly in the new 2011 edition of the Lonely Planet Buenos Aires City Guide. To keep readers up to date about changes in Buenos Aires that affect the book’s content, there is an Updates Blog and a Facebook Page. However, I did write Happy Tango to be useful even in the face of inevitable changes on the ground; much of the book delivers strategic and cultural advice which remains as current as the day I wrote it. An ebook version of the book is planned.

Happy Tango has now been tried and tested by hundreds of Argentine tango dancers from all over the world, and it has proved itself to be an ultra-useful practical guidebook. It’s also written in a chatty, accessible style which allow readers to feel that they have a happy, generous-hearted and experienced friend alongside them as they set out on their tango adventures in Buenos Aires. Even if you’re not a tango dancer yet, but feel drawn to knowing a little more about the sensual dance that offers a closeness in its embrace that beguiles and bewitches men and women alike, Happy Tango would be a great starting point and might even have you longing to come to Buenos Aires yourself.

Hear me interviewed by John McCarthy about coming to Buenos Aires to dance the Argentine Tango on Radio 4’s Excess Baggage programme, the programme was broadcast live on Saturday 29th October 2011; the tango item follows an interview with transoceanic solo-rower Roz Savage; listen here.

Treat yourself to an entertaining and super-useful read, or treat a friend.
Buy Happy Tango today!

Please do buy before travelling as the book is not widely available in Buenos Aires.
Click a link to buy Happy Tango from:

amazon.co.uk
amazon.com
amazon.ca
amazon.fr
amazon.de
amazon.co.jp
barnesandnoble.com
BookDepository.co.uk
BookDepository.com

Happy Tango: Sallycat’s Guide to Dancing in Buenos Aires
Don’t leave for Buenos Aires without it!

I no longer write regularly on this blog. Comments are therefore closed.
Thank you to all my readers for your continued support.

Listen to your soul, seek joy, live your dreams, and be well.
Sallycat

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You will know where to find me

May 21, 2011 in Beyond this blog, Live your dreams, More about Sallycat | 5 comments

I made a new book for fine-artist and poet Beverley Fry.
It’s the first book I made for a client.

If I hadn’t already written and published Happy Tango (which journeys on successfully with its own Updates Blog and Facebook page), I would never have known how to make a book and bring it to market for someone else. If I hadn’t followed my own heart and flown to Buenos Aires to dance, Happy T. would not have been born and Beverley would not have Panning in her hand. I see the books I create for others as realisations of their dreams.

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I built a website for editor, Helen Coyle. It’s the first website I made for a client.

At the photo shoot for the ‘Meet the Editor’ page of IndyEditorial.com Helen shone with light and delight. The photographer Julie-Anne Cosgrove captured Helen’s brilliance perfectly. I saw with my own eyes the product of talented people working together, combining skills and gifts to create something greater than any of them could produce alone. If I hadn’t started writing a Wordpress blog in January 2007 and continued to write it in various incarnations for four years, I would not be in a position to design websites for others. You can see the products of my design work at facebook.com/sallyblakedesigns. I see my websites as celebrations of the amazing individuals I make them for, and as catalysts for connection between those individuals and their clients.


I am writing my second book. I’m writing it live at facebook.com/happyheartsquest (if you would like more joy in your life, you can read and enjoy the Tasks even if you’re not on Facebook).

If the book’s ideas inspire and transform the lives of others as they have already transformed me, I shall be delighted. My job is simply to write the remaining pages. That I know I can do. If I hadn’t written a blog and then a book, I wouldn’t have developed the confidence to start creating the HappyHeartsQuest. There will be a website too one day at happyheartsquest.com but I’m not quite ready for that yet. I see the HappyHeartsQuest as a part of my purpose for being on this earth.

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Since February 2011, I have been painting. You can see my paintings at sallyblakedesigns.co.uk/art. At the moment (update added April 2012) I’m painting Buenos Aires cityscapes, like this one.

When I paint, I become someone I love. The Higher Me. The painting comes heart and soul direct to hand. There is no head involved at all. When I look at my paintings it is as if I did not do them. Someone I love tells me I was an artist in a past life. The way I put my paints, three brushes and two plastic pots into a carrier bag and head off around the city to paint without fuss is so relaxed, that I actually think she may be right. Yet, if I hadn’t began to free my artist’s spirit with dancing first, I don’t  think I would ever have picked up a paintbrush and brandished it with such joy. I see my paintings as the results of my hand recording the energy that I see onto paper. I record the connections between me and my subjects, with paint, and I understand connections because I once, long long ago now, began to dance tango.

Tota my wise astrologer and soul guide told me a little story.

A woman sees an artist she recognises (Picasso, say his name was) in the street. She asks him to paint her portrait. He says yes. He goes to her home. In less than 10 minutes he has her energy captured there on the canvas in paint. Finished. She asks the price. $10000 dollars he says. No way, says she. It only took you 10 minutes. Er, no madam, says Picasso. There I am afraid that you are wrong. It took me my whole life.

All that I do and work in now has taken me at least forty-eight years to learn, and over four years of those have been lived fairly publicly here, on this blog. But my life goes back way beyond January 2007 and the very first post on Sallycat’s Adventures. My ancestors. My parents. My nature. My nurture. My careers. My miscarriages. My horrors. My delights. My marriages. The games I have played. The drinks I have drunk or not. The degrees I have studied. The gardens I have made. The love I have known. Many who have read me here on Sallycat’s Adventures have understood me and valued my words and celebrated my efforts. Others have not understood me at all because their own stories have meant that they could not. Both are OK. Both have taught me much. Both are included in my forty-eight years and so go in to everything I now create, go into my ever-expanding portfolio of life-work.

Without every single person who has read this blog or commented on it, I would not be the deeply creative and productive and joyful human being that I have become. Well, I would have had the seed in me, but it may not have blossomed into its beautiful flower.

I thank every one of you from the bottom of my creative heart. I ask you to support me in any of my new ventures that appeal to you. If my stuff does not appeal to you, I am equally happy. But, please make the most of every minute you have and go forth and make great life-works of your own.

And there I think I will leave it. If I do not write here again, you will know where to find me. At my creative cauldron. Making magic.

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My Quest. Your Quest? The Happy Hearts Quest, 2011.

January 6, 2011 in Live your dreams | 12 comments

2011. The year before the end of the world?
I’m going to live it as if it were my last.

(If you do not know by heart who Sallycat, Barbie and VOD are, please read this post of February 2009)

On the afternoon of the eve of the great and mighty year of my lucky number 11, I was in Buenos Aires, wondering what I was going to do next on the path of my life’s work. I was joyful with the journey I’d taken in 2010. An affirming and confidence-boosting review of Happy Tango had just appeared in the classy UK dance magazine Dance Today. It was cause for great celebration of one dream lived, but it had reminded me that while I must push on with promoting Happy T. around the world, the cycle of creative thinking that had conceived and written the book was complete.

By synchronicity in the days leading up to the year’s end, I’d read this brilliant Paulo Coehlo post titled Together. Inspired, I’d asked my artist friends to contribute their own art on a Facebook comment thread, so that we could, Together, light up a beacon of inspiration to lead us, into 2011. One of the artists who commented on the thread called me Sally the Catalyst. It felt good. Another friend smiled when I told her and said Sallycatalyst. It felt great.

I decided to check in with Barbie. I’d put her out on the balcony with the plants over Christmas; maybe I’d sensed she wanted something as fresh as zesty green. I’d given her leaves to touch, stood her between the mint and the oregano, lifted her skinny arms to welcome the good energy in. On New Year’s Eve, I picked her up and stroked her long blond hair, hair like I’d had once myself when I was fourteen before I cut it all off and it grew back brown then grey.

How you doin’ beautiful little girl? I said.

Well. About bloody time, Sallycat! She stamped her tiny foot and I imagined she longed to shove a branch of oregano right under my nose.

Thank God you kept me breathing in those Morning Pages all summer and autumn and summer again! Thank God for Julia Cameron, eh? But Sallycat, forget about Paulo and Julia! Remember that inspirational book we want to write, will you? You know, that one that’s going to transform the lives of millions… written by You and Me… together. Time to make a start! Don’t you think?

Oh Barbie. I know. I know, I whisper. I never ever forget that book. My one true dream, to somehow pass on to others what life has taught me about the quest for…

But before I can utter the single word that packs my heart so full that it longs to burst and share, VOD pipes up, all sing-song-y and booming like a tuba as if I am deaf,

It’s just that you don’t really have any ideas, do you? No. No. Nooooo. It’s all already been done. Paulo and Julia have it cra-acked.

He sings the last word like it has two syllables and he crushes on, with his stuck record that’s called Keep-Sal-Safe,

How can anything you write ever make a difference when the world is gleaming with bright stars like Paulo? You don’t have a vision, and you’re not clever enough to think one up. I mean, what are you gonna call this book of yours? Oh… um… oh I know… what about ‘Happy Hearts: Sallycat’s Guide to the Quest for Joy’, for bloody example? I mean, how friggin’ ridiculous is that? It sounds so naff. Happy Tango? Happy Hearts?  Joy? Magic?  Quests? Oh pleeeeeeease…

But now it is his turn to be interrupted,

Oh pleeeeeeeese… that’s IT! I LOVE quests! Barbie squeals at excitement pitch, and VOD immediately shrinks to the size of a shrivelled pea.

Barbie jumps out of my grasp on to the Mac keyboard on the table in the square metre of space just inside the balcony doors that is my work/make-things-happen zone. She dances up and down on the keys clapping her hands…

And, let’s face it, Sallycat. Some folks did think we were a weeny bit mad when we called our guide book Happy Tango, didn’t they? But we weren’t. It was fun and different and carries our spirits to those who want to embrace them! And we still feel happy whenever we see the book, don’t we?

Yes Barbie, we do. We DO!

Sallycat, it’s time to make something new? But look, not a book yet. Let’s play first! You love technology, right? And so do I, but I’m a teeny bit bored with Wordpress. I want to conjure with photos and links and podcasts and  multimedia and easy-peasy-to-usey. Let’s be all 2011 and go with the flow of millions! Let’s use Facebook! I love Facebook. It’s soooooooo clever. The perfect place to spread magic fast. And, listen up Sallycat, if our experiment works, we’ll be on to a book anyway…

She shuts up and leaves me to believe.

I put her back among the plants to recharge her batteries. I’m gonna need them. Then, I think for about 5 minutes.

A Quest. The Happy Hearts Quest, 2011. A Quest for Joy. A global community of people on a path of the he(art) together. On Facebook, because I want the challenge of a new medium with which to channel my creative energy into the world. My head spins with ideas. VOD is nowhere to be heard. I sit at the Mac. And this is what I create. Click

here

to discover the Happy Hearts Quest on Facebook. It is now into its sixth day and 33 open-minded life-adventurers have joined the Quest. Will you be the 34th?

On the Quest there will be inspiration. There will be practical, useful and empowering tasks. There will be community. There will be shared art. And, there will be joy, if we want it.

2011. The year before the end of the world? I’m going to live it as if it were my last. What about you? Go on. Encourage your he(art). Take part!

Here’s the first Task of the Quest, to give you the idea, in case you are not on Facebook yet. The remaining 51 Tasks will always appear first on the Happy Hearts Quest Facebook Page because it is the platform on which I feel I can best achieve the sense of community that I want to encourage with the Happy Hearts Quest. Some or all of the posts may also be shared on Sallycat’s Adventures, but I’m not sure yet. I always reserve the right to change my mind!

Task 1: the Joy List © Sally Blake 2011

In my life before tango, I didn’t really have any dreams at all.

I understand when people say,

But I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I wouldn’t know where to start. I mean, how do you find your dreams? How do you KNOW?

In the summer of 2006 I didn’t know. I thought my life was over when my husband walked away and left me wondering at the real value of a a perfectly manicured lawn, detailed plans for a loft conversion and an MX5.

Five short weeks later, in the Casablanca bar (Bayangol Hotel, in case you should ever need fairly central and half-decent lodgings in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia), I wrote a list. It was the simplest of lists — a list of things I thought might possibly bring me relief in the days gaping back at me from the UK autumn that was to come.

You can see I wasn’t very convinced about the list’s worth, I wrote “What’s the benefit?” at the top of it. I really meant, What’s the bloody point? It will all fall apart anyway, in the end.

My Mongolian friend wrote a list too. We talked the lists over into 2am, in the country that we, by that stage in the Gobi adventure (great pictures here) we had just travelled, referred to as Neverland. By the time we’d finished, I had a second list scribbled, with a fraction more energy in it. See the word in capitals at the top, ticked to indicate I’d make it a priority? Well… my friend’s Italian girlfriend danced, and he wanted to learn so they could dance together at their wedding. To be honest, I’d been thinking of salsa, but the giggling enthusiasm of my friend talking about something called “Argentine tango” made me change my mind.

I didn’t know it then, but in the time it took me to write down those five letters, my life path had shifted, and a future of unseen possibilities had formed to lay in wait behind the bleak desert landscape that bulged in my mind.

I had many rocks to scramble over until tears stopped blurring my view — a lonely journey back to Moscow on a Russian Tupolev, a second divorce (I’d already known one), the sale of the garden and home I’d nurtured for one and a half decades, a broken love affair or few, learning to walk backwards in stiletto heels, flying alone out of my country for the first time, opening my heart to the unlikely possibility of true love, putting down the cigs I’d picked up (after a fifteen year break) on a Gobi desert dune, enduring several bouts of depression beyond the point of wanting to die, cracking a new language and culture, letting go of friends and lovers whose paths needed to diverge from mine, becoming the daughter I needed to be, becoming the partner I wanted to be, becoming the whole soul God had always intended me to be. And a few more things besides, that I have yet to reveal.

On the way to fewer tears, I unwrapped an unexpected gift. I danced. I wrote a blog. I made books. I played with information technology. I shared my truths and experiences with people and saw how watching their growth boosted mine. I learned what I loved to do (and what I didn’t). I began to know the dreams of my soul.

Let’s hear that echo of who I was once, again..

But I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I wouldn’t know where to start. I mean, how do you find your dreams? How do you KNOW?

I have kept a Joy List in a notebook ever since that first list in 2006. I didn’t believe in that one when I wrote it. But I did it anyway. And I’ve DONE the things on my Joy Lists, if possible, one every day. Some of them I’ve not loved with wild passion, and they’ve fallen by the wayside or faded (eg. kickboxing). Others, it turned out, are as important to me as breathing, and so, they led me to KNOW.

Joy List C was written in 2010. Scrawled in the back of a tiny notebook, added to as the year went by. The focus has changed a bit since the 2006 lists; less about what I think might bring me joy and more about what actually does. In the lands of one of the most vast deserts in the world, I was starting from what seemed like nothing. Now, somewhere between Buenos Aires and the Shropshire hills, I’m building on and exploring from within a life I already love.

On January 2nd 2011 I sit at home alone feeling a weeny bit sorry for myself because C. has gone out with a friend and I had expected him to spend the evening with me. I could go dancing at La Milonguita, but I’m sulking unattractively on the sofa, so I decide not to. Then, staring at the Christmas tree lights flashing in the hearts of angels and fairies, I remember the coaching session I gave a friend last week. I’d set her a task, told her to make a beautiful and worthy frame for her Joy List, to celebrate it, to make it real. I get out my pack of new felt pens (actually written on my Joy List C as “a new set of felt pens”). I start a very colourful work of he(art), Joy List D.

By the time I’m done, and I’ve propped the list up next to my bed where it will be the first thing I see when I wake, I’ve forgotten about my self pity, and instead I just can’t wait to write this note for the Happy Hearts Quest. I’m excited to try out Facebook as a blogging medium, and to see if anyone is interested in making a Joy List for themselves. A Joy List to kick start their own evening, their week, their year, or even their whole-damn-lives.

The morning after, I read my Joy List D, to C.

He says, How special that so many of the things on it are so small, I mean in a good way small.

Yes, I say, What a relief it is to realise that the things that can give you most joy in life cost nothing and you can have them any time you want.

But there is more beauty in a Joy List than that. The things on the list may seem insignificant, but actually they may be the keys to the discovery of dreams. A “set of felt pens” could mean illustrations drawn for a book one day. “Singing Once in Royal David’s City solo for friends” could mean bringing a viola-playing-past back to life with Carrillón De La Merced the first composition learned and played. And a single word, followed through and pursued with passion, could bring into focus a future beyond the wildest imaginings of a life-weary mind, as it did for me.

Which words on your Joy List could unlock the life you have always wanted? Or which already have?

Depending whereabouts you are on your Happy Hearts Quest, you will have a different story to tell. And I cannot wait to hear it.

Week 1’s Happy Hearts Quest Task is to write your very own Joy List, frame it with art from your heart (paint, glitter, felt pens, photos, words, silver paper all allowed and positively encouraged), take a photo of it (or a piece of it to preserve privacy), and post it to the Happy Hearts Quest wall. If you dare. Go on. Encourage your he(art). Take part!

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Buenos Aires, November 2010

November 26, 2010 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams | 14 comments

We spill out of La Confitería Ideal into Suipacha with the mini-dramas of our tango afternoon on our lips and with our feet aching from the combination of stiletto heels and a stone floor. I have shared tandas with a few of the milongueros I love the most. I know that by the time we’ve eaten pizza on Corrientes my wings will have folded back into their everyday shape, but that I will probably leave a few fresh, rainbow-coloured feathers in my wake for at least twenty-four hours. Osvaldo Fresedo is the music that has sent me flying today, and I know that I’ll still be hearing Después del Carnaval when I lie in bed later trying to sleep.

To get to pizzería Guerrín we have to cross Avenida 9 de Julio. Last week we dodged buses decked out in royal-blue-and-yellow flags and dangerous toppings of Boca Juniors fans presumably coming into town for their Superclásico clash with River — then, the combination of traffic lights, potential sudden stops and male bodies balanced on colectivo roofs of slippery metal sent our voices to a horrified pitch. Tonight though, the widest avenue in Buenos Aires is filled with Carmina-Burana-style music and folding chairs. A stage as huge as an office block replaces the usual traffic, and contemporary dancers give their all to an audience of thousands. We stand behind the safety barriers for a few minutes and stare. My friend has her eyes on the dancers. Mine rest on the watchers who soak in the free concert. I am sure I see a few pairs of wings unfurl in the crowd. My own wings twitch and a forgotten memory returns to me of how I saw the Ballet Rambert perform Ghost Dances set to haunting South American music when I was at University in London, and how the moving performance left me with a longing to be a dancer. It can take time to learn to fly, I think to myself and I tell my friend about the surfacing of the memory. Being with her tonight has allowed it to survive drowning in the foggy pool of years lived long ago. I thank her.

We go for the pizza. She gets two individual slices and I get the fugazza con muzzarella – chica, half for me and half to wrap and take back for Carlos. We’re midway through our meal when the man on the next table has a seizure, or is it a heart attack? For a moment I wonder if he might be dying. A woman starts shouting for a médico. He begins to vomit. Lumps leave his mouth in arcs and I am certain that he must have already consumed more than one pizza. There’s a buzz of manic action as people flock to help. Then as suddenly as it started, it all stops. He stands up, wipes himself down, sits back at his table with his friends. Only the smell of what happened remains, and soon that is masked by mops dipped in buckets of disinfectant. Let’s get the bill, I say. I turn to signal to the waiter and as I do I see that the dark energy has left the sick man and leapt elsewhere. A fight has broken out just inside the front door, where queues of people jostle to buy take-away porciones of some of the most popular pizza in town. Two women. Screaming. Fists out, I assume, though the details are hidden from me by a chaos of bodies. The violence lasts for a few minutes. La cuenta, por favor! calls my friend, and our waiter finally drags himself from oggling the aftermath of the fray.We pay up, exit and leave the uneasy spirit of the night to feast on the diners we leave behind. Or that’s the plan anyway.

On the few blocks between the restaurant and the number 60 bus stop on Callao, we trip over too many split bags and spilt rubbish, I jump as a disturbed soul yells out behind me, and we are accosted by three strangers who break the usual codes of personal space by touching the Guerrín bag in my hand and who ask us for money and Carlos’ dinner. We choose to step into the path of traffic, rather than stay on the dark stretch of pavement behind a boarded-up magazine kiosk where we can be too easily surrounded. A kind-passer-by-man-in-a-suit moves between them and us as we stand stranded on tarmac. Taxis swerve to avoid us. The possibly drugged-up threesome move on towards Congreso. The red lights of a brand new number 60 rounding the corner are a relief. With a Muchas gracias Señor we thank our guardian angel of a guy and climb on the bus.

There are ghosts on Callao and Corrientes tonight, I say to my friend.

Welcome back dear Sal, she laughs.

My heart beat begins to slow as we turn into the quieter side streets. I check my folded-away wings are undamaged. Text Carlos I’m safely on the bus. Hear an echo of Fresedo. Hug my friend goodnight. Head home.

Buy Happy Tango: Sallycat’s Guide to Dancing in Buenos Aires, and start flying towards your own tango adventure in Buenos Aires, today!

Join the book’s Facebook page for all the Happy Tango updates from Buenos Aires; click here and then click ‘Like’.

If you’ve enjoyed reading Happy Tango, please recommend it to someone else who would enjoy it too. Thank you!

Click a link to buy Happy Tango from:
amazon.co.uk
amazon.com
amazon.ca
amazon.fr
barnesandnoble.com
BookDepository.co.uk
BookDepository.com (the Book Depository offers free shipping to many countries). If you prefer to buy from your bookstore, then you should be able to get them to order you a copy, wherever you are in the world. Ask for:

ISBN: 9780956530608
Author: Sally Blake
Published by: Pirotta Press Ltd
Publication date: 30 June 2010

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See you soon!

October 13, 2010 in Live your dreams, Sallycat in the UK, The tale of my book - Happy Tango | 23 comments

Sallycat’s Adventures has been quiet this summer, I know. Stuff happened that, on the face of it, didn’t seem to fit with a blog, originally written from Buenos Aires, that aspires to climb to the giddy heights of inspiring others to live their dreams.

My UK family has found itself up close and personal with the (pretty grim at times, and especially so for my mum who has undergone surgery to build a new tongue from part of her arm) realities of oral cancer. Somehow, it seemed just too much to expect readers to leap from tango connections of a blissful kind, freshly-published tango guide books and dancing for joy in Buenos Aires, to the National Health Service (impressive though it has turned out to be), intensive care units, and the gruelling side effects of thirty-three days of daily radiotherapy to the mouth and neck, and the accompanying chemo treatments. Know what I mean?

And yet I do find blogs that drift away into the ether with fewer and fewer posts a little distressing. When the updates stop, I ponder over the authors. Have they got writer’s block? Have they lost their passion for the subject they once championed? Or, have they changed their whole life philosophy/direction and can’t bring themselves to come clean? And of course, perhaps most importantly, Are they OK? I don’t want you to be wondering those things about me. So, whatever the circumstances, I’ll briefly share with you where I (Tango dancer. Writer. Adventurer.) am in the light of finally (and, oh how fortunate I am that I’ve been given until the age of 47 to discover it) being faced with the truth that neither my loved ones, nor I, will actually live forever.

I’m in England, in the town where I was born. I’ve been here through late-spring alliums into late-summer dahlias and this week, as I walked into town along the bank of the River Severn, I held out my hand to try to catch falling leaves. After four months in Shropshire, supporting us all with his guardian-angel-calm presence, my beloved C. is now back in Buenos Aires. We are lovers, life partners and soul-mates of the most profound kind and we will fill each other’s arms again within weeks we hope, but for now, we are unexpectedly but necessarily apart, connected every day by Skype, and every instant by the powerful knowledge that closeness is certainly not about distance.

Whenever I don’t write to you on this page, it’s usually because I’m considering stuff that I’m not yet ready to tell, or it’s because I’m having to turn my attention elsewhere. This summer its been a combination of  both, and in all honesty, with what’s happening with my Mum and the fact that I have temporarily spun from full-on tango dancer, writer and adventurer into eldest daughter, big sister and chief carer, I’ve temporarily lost the personal resources and hours in the day required to blog my heart out about my life journey, even if it is in the interests of inspiring others to Go for it! That’s why there have been no updates here for over a month, and why I can’t promise that there will be more any time soon.

I just don’t want you wondering about my silence. And, if my silence continues for a while, this post is by way of explanation.

My mum’s cancer is teaching me many things, most of which (like in my case, before this happened) you wouldn’t want me to tell you (it’s a human self-preservation thing). But, hey, when it all kicks off unexpectedly and you feel aspects of your own life shrink as if to fit inside a 60ml syringe or put on hold because you need to do your bit for someone you love now, you sure as hell become doubly happy that you did indeed go after your own dreams while you had the chance.

On that subject, the journey of my book Happy Tango, has been a gleam shone into the gloom of too many hospital days and I want to say a huge Gracias to every one of you who have supported me in my efforts to make Happy Tango the classic tango guide book that I, and many of its readers, believe it deserves to be. If you have already bought it, I thank you. If you have given it a great review, I thank you. If you have interviewed me, I thank you. If you’ve ‘Liked’ or ‘Shared’ the book’s Facebook page, I thank you. If you have recommended the book to a friend or a student or a teacher or a community of tango dancers, I thank you. Please keep doing it all!

One thing. When spreading the word, do remember that Happy Tango is not any old ordinary guide book destined to go out of date without a thought for its reader. It’s a guide book with its very own Updates Blog! As changes happen on the ground in Buenos Aires between editions of the book, the Updates Blog will aim to keep readers up to date with major ‘need to knows’. So far there have been updates on Práctica X, El Amague, Tango Brujo and GretaFlora. The book’s Facebook page will publish news, sometimes even faster than the Updates Blog can (as in the case of milonga Loca! last weekend), so do please click here to visit the page and ‘Like’ it (by clicking the ‘Like’ button at the top) to get notice of all the updates direct to your Facebook feed. Be part of the Happy Tango community. Comment on posts and share with other readers. Make sure you stay in touch!

If you’ve enjoyed the book already, or if you don’t fancy investing in it for yourself (!), here’s a suggestion. If you are buying a Christmas gift for a tango dancer this year, then why not make it my guide book? In fact, if you need to buy any kind of gift for any fan of any kind of dance at all, then Happy Tango could be just the thing! Let’s face it, the fabulously entertaining Strictly Come Dancing is on our UK screens again, and Strictly’s Vincent and Flavia will be touring with their own tango show Midnight Tango in 2011, so (in the UK at least) what could be a more topical present than a book that aims to help turn fantasies of dancing the real thing, Argentine tango in Argentina, into reality?

So that’s it. Where I am. For now.

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write to you for a while. I just haven’t really known what to say. Thanks Christine in LA for commenting on my last post today, and reminding me not to disappear completely without a word.

I have learned, on my journey to Buenos Aires and beyond, that it’s more joyful to keep gaps, changes and separations, whether temporary or not, upbeat. A light and easy, See you soon, works well for me. That way, there’s far less drama and a lot more hope. So, for now, I’m going to stick with smiles, and leave you with Me and my Dad and my darling C. larking about, a few weeks ago, just off the A1 (M) in northern England, in the company of the biggest angel I have ever seen.

May guys like him protect you and me and my Mum until we meet again.

Keep flying towards your own dreams my friends, and I’ll see you soon!

Sallycat


Buy Happy Tango: Sallycat’s Guide to Dancing in Buenos Aires, and start flying towards your own tango adventure in Buenos Aires, today!

Click a link to buy Happy Tango from:
amazon.co.uk
amazon.com
amazon.ca
amazon.fr
barnesandnoble.com
BookDepository.co.uk
BookDepository.com (the Book Depository offers free shipping to many countries). If you prefer to buy from your bookstore, then you should be able to get them to order you a copy, wherever you are in the world. Ask for:

ISBN: 9780956530608
Author: Sally Blake
Published by: Pirotta Press Ltd
Publication date: 30 June 2010


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Dreams, bestsellers and signposts

August 25, 2010 in Live your dreams, Sallycat - the writer within, The tale of my book - Happy Tango | 26 comments

If you’ve already read  Happy Tango, I’m sure you will quickly spot why my brother-in-law drew my attention to these words in the fourth paragraph of Emma Brocke’s article “Eat, Pray, Cash in” in the Guardian Newspaper, Saturday 14th August 2010. She wrote,

Anything with “happiness” in the title and a set of rules to follow stands a good chance of vaulting into the bestseller lists, from business books (Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh) to Gretchen Rubin’s the Happiness Project.

If you haven’t yet read my book (sporting, as it happens, the word “Happy” in the title), then perhaps if I tell you now that it contains Sallycat’s (11) Rules for Happy Tango in Buenos Aires, you’ll get my brother-in-law’s optimistic and good-humoured drift. Anyway, despite the jolly laughter around the breakfast table as we all poured over the Guardian and its commentary on the spectacular success of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, I couldn’t help a quick click or two on the Mac to check the day’s Amazon sales stats on my book. After all, it’d be kind of cool to have any sort of ‘bestseller’ on my hands, wouldn’t it?

It is true that my book primarily targets a niche market (the tango dancers of the globe) and is therefore unlikely ever to be selling millions of copies and sitting up there next to Liz Gilbert on the bestseller shelves of Waterstones. But, it seems, that doesn’t mean it can’t sell relatively well and compete with the big-travel-author boys on the online, Amazon bookshelf. You can probably imagine my tickled-pink-ness when I discovered Happy Tango jockeying with the likes of Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux, Lonely Planet and Time Out at the top of the Amazon “Bestsellers in (the category) Argentina”… My friends, regardless of the actual number of copies sold, when you see a screen like this, with your book at #2 between Bruce and Paul, you have to finally allow yourself a little shout of delight that your dream (documented here on this blog in October 2008) to write and publish a real book which helps strangers as well as friends really, really did come true. Result? You look back. You remember the journey, and where you started. You consider where you are now. You feel absolutely bloody amazing. You dared to dream. You made your dream come true. You did it. And it’s nice to have a pic like this one to pop into my album of happy dreams lived, because when I look at it it makes my heart sing with pride and joy, and I think it probably always will.

I am a visual soul, you see. On the path of my dream to write a book, I used a mental image, of me opening a box of my own finished and published books, to help me focus on my intention. The visualisation felt like a magnet that pulled me closer to my goal. I also used concrete objects: I had business cards made with Tango dancer. Writer. Adventurer. written on them, and I took an old book, handmade a new cover for it, hand-scribed the title Sallycat’s Adventures on it, and put it on show in my apartment where I couldn’t help but see it every day… my book to be, in the making, in my mind and on my bookshelf.

I am certain that intention-imaging/modelling of this nature helped me achieve my writing-a-book dream, though the idea of it came into my life long before, via a personal development course I attended during my early twenties when I was working for IBM: the facilitator asked us to make a collage of images, images we felt drawn to as we focused on “the future I want”, chosen while flicking through magazines; I found the exercise to be powerful and I kept the collage, and over the years I made countless new ones. Over time, I did notice the ever-present open spaces and soaring birds, though I confess that my earliest efforts were also plastered with thatched country cottages, a Golf GTI 16v and some cuter-than-cute babies… The Golf materialised. The babies didn’t, and they eventually disappeared from the collages altogether, along with all types of car, while the ‘flight  and freedom’ symbols multiplied. Like Amazon Sales Ranks, nothing stands still, including my dreams. And it’s up to me to stay in touch with my soul so that I know if I still want to fly (or drive) and if so, where to.

While writing this blog post, I decided to check in with myself today; in the quickest of quick exercises, I looked at the hundreds of photos that Me and C. have taken in the UK and built an instant (without allowing myself to think too much) collection of a few that pull at my heart, right here, right now. Whether symbolic or literal, it doesn’t matter; the images I choose could be signposts pointing towards my future.

What does it mean, this particular collection of snaps? Well, it’s probably a case of too few pics and too early to tell. I want to do several more of these using images from a few different sources — these are from just one set of photographs taken by Me and C. over a short summer; there’s no (obvious) tango or Buenos Aires, but then there weren’t any photos of tango or Buenos Aires in the mix of pics I was picking from. I won’t be making any grand overnight life-changing decisions based solely on this photo-collage. On the other hand, even a quick glance over it does confirm one or two things… things that I am already taking action towards. That’s cool. Reassuring stuff. And doing it makes me want to get my hands on a pile of magazines and start ripping out pages to make a huge dream-conjuring collage the size of a wall mural… ah, the creative flow once it starts flowing. Fun, isn’t it?

How do you stay in touch with your dreams and make sure you are flying in the direction of your soul’s desires? Ever tried making a collage? If not, why not give it a go? It feels like play. It’s a great way to create art out of the pile of old magazines already earmarked for recycling. And it might just set you out on a new path of the he(art). Perhaps you’ll discover that you really do want to write that bestseller. But if you do, don’t forget to magic up a title containing the word “happiness” and a few rules for the reader to follow — and who knows, if Emma Brocke is right (and I’m certainly looking forward to finding out whether she is), your dream might come true faster than you think.

Happy Tango: Sallycat’s Guide to Dancing in Buenos Aires complete with its 11 Sallycat’s Rules for Happy Tango in Buenos Aires is available from amazon.co.uk, amazon.com and amazon.ca, and from BookDepository.co.uk and BookDepository.com. You can read an extract from The Introduction to the book, here; you can hook into some 5* reviews of the book, here; you can follow any updates from Buenos Aires on The (Happy Tango) Updates Blog, here; you can get notice of all updates and other Happy Tango news by ‘liking’ the book’s Facebook page, here.

Thanks go to Mark Brooker of walkjivefly.com for the super picture of Happy Tango being read on one of my favourite streets in Buenos Aires, Avenida Santa Fe; now there’s a man who is living his dreams, and I salute him for it.

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A warm British tango embrace

August 5, 2010 in Live your dreams, Sallycat in the UK, Teaching Argentine tango | 11 comments

I’ve had to let Buenos Aires go this summer.

No good being nostalgic for the stuff I could miss: my Wednesday morning race along the pavement of Corrientes from the number 60 bus, to make it to Writers’ Group (roughly on time); creamy banana licuados poured from plastic jugs by one of a pair of senior waiters (who must have at least 100 years – between them – of  tostado mixtos under their belts) in Los Galgos on Callao; eye contact with one of the ‘milongueros I love the most’, as the first notes of a vals tanda threaten to send me to the very edge of becoming a woman desperate to dance. If I let my mind dwell, I could miss these things and many more things besides, but instead I am choosing to let my love for them slip beneath my conscious thoughts, as I put into practice living in the now.

When someone you love is unwell and needs you, it sure offers you a sharp lesson on getting into the present and staying there. Where you were last and where you will be next almost cease to exist. The meal you are preparing or eating, the sleep you are about to sink into or are waking from, the challenge you are listening to or the solution you are offering — these are the simple things that have become the regular heartbeat of my recent days. But, to give my best in any situation to anybody in whatever circumstance, I know that I must also feed the pulse of my own soul and stay in touch with who I really am. In my case that means two things above all else: writing and blissful Argentine tango. Writing, I know I can do anywhere. In the relatively small town (compared to Buenos Aires) of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK, I may have once thought that the tango might be more of a challenge. I would have been wrong.

At The Lantern in Shrewsbury, on Thursday nights, I am dancing with an amazing group of British men. They dance to traditional Golden Age tango music (and one or two even sing it in my ear because they know their favourite tracks so well). They allow me to embrace them as closely as I want to (very close) and they hug me back without reserve. They improvise every step to the music they hear and so let me in on who they really are. They escort me back to my seat with a thank you in their kind words (and in their eyes I am delighted to say, as it reveals that I have managed to give them something special too). Yes, these men are amazing in their enthusiasm for the music and the social dance they are learning to love, and I am already calling them, over a J2O and a laugh in the pub afterwards, my ‘Shrewsbury milongueros’.

Are these men great dancers? Ah well, that will depend on what you mean by ‘great’, won’t it. If I asked them, I am certain that they would say No, not only because they are modest and grounded folk but also because, in their own words, I’ve only been dancing just over a year, or I worry my dance vocabulary is a bit limited, or I’m sorry if it’s a bit boring. I say, Sod all that. It doesn’t bother or bore me. Far from it. I know that continued lessons in strong fundamentals from their fab teacher, practice on the dance floor to tango music classics, and a bit more self-confidence, will sort out their doubts. I’m already looking forward to dancing with them again next year. Why? Well, I believe that great Argentine tango is all about the connection between the partners and the tango music, and the resulting powerful feeling; I think that these men are already on track to discover rising levels of true tango-bliss and to give it to the tangueras in their arms.

But what is the secret? How do you actually go about creating ‘milongueros in the making’, on the border of England and Wales, far far from Argentina, out of ordinary (in the nicest sense of the word) middle-aged British blokes? An intriguing question, and one to which I’m enjoying discovering the answers: answers that predominantly seem to involve the encouragement of a love and understanding of Golden Age music. I’m delighted to say that I’m being given the chance to add my two-penneth into the mix, as my experiences of dancing social tango in the Buenos Aires milongas leave me with some clear ideas that I am keen to convey. The guys seem to be taking my teachings on board, which is very exciting; I’ve even had them dancing with C. in order to gain a sense of exactly how it can feel to be in the arms of one who dances the music and uses it to find and celebrate the woman in his arms. Dancing man to man may sound extreme, but these amazing men stepped up for it with gusto (and I have discovered since, that it is part of their regular weekly practice); after all, once upon a time in Buenos Aires, men danced with men (’tis said) to gain skill, confidence and understanding before they were ever let loose on the women. Whether or not the men of Shrewsbury will ever come to think of themselves as the greatest dancers in the room, they may find themselves to be the most popular dancers in the room… as are the milongueros of Buenos Aires that I love the most.

I imagine it takes a fair bit of determination for your average forty-something-and-upwards Brit guy to apply himself to learn an intimate dance from scratch, in a world that is all too often about looks and competition and achievement and comparisons… the best, the flashiest, the most attractive, the best (yep I said that one twice). Yet, how relevant is all that stuff, really? In looking for my ideal dance partner, I expect a certain basic level of skill, yes. I also want someone who moves smoothly and competently to the music and who appears to hear and love the same tunes that I do. And, I want him to know a few secrets (but, if I’m teaching him, I’m pretty confident that I can help him with those, if he is up for it). I’d never choose him for his flash moves, but rather for exactly who he is, whoever he is, if I think that his love of the music and the warmth of his embrace and his body shape may suit mine. In my tango mind, you see, there are no ‘bests’, apart from in the sense of the men who may suit me best. And the men who may suit me, may not suit you. There is someone who will be the perfect match for every other someone, in this incredibly special dance that we call Argentine tango. How fab a prospect is that? It means that we can all be winners.

So, given that I am kind of stranded in Shrewsbury for a while with my mind on some pretty serious matters, it feels like a little miracle that I have found (without having to look very hard at all) some amazing tangueros who definitely do suit me, right on my doorstep.

And it isn’t just the men at The Lantern who make me smile, but the women too. They have welcomed us into their community with a warmth and enthusiasm that shines with the gleam of generous hearts; they share their men with me and in return, I share mine: C. dances his Argentine tango-heart out, and we all go home happy. One of the tangueras, a talented artist, has even been sketching us which is a treat, and it is she, the wonderful Beverley Fry, who I have to thank for the photograph of Me and C. at the top of this blog entry: Beverley entitled the photo, Listening: I love our matching skinny arms, our hands framed momentarily by our chests (on their way to their meeting), and the glow that seems to fill every single space.

Somehow Beverley’s pic of Me and C. at The Lantern is warm through and through, and fittingly so; I do not think that if I had ordered it from God’s salon-service menu, he could have given me a cosier British tango embrace than I have been offered in Shrewsbury. I am more grateful for that than I can say.

How is your own search going for tango that suits you this summer (or winter, depending where you are dancing)? Are you finding it easily? Why not comment on this post and share your experiences, and so help us all to find our ‘tango homes’ in the event that we are travelling to a tango salon near you soon. If you want to know more about what I mean by the term ‘tango homes’, why not treat yourself to a copy of Happy Tango: Sallycat’s Guide to Buenos Aires, and find out. If you haven’t bought yet, you can now read an extract from the Introduction of the book, by clicking right here. Happy reading!

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Word of mouth (and heart)

July 22, 2010 in Live your dreams, Sallycat in the UK, The tale of my book - Happy Tango | 16 comments

Yesterday, via a comment on this blog from Terry (you can read it here), I learned of the first review written about Happy Tango by a paying customer. I confess, I shed a happy tear as I read Terry’s comment and the review itself. You can read it (by scrolling down the page) at the Book Depository here.

Can anyone possibly understand what it is like for a first-time book author waiting for news of what people think of their work of he(art)? Other first-timers might identify with the constant pull to check the screens of online retailers or blog-comment, Facebook and Twitter feeds. Then again they might also recognise that the desire to do that is mixed in with a little voice that reminds that no news is probably good news… at least no-one is complaining too loudly! I’m one of those human beings that prefers to know though. I’ve never been keen on pregnant pauses. I’m fine with stillness full of understanding and love. I’m less comfortable with silences that might be more about what’s not being said. Thus, my friends, I have to thank Terry, who bought my book, read it, liked and took the time to tell the world why they should buy it. Yes, I can bang on and on about how useful I think Happy Tango is (and I know I’m telling the truth), but in cases where my word may not be enough to convince someone who has never heard of Sallycat, the voice of others could be the persuader. In my dreams, I saw Happy Tango as a book that would sell itself. And so far it looks like it can be: friends’ Facebook updates, fellow tango bloggers’ posts, reviews like Terry’s, your copy shown off in your tango community… these are the things that will do the job. And I will be grateful for every one of them, and to every one of you who make them happen with your words (or your deeds).

Right now, in my UK summer, I find myself unexpectedly focused on the power of words. Someone I love more than I can say has temporarily, on the face of it at least, lost their voice. My Mum is recovering from a pretty huge operation for cancer, and instead of speaking to me, she has to write down what she wants to say, or show me with her hands, or her eyes, or even just with the way she chooses to lie on her bed… and the beauty of it is that without any speech at all she is managing to make me laugh, make me cry, make my heart swell with pride that she is my Mum. Yesterday I printed out Terry’s review and took it in to show her. She gave me shining eyes and a heartfelt thumbs up sign along with a drawing of a hyperbolic graph and a spiral made with her finger that said start small and grow. I know she is right. Then, after exchanges of news about this and that, our more-animated-than-normal and honest conversation moved on to the theme of what happens when we can’t speak to each other like we would normally do. I remember when I met Carlos, I said, We couldn’t say anything to each other (didn’t speak each other’s languages) but I saw his soul and he saw mine. It was enough. I think my family are seeing each other’s souls now. It feels like having five bright lights in that hospital room at visiting times (and they remain, I think, even when we are not there), with my Mum’s light burning brightest at the centre. She may look like she has been through ten rounds with Mohammed Ali, and she may feel like it too, and we each may be a little scared and thoughtful about various aspects of what it may mean for our collective and individual tomorrows, but yesterday we agreed that without the spoken word, our souls’ voices seem to gain power, speak more clearly, and it seems, in my family’s case, connect to join in a song more beautiful than we have ever sung before.

It reminds me of what happens when I write. If I was talking to you, I might start off on my intended track, but then you’d probably interrupt, or tell me your point of view, or cloud my thinking with your perspective… all useful stuff I am sure, and known as dialogue, but I’d end up somewhere else, influenced by you. When I write, because I have free rein to write from my heart, without yours getting in the way, it can be easier to end up exactly where my own soul wants to be.

I’ve wanted to write this post but I’ve ummed and aahed (leaving me with a spot of writer’s block)… would my Mum be OK with it? Well, I’m going to ask her this afternoon. So if you’re reading my words now, you’ll know she gave me the thumbs up. I want to write it because I’m receiving a zillion emails full of people’s congratulations about the book, and it’s hard to keep telling this other, behind the scenes, tale of my summer again and again. Sallycat’s Adventures has always been a blog straight from the heart, and mine cannot hide… I’ve tried that way of life (for my first 43 years, as you know), and it doesn’t work for me… far too tense.

So I am telling my truth, yet again, on this blog. For a little while I was afraid that despite these personal-life events and how tired they are making me feel, I should be doing more to promote the book. I just can’t do the stuff I had planned. But writing this has made me less concerned than I was. I’ve already received two generous offers of blog interviews from friends and I am sure that the opportunities such as those, that are meant to be, will come in time. I am also considering making a little video in the bandstand of a Shrewsbury park (Glorieta-style), of me talking about the book, so that my spoken passion for it can go where my physical self cannot. And the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that regardless of how much tearing around the country promoting Happy Tango I am able to do this summer, the book’s presence in the world will grow anyway. Reviews like Terry’s will make sure of it. And there will be more reviews like Terry’s because the bottom line (and do forgive me for banging on… ha!) is that the book will be useful, it will do good things for people, and thus they might be kind enough to pass the good news on.

I’m delighted to say that Happy Tango has begun to ship from both amazon.co.uk (see M. and N. in Windsor above) and amazon.com and from The Book Depository. I know many of you are still waiting on your copies, and I hope you will not be kept waiting too much longer. Once the wheels of distribution are fully in motion, copies should ship more speedily.

Meanwhile, I remain in Shropshire with my family. I am proud beyond belief to have a decent book out there in the world with you. I am proud to get my first upbeat review of it from Terry. But I am proudest of all to get the thumbs up, via whatever fabulous, creative, inspiring means she can invent, from my precious and amazing Mum! I know that you will all wish her well.

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A plea from England. Tell me when…

July 10, 2010 in Live your dreams, The tale of my book - Happy Tango, Uncategorized | 36 comments

Who will be first to tell me that they have received their copy of Happy Tango by post from an online retailer?

And will it be delivered by The Book Depository (who offer free shipping to many countries — but alas it seems, not yet Argentina — and show the book as ‘usually dispatched within 48 hours’), or by amazon.co.uk (who say the book will be dispatched in 10-13 days), or by amazon.com(who list the book as ‘in stock’)? Exciting times in the life of Happy Tango, no?

I’m ruling my family out of the race. We’ve had two copies delivered already — the proof copy number one and the proof copy number two — and as I’ve now approved the final proof and the book is at last available to print for real, I’ve today ordered 120 copies and I should get those next week. I can make a bit more cash selling hand to hand, of course, which is fab for me because, in the end, the book has probably cost me at least a couple of grand (British) to date, along with knocking on for a couple of years of work time. But, I’ll be delighted to sell copies online via the big retailers, as that way I can get the book all over the world and into the hands of as many tango dancers as possible. Course, I’d love to be able to travel to each of you with a book in my own hand, but for now, alas, it’s probably out of the question.

The first people to buy direct from me will probably be a few of the lovely dancers from the weekly summer practica at Shrewsbury Tango. This Thursday I was lucky enough to have the chance to lead an hour long session with them on the subject of how we might be able to learn to deepen our connection in the embrace when dancing tango socially… oh gosh, it was sooo fab — thank you, you open-minded students, you were all so brilliantly receptive and willing to try out my ideas. And, you have left me with so much to think about: watching you breathing together, in embraces closer than, perhaps, some of you had ever tried before, to the exquisite sounds of Miguel Caló, almost moved me to tears. And, when we spoke together at the end of the class on the subject of just what an amazing privilege it is to hold another tango dancer in our arms… well, the understanding in the room was almost tangible enough to be touched. It was the strangest feeling to hear people applauding me at the end of the session, and as we sat chatting in the pub afterwards, it slowly began to sink in that I had just completed the first step (and passed the first test, in terms of how successful the session had been) along the path of one of my dreams — to do my bit to enable more British dancers to freely and easily and naturally give and receive the gift when dancing Argentine tango.

To be perfectly honest, I have never really wanted to teach tango. And, in the conventional sense of the word, I still don’t. But, I think you already know, I am passionate about discovering whether connection in tango can be encouraged and better understood earlier in the process of learning to dance tango… and on Thursday’s evidence, I think maybe it can be, and maybe it can be by me. I had hoped so, but now I am a little closer to knowing so. Dave and Alison, at Shrewsbury Tango, thank you for inviting me into your tango community and giving me the chance to share some of my ideas with you all. Me and C. plan to be there next week, if life events allow, to enjoy Sharon’s super teaching and your great selection of traditional tango music, and I’ll have copies of Happy Tango in hand… people, if you are going to be there and would like a copy, please bring £14.99 (I’ll have pennies to give in change!) and of course, if you would like, I’d be delighted to write a personal message in the book for you.

On the online front, I can’t yet be too sure when people’s orders for Happy Tango will start being fulfilled. In theory, it’s available to print as orders come in (the book is being produced via a print-on-demand system), and the fact that online retailers are beginning to list the book as ‘in stock’ means that info is starting to filter through from my printer/distributor. This is good news. I’ll be keeping an alert eye open of course and will give the latest information as I get it, here on Happy Tango’s website.

Meanwhile in warm and pleasant Inglaterra, Me and C. are going to be staying with my folks for a while. For reasons I don’t really want to go into right now, they need us this summer in ways we could never have predicted. It’s perfect timing that my most intensive work on Happy Tango is over, so that I can relax a bit and concentrate on being fully present with my family. Or at least I will be able to once I get word from you that the book is in your hands (and that one or two of you like it!).

So friends, from wherever you are in the world, to Shopshire, England, far far away, please do take a minute to tell me when…

If you haven’t ordered Happy Tango yet, and you would like to… here are the links:

Happy Tango from The Book Depository (who offer free shipping to many countries)

Happy Tango from amazon.co.uk

Happy Tango from amazon.com

Thank you!

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The proof!

June 30, 2010 in Live your dreams, Sallycat in the UK, The tale of my book - Happy Tango | 29 comments

I’d hoped to have a box of Happy Tango books to sell to a few tango dancers at the fun-and-fabulous TangoUK Tango Tangk, organised and hosted by Steve and Debbie Morrall, at Bramshaw, on the weekend of the 26th June – last weekend. Steve has read Happy Tango and given me a great endorsement for the book, which you will see on the back of the book cover and on the website here, and so it would have been very fitting to have been in a position to hand him his very own real copy, in person, wouldn’t it?

Two weeks ago, I knew it wasn’t going to happen.  The Universe didn’t want to play ball - and we are even talking stormy weather in Argentina playing its very own dramatic part. Sometimes you just have to accept that a grand plan ain’t gonna come together in your time frame (as you know, I’ve said it before a million times). But that isn’t to say you give up entirely — well, at least, you don’t if you are Sallycat. I adjusted my goal — one copy, the proof copy of Happy Tango, out of my dreams and into by hands by Saturday 26th…

Remember folks, I’m publishing this book myself. In the effort to try and make that approach work for me, I’ve had to get my head around some fairly techie stuff; I’ll be honest, it’s been a little nerve-wracking in these ultimate stages. Friday the 18th saw me upload the files to the printing company from my base in Shropshire. Monday the 21st saw Me and C. on a train to Winchester, with no word yet as to whether the file had been accepted. Tuesday, we were in the green of the southern-England countryside, and after tea with my past neighbours in the gorgeous village of Itchen Abbas (where I lived one of my nine Sallycat lives), I got back to my lodgings and to the thumbs up message for the file and thus, the green light that the proof copy of Happy Tango was to be born. Wednesday, I received notice that the book had been printed. Thursday, it was posted to Pirotta Press Ltd. Friday, my most valient assistants Mr and Mrs T. (my beloved parents who remain my constant inspiration) took delivery and made the dash to the Post Office to request a next day postal service to deepest greenest Hampshire.

By Saturday morning I was staying with some much-loved tango buddies (who first welcomed me into their lives back in the days when I was taking my beginner, backwards steps in high heels) and was in my PJs when the postman arrived. He found himself surrounded on the doorstep. It’s my friend’s first ever book! I overheard as I hovered in the kitchen; I was using the excuse of the PJs, but truly I was nervous. It’s one thing to see covers and interior layouts on screens and printed by humble inkjets on A4 sheets; it’s another to see your wildest imaginings turned into a 6 by 9 inch paperback with a glossy cover. I found myself holding two years of my working life (and actually, the last fours years of my clock life), in a small cardboard-wrapped package, in my hands. In the few moments when I saw the book for the first time, the rush of relief was strong enough to propel me straight into the arms of my friends and Carlos, all at once I think.  There were some tears of joy. It was cool.

It wasn’t that easy for me to look inside the book. On Saturday I only flicked through it and spent the rest of the day thrusting it under the noses of everyone I met (er sorry people, but I am sure you understand!), and in the evening I was thrilled to spontaneously share my delight with a few tango mates who knew me back at the very beginning of my tango journey, when I truly was a ‘leaf caught in the wind’ (as someone said to me this weekend, very accurately) and had no idea that I would even go to Buenos Aires, never mind write a book with a mission to help other people do it too. I did show the book off a little at the Tango Tangk milonga — even though doing so meant that there just wasn’t time to dance with everyone, alas. On Sunday, I made myself open it up and read the whole thing again… it needed some tweaks, so the file is now back with the printer and I await what surely must be, the final proof copy, which I intend to sign off prontísimo.

Yesterday in some kind of miracle moment (only looked the once to check the page count had been updated, I promise), Happy Tango got up to an amazon.co.uk Sales Rank of above 25000 in Books, and reached #6 in the category Dance, appearing on the front page there. I know that these are just figures, and they sure do go up and down like yo-yos every day, but you know what, I don’t really care. You have to celebrate the joys. And, a few people must be pre-ordering, which is completely wonderful. What I do care about, is getting the book to those people as fast as I possibly can. It’s true that Happy Tango is going to be a little later than my original target date. I’m sorry about that, but honestly, I don’t think it will be very late. I can say that now, because I have indeed seen the proof…

And here — my friends, at long last — it is.

You’ve gotta admit, that after all the talk since the day I first wrote this post in 2008, a photo of the first ever copy of the book actually being read, is a bit of a result! No?

Meanwhile, on the subject of great and mighty scorelines, to all you lovers of Argentine tango out there, on Saturday night you might have to forget tango shoes and think golden boots instead. What can I say but, Go number 11! Go Tevez! Go Messi! Go Maradona! Go Argentina!!!

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