Front Cover

I like it. It's nice and bright and would definitely grab my attention on the shelf!

I like that. It's very edgy.

wow my favorite colors, i would pick it up from the shelf.........

Neat! It's got a lot of "oomph"!!!! :)

Thanks guy :) You all made me smile.
If any of you are interested, I use graphic art as a sort of relaxing from NaNo. So I could see if I could put together a front cover for you as well. Not that it would be spectacular or anything, just for fun, ya know?

Anyway thanks for commenting!

Oh cool! I'd grab it because it had dancers on the cover.

I'm glad I'm not the only person writing a dance novel here!

You're doing a dance novel too?! I would love to read it at the end of the month. What's the plot?

it is good to hear someone else is doing a dance novel :)

Well it's about leaning ballroom dance and the transformation that an adult can go through as they learn it. And, well, there's a romantic plot of course, with a love triange between the MC, her teacher, and another of the students.

I'm so glad I'm not alone in this!

So, do you have problems with the dance scenes? I'm always so afraid I put too much detail in and bog the story down.

I don't mind sharing at the end of the month, of course if it's done, but only if I can read your's too.

ahh, the class love triangle *grins*

See, I think I have the total opposite. I want all these elaborate scenes to show the skill but mine are too vague. I had a topic for people to describe dancing and all to me and routines and what not so I could put more detail in, but nobody really replied to it, well thats a lie, one person did, and so I know about irish dancing but not about others like ballroom and ballroom variations like samba and fox-trot. I can't dance, i've tried, so i wanted details. If you have some to give me, bring it on babe! lol because i definitely don't have the same problem as you. i like watching but not performing lol

we'll see how mine goes if I end up sharing it. I'm really lacking in confidence when it comes to my writing., ya know? actually in a lot of things lol but thats another story. heh

Well I only social dance, which is different than the competative dancing (like you see on TV.) But I've taken lessons and workshops, so I can help on that end of thing.

http://www.ballroomdancers.com/
This is one of the best ballroom dance websites, ever. They have videos of how to do the steps. I wouldn't read the foot charts, because they're really confusing to anyone who doesn't have some expeince in dance.

I can give you some personal experince too, because I had to oddly unique opportunity to take a workshop with Buddy Schwimmer (father of Benji and Lacey Schwimmer of "So You Think Dance" fame). He's one of the premire dance teacher in the country, and lessons under someone like him are amazing.

I can also give you some tips about dance shoes and what it feels like to do some steps, but I have no experince with lifts or drops. Just give me a place to start from. I know all the American Smooth dances (Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, and Vienese Waltz), most of the American Rhythm Dances (Cha Cha, Rumba, East Coast Swing, and Manbo.) Then I also know some night club dances (Salsa, West Coast Swing, Merengue, Samba, Night Club Two-Step.) And then there's the new dances (like Swango a hybrid of Argentine Tangs and West Coast Swing and Casion Rouette) that I know what they look like, but can't dance.

So tell me where you want to start and we can get to the sharing. :)

So yeah, needing lots of help and whatever you know will help. (Thanks for the link too!). Mostly in my novel I have Tango, Cha-Cha, Samba, and possibly Swing. I am trying my hardest to create a wide variety so if you want, throw ANY at me. I don't want to just put a few in. I have a dance school in it so there would be a lot of different people doing all sorts of dances. So whatever you are more fluent in, fill me with info and details :) It doesn't matter if you aren't pro in them, I would rather have some detail then being vague :)

If there's any terms you don't get, feel free to tell me.
Okay, well Tango is the most differnt of the group. The dance is danced low, the the knees bent, in close to the partner and led through the theighs. To get to this, first the partners need to be in smooth dance position (which is where the woman has her belly-button pressed to the man's side and their legs off set.) Then the partners bend their knees and twist slightly to the left. It's kind of the same motion as slolom (sp?) skiing. The dance is danced in a straight line, which is something very had to imagine if you know what the basic step is, and the dancers glide. When first learning it your theighs get sore. REALLY sore. Because of where the dance came from (which is spanish sheep herders), the woman's head is always away from the man. Sheep herders smell, and they would come down to town after a long week of sheep herding, take a bath, get some wine, and want a woman. So it's important to the dance to be very close. But sheep herders smell of, well, sheep, even after the bath, so the woman would turn her head away to avoid the smell. That's also why you sometimes see women with roses in their mouths. The head position is very imporant in the turn out of a promanade (the cheeck-to-cheeck position). The momentum is created in the traveling steps, and then the man stops and snaps the woman back into closed dance position. Adding the head snap away from the man not only gives a crispness to the move, but give to woman a little extra momentum.
When the spanish went to agretina, they brought the tango with them, and it was danced in the brothels, so that's where the sexy leg lifts and stuff come from. They don't exist in Spanish tango.

Cha-cha's story is in the music. The difference between a cha-cha and a mambo is the shaker. There's a cha-cha-cha sound that the mambo band leaders made back before the dance came about and the audince would yell cha-cha-cha along with it. Then they started to punctuate it in the dance.
Cha-cha can be dance either in closed or open latin (and there are variations off of both of those positions) but the major difference between smooth dances is that there is space between the partners. This is for the cuban motion.
There are two important dance elements in the cha-cha. 1. it starts on the 2. and 2. cuban motion. The first is easier to explain. Amerincans start cha-cha on the second beat. This is because mambo starts on the second beat, but also because the cha-cha-cha is on the one. The step is pretty easy, a mambo basic is a series of rock steps forward and backwards with a rest in between. The cha-cha adds a triple step called a chasse (pronounces shaw-say) to the right and left inbetween the rock steps (during the rest). That's a really complicated way to put it, but that's the best way to explain what's going on.
Cuban motion is the his movements that go on. It's danced with the stomach and the butt. It's a rolling motion, kind if like i wave, from one hip to the other.

Samba is DAMN hard. Like the Rumba or the Waltz, the Samba is a basic box. But instead of it being the steps being on 1,2, and 3 (waltz) or 1,3, and 4 (rumba) the steps count is 1 and 2, 3 and 4. The feet are brough together in the corners of the bo in a half count. There's a weird slide menuvure that's done so you can go onto the next step at the correct time. And did I mention the dance is fast. It's not as fast as a mambo or a salsa (which are actually at the same tempo just on different counts) but it's right up there. I've danced a slightly slow mambo to a samba before, on accident.
Now the samba has, yet again, a differnt hold. Unlike other latin dances, samba is danced in close, this is so you can keep your balance.
The dance bounces, and there really isn't anything to do about that. And there is cuban motion, but it's harder to explain. Because the dance is danced in close, the partners lean slightly in the opposite dirction of the step. It makes this interesting yin and yang, push and pull.

Hope that helps for starters.

I am not a dancer, so I don't have much to add other than A) i love the cover and b) I am Brasilian-- living in Brasil is a good way to learn how to street Samba. Which is a bit different than the professional Samba you see on TV. Less liberated and fun.

I'd love to live somewhere where I can learn street dances. I learned social dance, which still has some of the rules of professional dance and some of the freedom of street dancing. But just being able to go to a dance and learn some moves, that would be so much fun. I envy you.

I would love just to learn any of the street or social dances. Like I've said before, I have no dancing skills other then just dancing around in my own home lol But yeah, I envy both you, being able to street dance with the right and proper intended moves of a dance would be awesome.

You only live three hours from one of the best couples dance instructors. I took lessons from him when within my first month of starting lessons and learned A LOT! One weekend with him and you'd be able to do anything, if you survive.

who and where? lol

Well Buddy Schwimmer has a studio/club in Redlands, CA. The man I was learning from actually used to fly down to California to take lessons from Buddy, he's...wow...

http://www.5678dancestudios.com/

I'm pretty sure the studio is open again. They had a fire right before the finale of So You Think You Can Dance last year, but last I heard, he'd rebuilt.

If only i had the time and the money. definitely saving the link though :) thanks hun

Gotta encourage people to dance. It's part of the addiction.

Okay, quick lesson number two.

Music and ballroom dance (I blame the ChickLit dare thread for this):

Ballroom dancers listen to music differently. The first thought isn't about liking a song or not, it's about if you can dance to it. More importantly what dance you can do to it. Getting into the specifics about which dances to which songs could take hours (I once spent an entire hour long class session listening to music to get the subtile differences between a mambo, a samba, and a cha-cha.) Some are really easy, if there's three counts it's a waltz, but getting into the differences between a fox trot and a rhumba (both dances are very close in footwork) comes back to style. There grey zones in swing and latin dances where you can do a fast cha-cha (or west coast swing) or a slow mambo (or east coast swing.)
Since I started dancing, I listen to music bass first and move my way up. The bass line, not the drums, is where you get your count from. That's the frist cue. Then it does into purcussion for counter points. Finally the rest of the song. I also have to stop myself from dancing while I wait for the bus, but that's another story.

Hope that helps!

Cool! I love the pink-yellow combo. It looks great!

Here's mine:

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Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?

Oooh I like it! I'll have to start thinking about mine,,,

I used my typography skills that I learned... and the photoshop skills from Photoshop TV.

http://kimberlydawn.deviantart.com/art/Nano-2007-cover-70778336

Credits are, as I said to Stock Exchange for the photo of the scissors. I also wrote a back cover copy too. Those are always a pain to write. 'cause one should give credit to photographers as well as to writers. ^_^

The novel is technically chic lit and romance... somewhat of an odd combination of the two, since it doesn't quite fit either perfectly either.

That already has me curious :)

I rewrote the back blurb. ^_^ Should have a better hook now.