Now Someone Has To Write the Blurb (and I Don’t Want That Someone To Be Me)

As I type this, I am listening to a fantastic soundtrack recently shared by a friend. She told me she is listening to this while she translates Qayqa into Spanish. I’ve added it so you can listen to it while you read!

 

Dear ayllu,

As you might have seen in my excited tweets, the basic formatting of Mark’s illustrations into my novel Qayqa is DONE. Is all the page numbering… the dedication… the “other books by the author”… as well as a very proud page that says THIS BOOK IS A CROWDFUNDING PROJECT. TO THE FOLLOWING I GIVE MY ENDLESS THANKS… And then your names.

I didn’t have all the names in my head so I went back to my StartNext page and went through every single supporter, re-read your comments and re-saw how much you supported my book project. Oh you guys… It was an incredible feeling writing all your names into the opening pages of Qayqa, seeing how much you BELIEVED in my baby. Thank you, again and again and again.

I spent the rest of the evening remembering the crowdfunding time. That was one of the most exhausting periods of my life. I don’t know how much I let it on at the time, but I felt like I was running from one exhausting, disheartening event to the next. I had no energy, no self-belief, and no more fucking desire to go through with it. I just wanted it all to end – and I felt so horribly ungrateful for thinking that because I had so many people writing me, believing in me and giving me such good advice – which only served to exhaust me more.

If I didn’t let it on that the time, it was because I thought I would seem ungrateful. So I’m admitting it now.

my face today feels so clear and happy in comparison to the exhausting time I’m describing

I had a lot of help at the time. A pixie showed up to support me endlessly and regardless that we’ve since gone our separate ways, I will always be grateful to her for this. I also hired a Power Ranger to kick my ass into working. (Essentially she is my PR lady but we needed a nickname for her because power rangers like to hide their identities.) She did a great ass-kicking when I most wanted to give up. For this above all things, I recommend artists build a PR team when they’re about to publish.

At the time, I thought I would never want to do a crowdfunding project again. I can’t express how utterly exhausted I was. Every day was a battle and I couldn’t even blog a proper THANK YOU.

Now – I would do it again. I’ve learnt a lot and one of the things I most learnt was to keep at it with my GUT. People will have a lot of well-meaning advice, and mostly they’ll be right – but it has to be done according to what *I* feel is right. So now, if I do a crowdfunding project again, I will prepare myself for it as though I were going into battle.

Since Qayqa is now formatted, I turned her into a PDF and sent her to Mark. He is the visual artist, so he’ll give Qayqa an eye-over and we’ll get on Skype in a few days and discuss what he thinks of my layout.

Formatting his illustrations into my book were all about adding narrative dimensions. Sometimes other ways of looking at the world I’m describing… Or times added emotions. They’re not illustrations; they are dimensions Mark adds to my world.

I don’t know if you know what I mean?

Ochoa isn’t really running in that part of the book. In fact, this bit takes place under the earth and he is represented by one of his potato roots. This image, to me, just represents Ochoa’s playful, joyful nature. When Damian touches him and says: “There you are, my brother”, this image represents how Damian’s words must have made Ochoa feel.

At least that’s how I see it. I’m very curious to hear what you’ll say when you’re holding the book in your hands.

Which, by the way, is looking like this at the moment…! (It might still change.)

my book’s skin

What do you think?

As you can see, I’m hiding from the blurb! I’m reading all the do-it-yourself websites like this one, which make me feel like I’m doing self-therapy!!

The blurb and the author’s biography are scaring me the most. I don’t know what the hell to say! I might just write some nonsense that feels right to me, because it won’t be nonsense, it’ll be the thing I can most represent instead of the conventional author nonsense. A bit like Neil Gaiman’s: “One day I’ll get a real job. Until then, I’ll keep making up stories.” That feels more real and right than “Ritti Soncco was born in…” I think that’s the thing that gets me the most about blurbs or biographies: writing in 3rd person. Like we all don’t know exactly who is writing this!!

In the meantime, I’ve reactivated a lot of tweeting and posting about Qayqa and I must confess I’m amazed at all the responses and interest I’m getting! Having time in Lima is really helping, as I thought / hoped it would. Lima is, after all, the place I wrote The Backpacker Poem and started its around-the world-project. Some places are best for extroverting (like Cusco); others are best for introverting (Lima). Know your geography!

I feel filled with energy now: to prepare Qayqa properly, slowly… to make Facebook pages… to tweet… all that jazz. Thinking about the crowdfunding time, I remember thinking I wasn’t cut out for the artist life because I couldn’t deal with it then. I sincerely thought I would never have energy again.

It took time – but it’s filling me up again.

I want to leave you with two brilliant videos I think you simply have to see. Two weeks ago, my pole fitness friends from Studio 202 (where I teach aerials and learn pole) participated in the Mister & Miss Pole Scotland 2014 competition – and they took 1st and 2nd place!!!

I simply need to share these stunning & touching videos with you. These are kind, sweethearted and generous people I train with often, who always took the time to teach me, to chat, to hang out. They taught me to do this:

handsprings // pole fitness

I am proud to call them my friends, and so endlessly proud of their success!!!

Taking 2nd place for Mister Pole Scotland 2014: James Denholm!!!

 

And winning 1st Place for Mister Pole Scotland 2014:  Theo Robertson!!!

 

Now… To tackle that blurb…

Love,

Ritti

The Making Of Of Qayqa

Work at the institute is going well. I finished a rough cut of the final material and ran into the weekend feeling I had accomplished something. But the city of Lima is driving me nuts and with Peru being so large, it’s hard to get very far with only a weekend to escape. So I complain to friends who raise their eyebrows and snigger: “Ritti, that’s the life we’ve been having for years. It’s what life is like if you’ve got a normal job.”

I did not know that.

The most normal job I’ve had is working at regional television with spontaneous working hours… And cafes / bars. I’ve never done a 9-5. Currently I’m doing a 7:30-4:30 job. In Peru’s winter. What the hell was I thinking.

 

The Making Of… Of… Qayqa

Last week I requested on Twitter for people to send me questions about Qayqa and my life / work as a writer. The reason for this is that I’m currently preparing a Qayqa Making Of book: a side-project which is designed to keep me sane (and motivated) while I walk Qayqa through the last steps of her birth. I got some excellent questions from a friend and stayed up way past my working-hours-bedtime having fun answering them. I found them to be so insightful and delicious. Here are 3 that made me snigger with delight:

We know that your life at the circus inspired elements of Qayqa, such as the Flying People, but how did your work on Qayqa have an influence on your work as an aerial artist?

Are there elements of Qayqa that you wrote knowing they would give away a lot of yourself, and if so, how did you manage to trust your readers and your audience enough to open up to them like this?

Many people are looking forward to learn more about The Flying People, do you feel like the great interest of people on THEIR story is somehow betraying Damian’s journey and HIS story?

Insightful, ey?

Some people will be receiving the Making Of book as their reward for supporting the crowd funding project. I’m going to print a limited edition and sell the rest during my book tour. So grab ’em while they’re out!

Chatting with a friend in Lima, I mentioned that I couldn’t think of a good title for the book. “I can’t really call it: the making of of Qayqa, can I?” He stared at me and immediately gave me the best idea. It’s brilliant because it’s to short, explanatory… and references X Men. I love X Men. This is how much I love X Men:

at Universal Studios in 2008

at the “Days of Future Past” premiere in 2013

I’ll be calling the making of book QAYQA: ORIGINS.

Get it?

My friend was amazed that I hadn’t thought of it myself.

I’ve sent Mark some questions for the book as well. I’m hoping it will give you an insight into the thought processes, the stories, the coincidences that all came together to make my first novel. And perhaps a sneak-peak into Munay, the sequel.

I spent the weekend finding my ideal café where I could write and go over Mark’s illustrations.

by Mark Klawikowski

I also wrote for Munay. I realised (again) that she is much more done than I had thought. I’m connecting her dots and it’s so much fun to re-read all the old sections I wrote, knowing where I was in my life at that time, and where I was traveling too.

While I was seeping through, I discovered a passage that I’m not so sure will stay in Munay any more. I wrote it in Cusco two years ago, after a lovers quarrel, and now I realise it’s out of place in Munay. I may change my mind, but until then, what to do with it?

Put it in the blog, I thought.

Enjoy.

 

“How Women Argue” by Ritti Soncco 

Allow me to generalise without apology: the trouble is that women are not as accustomed to sidestepping, not as accustomed to waiting with the patience of cavaliers. We do not harbour as little judgment as men who seem born with the knowledge that we must accept what is given and never demand more because “woman are fundamentally different, my son”. Instead, we are creatures of passion whose cries of strength and cries of insecurity sound identical. Who want “everything is fine” to mean “stay here and talk to me because nothing is alright”.

And so we fall into the dilemma of being a woman. A dilemma we ourselves do not approve of. We do not want to stand in a corner overcrowded with clichés. We despise the confrontation of man versus woman; the one which ends with the evolutionary argument that we are fundamentally different. What rubbish. We prefer the school of thought “everything is only as complicated as you make it”. We insist that we are not complicated.

And so we find ourselves increasingly demanding a sphere of our own. Why should the ionosphere be as unarguable as this and have all the fun? Where is our world where the rules of gravity and air agree that we are in the right? One sphere to call our own, into which the world can enter and understand what we meant when we said _______________; understand why we needed that hug to last longer or those extra words of praise. Understand that we weren’t being needy, we weren’t feeding a cliché; we will not be branded and used as an example of Venus.

Breathe the air of our sphere and you’ll know how a woman feels. Fly around in our wind and you’ll understand why we fall so hard in love, why it makes us feel insecure, perfect, insufficient, and divine. I tell you if we could have a sphere of our own we would never be cornered with clichés again. We’d be an aerial fact, something to be measured. Rational minds would agree on the degrees of feminine passion, the knots of feminine insecurity and the average speed of feminine stability.

Was my anger in our last fight a moderate gale or a deep depression? I meant it to scatter the clouds but I fear it called forth a storm instead. In my passion, as analysed by the Beaufort Scale and therefore measured by observed conditions on land or sea (you choose), we are now flying over the India of my love and experiencing a moderate tropical storm. According to the anemometers this is the average wind speed for a monsoon. You know what to do.

A sphere for our emotional weather, where women can remain as understandable and elusive as the clouds of every other sphere.

If you have any questions you would like me to include in QAYQA: ORIGINS (snigger), write me! I’m here for ya.

“In the Long & Grand Narrative of Your Life”

I have not been happy about the post I have to write, so I went did a very human thing: I pulled the covers over my head and ignored the world for a bit. I know it’s a shit thing to do when YOU are out there, possibly waiting, possible wondering what’s going on, and I hope you will understand that I crawled into a little hole for a bit.

Dearest ayllu, we have to postphone the book tour. This is the story about WHY.

After posting my book tour video, so many of you got in touch and invited me over. There was beautiful, exciting enthusiasm in the air. Mark was painting his hand off to complete the last suggestions on the cover. Everything was going very well.

Then I drew up a basic plan for my tour and realised how mad it was.

But hey, it always was. I figured I could sleep on night trains and, dizzy as the tour may make me, at the end of the day: who cares? I’ll sleep on the plane. I’ll rest when I’m dead.

Everything was coming together, so I called my Book Printing Company Of Choice (where I also had Overripe Fruits printed) to ensure that everything would go according to plan. And this is where I met my iceberg.

The lady on the phone told me that the Printing Company had received an extraordinary amount of commissions that month that they could not guarantee meeting their own printing deadlines. “You’ll be lucky to have your books in 15 days,” she said, “but if I were you, I’d count on 20 days.”

This, of course, would not leave me with enough time to do the entire book tour as I wanted. I went back to my drawing board and desperately started moving cities around. And I started doing this:

And I hated it.

My vow has always been that if you want me to come, I will do everything humanly possible to come. How can I justify leaving someone out?! How can I look someone in the face and say: “No, I’m not coming to see you”?! I don’t care how tiny the village is; how obscure or difficult to get to. If you want me to come, I’ll be there.

In art, a living room performance is never worth less than a stage performance. At least not on my f*ing planet.

So then, Ritti, what the hell are you going to do. Well, I took to the bed for a few days and pretended not to feel the iceberg. In fact, a while back a circus friend shared this fantastic image with me, which I think is incredibly fitting for this and all art-related situations:

(and a friend just commented: “I don’t think the sub-surface part is big enough”)

I felt humiliation, anger, shame, embarrassment. How could I face any of you now? Even though this an be counted as a force majeur, I felt as though it were an account of my personal failure. I was failing to get my own book tour organised on time. I was losing credibility. I was so ashamed.

I cautiously tweeted something to the world, letting them know I had hit a rock. And, in the ways in which social media likes to play Jesus, a writer friend replied:

It’ll happen eventually, and by the time it does it will be better! Don’t worry about that. In the long run and the grand narrative of your life, this means nothing.

We wrote back & forth, me spilling all my woes, and he continued to comfort me and minimalise my extreme worries and fears.

In an ironic turn of emotions, I asked myself: “Dare I hope this?”

So I shook the covers off and began consulting with some friends. I received a few suggestions (“do one half of the tour now and the other half later”, “do the tour without the books and take pre-orders”, “go only to big cities”, etc) and thought them through carefully, and the best alternative I could find was to POSTPHONE THE BOOK TOUR.

Again: How can I justify restricting myself to certain cities and not going to see as many of you as possible?! Or how can I justify that some of you get Qayqa now while others have to wait? Pre-orders just aren’t ideal. In the words of the great Hunter S Thompson:

If there’s something worth doing, it’s worth doing it right.

So I am back at my desk, planning. I have more time to shift illustrations around the digital Qayqa  platform. Generally speaking, I have more time. I can’t say I’m upset about that. I was starting to feel incredibly rushed, and this is, after all, my first novel. I want to do this right.

I want to thank everyone who was enthusiastic & messaging me about the tour; who was inviting friends & buying chips & organising everything. I know who you are and I’m looking right at you saying THANK YOU. I apologise for any inconvenience. I will come to read for you, this is a vow. Thank you for supporting me and for continuing to believe in me. You have always been my ayllu.

To my critics out there: If you think you can do it better, do it. I’ll be happy to learn from you.

And suddenly I’m starting to feel a lot stronger. I just listened to Björk’s Cover Me a few times. From where I placed it, it was about hiding. From now, towards the end of this post, I’m focussing on this sentence: “I’m going to prove the impossible really exists.”

By the way…

“Qayqa” by Ritti Soncco. Cover by Mark Klawikowski

So I was thinking of doing the tour in December . December is good because that’s when I have university holidays and you might want to get Qayqa as a Christmas present. It’s bad because it is far far away (how can I justify telling y’all to wait another 5 months?) and (as has been pointed out to me) will be busy enough as is. Running around, getting your Christmas shopping done; so many extra-curricular events to attend to…

I thought about September. It’s sooner; you’re all back from your holidays but still looking for reasons to dream; still wanting to relax, close your eyes and listen to me read instead of going to the office…

What do you think???

If we decide on September, I need to have a good & careful think about how I’m going to do it because my university starts up then. I will try to bend things so I don’t miss (many) classes.

Let’s be in touch.

Love, 

Ritti 

Book Tour // Buchtournee

Today we made you a video about how you can “Book the Book” tour. It’s in German because I’ll be starting my book tour in all German-speaking countries. Keep scrolling for some photos & a random video!

Now that you’ve seen it, join in the BOOK MY BOOK tour and book me via:

• rittisoncco@gmail.com
• facebook.com/rittisoncco
• twitter  @ritti soncco

So how all this happened was, yesterday I was rambling to my good friend, Jamie the Pict, about making a video for y’all. He immediately offered to film it for me because he’s a Very Kind Man who loves doing Weird Things. Hence I say good friend!

on our way!

He knows Aberdeen like his own “westentasche” (haha inside joke) so when I said I wanted to be in a tree, he suggested filming at Hazelhead Park. Like most things in Scotland, Hazelhead Park is partly a golf course, but this summer, it’ll host the Highland Games for Aberdeenshire, wherein ole Scottish things are done, such as throwing cabers and looking like badly-hidden euphemisms which would prove Freud right.

Anyway, we drove around the park until I screamed: “THERE’S OUR TREE!”

We tried different angles, Jamie fought with my iPod’s focus, and we grr’d when golf cars or horse trunks rumbled by… But we got our shot!

And here are some photos of how we fell in love with this beautiful tree.

Jamie’s filming position

film pose

And some video nonsense.

There, dear ayllu, now you know how to BOOK MY BOOK. Remember I’m open to all your suggestions. I’ll read by your favourite river. If you play a musical instrument, maybe we can do a literary-musical fusion? I’ll read at midnight, at noon. Make it exciting, let your imagination go wild. I’m up for all sorts of epic nonsense.

So BOOK MY BOOK and tell all yer friends Qayqa is coming!

Thank you so much. Have an orchid.

Phalaenopsis Orchid

(This comes from a link a good friend sent me of plants looking like creatures. You’ll love it, so click here, then BOOK MY BOOK tour!)

My Book Tour

trees on the way up the Bennachie

Dearest ayllu,

Summer is here and my first year of university in Aberdeen is over. It is warm and beautiful in Scotland, in 12 days I will turn 30 years old, and this is the “joie de vivre” music I am listening to as I write this. So if you want the full experience, turn it up and continue to read!

 

University has been beautiful to me but I really felt the end of it: the first morning that exams were over, I wore flamboyant clothes, make-up and earrings, caught myself in the mirror and thought: The artist is back. 

Some of my friends had a different way of celebrating.

swimming in the North Sea!

By now, most of my friends have left Scotland and gone back to their countries. Of my  five flatmates, only Chinchin and I are left, so whenever we bump into each other in the corridor, we celebrate it.

Shortly before the majority of my Acrobats & Aerialists left for the summer, they surprised me with a THANK YOU bottle of champagne and card for founding our beautiful group, and a pre-birthday surprise!

People have been asking how I feel about turning 30, and my standard reply has been, “I think it’s a great idea.” I really couldn’t be more pleased. 30 sounds like an exciting but calm age; I feel less like (to use Doris Lessing’s words) “an awkwardly put-together parcel” and more like ME – that enigma I have been trying to figure out. Reaching 30, I feel as thought I finally understand the coat I am wearing. Like I know its moth-eaten holes, which buttons are wobbly, why it sometimes seems of cigarettes and booze, and how snug it feels when I wrap it over myself and head out into the sun.

climbing Bennachie on Saturday

 

THE COVER OF “QAYQA”

As I prepare to travel down to Germany, I am of course preparing my NOVEL Qayqa for publication. Mark and I have been abusing Skype and Dropbox as we try to meet our deadlines. Last week I received an email with a beautiful attachment: the almost-finished cover. This was followed by 3 emails: “Well? Give me feedback! Hello? I need your feedback! Are you there? Tell me what you think!” So we skyped, chatted about this & that, and I almost cried because of the details he thought to include.

yes, I document *everything*

Can you spot them? Can you see how well he knows me?

the cover for my first novel QAYQA by Mark Klawikowski

Now it’s not done yet: Damian is missing some hair… as you may have noticed! It’s only the main part of the bloody book… Hah. I wrote a book about hair. Typical.

What surprised the hell out of me is that it looks very much like the African childrens’ books I used to read when I was small in Nigeria. It has the same organic, magical, colourful feel. How amazing is it to have someone else paint a cover for a book I wrote that looks just like the books that inspired me as a child to write this very book in the first place.

The one thing we couldn’t quite decide on is: should the title QAYQA be left against a white background – or should it be surrounded by tree leaves? What do YOU think? Please write me!! I need your advice:  rittisoncco@gmail.com or @rittisoncco (tweet, tweet) or facebook.com/rittisoncco or COMMENT at the end of the post!

 

 

HOW TO ORAGNISE a BOOK TOUR

This. Is. It. We are finally doing this, querido ayllu!! And here is the idea I have:

We are a community. We are making Qayqa‘s publication possible through crowdfunding. I would not be here without you. If I were a musician, I’d love to sell you my cassettes out of the back of my car. But I’m not a musician. So my plan is this.

I will come to you.

Wherever you are. You can book me.

I will read for you.

All you have to do for this to happen, is this:

1. Write me before the 21st June (if you include a small Happy Birthday! it’ll make me smile)
2. Tell me where you are / want me to come to. I will come to your living room, local pub, favourite café, community center, etc.
3. Tell me when would be best for you – give me a few possible dates so that we can make this work. I am available for you all of July.
4. Tell all your friends. Organise a little party in your living room, your pub / café / community center. Get everyone to come round, have a few drinks, some snacks, and we will begin. I can perform for up to 2 hours and a half.
5. Got any friends in the press? Let them know! Tell your community this is happening. If you need any information from me (photos, short description of Qayqa, short biography, poster, etc) let me know. The sooner the better.

If you can offer me a sofa to crash, hurray! I’d love to stay with you and spend more time chatting. If not, don’t worry.

As soon as your dates start coming in, I’ll begin planning the tour, so please don’t hesitate. If you are interested, LET ME KNOW and I’ll put you on the list. Just let me know ASAP that you want me to come to you and I’ll bend myself to make it.

You can reach me: 

• in the comments below
• facebook.com/rittisoncco
• twitter:  @rittisoncco
• email:  rittisoncco@gmail.com

As soon as I’m done planning, I’ll publish the tour dates on my blog. I’ll bring copies of Qayqa and if you were a supporter, you’ll be getting a big kiss from me as well as your support stuff!

Any questions?

I’ll be in my hut

 

We’ll have us a damn good book tour!

We’ll open bottles of wine, laugh loudly and love literature, sing, dance, and hug Qayqa.

She’s finally coming out!

All my Love to you, ayllu. I’ll post this now, bug the shit out of everyone on Facebook, and wait for your emails / messages.

As the Scots would say: I cannae wait!!! 

In Which I Doubt Occasionally

obviously paying close attention in class

University life is quickly coming to an end for the summer, which means I will be more active on my blog in the next few months. Hurray! University has been great to me and just earlier, walking through the quiet campus, I felt very happy to be a part of this place. I think it was definitely the right decision to come here.

But I am not without my doubts. Truth be told – especially when I hear about how amazingly well my friend Ben is doing. He moved to Berlin a year ago to do an internship with a StartUp and has been doing amazingly for himself since then. He sends me all his updates and I am overwhelmed and proudly happy for him – with a human tinge of envy. If you want to know what Ben’s been up, check out this great interview he gave for Die Zeit, which really explains it best: http://www.zeit.de/studium/uni-leben/2014-04/selbststudium-education-hacking

I know it’s normal to ask myself if, maybe, just maybe, I couldn’t be using this time better: What if I were focussing on my writing instead of being at university? What if I were giving readings night after night instead?

 

Where would I be instead? Could I achieve more?

These are very normal doubts and I am filled with them occasionally – but they are never strong enough for me to consider packing my bags. I love everything my university life has to offer, from the studying to the carefree enjoyment of life (which, if we’re calling a duck a duck, is terribly relaxing after constantly worrying how to pay the rent… suffer the antagonism of being the black sheep in the family who just won’t get a normal job… wonder how to get more gigs… and how I’m going to buy food).

My greatest joy in Aberdeen is the Aerials & Acrobatics group I founded.

A few weeks ago, I invited my friend Philipp (who I met at the EJC in France last summer) to give an acrobatics workshop to my acrobats. As chance would have it, the hall we had (thought we had) booked wasn’t open to us on the weekend, which forced us to look around Aberdeen for a quick alternative.

We got lucky. Philipp had spotted something on his way in to Aberdeen – something I had seen, and forgotten.

A studio promising trapeze and aerial hoops… I gave the owner, Sandi, a call, and asked if we could super spontaneously host our workshop at her studio. She asked when. I said: “In an hour?”

Sandi said yes.

There’s photographic evidence of this moment:

 

Thanks to this happy blessing-in-disguise, we had a home for our acrobatics workshop and, as it would turn out, we would have a new place to train every week. This is perfect because the hall where we sometimes train aerials isn’t always available to us – whereas Sandi has made Studio 202 always available to us.

Sandi on the far right, recognisable thanks to her blue hair

Thanks to Philipp from Codarts Circus School in Rotterdam for coming and giving us such excellent teaching!

 

Seeing as acrobatics and aerials has become such a big part of the society, we recently had a meeting concerning the name of the society we are operating under: Juggling & Slacklining Society. We voted to change it. I was voted into the committee as Aerials & Acrobatics president. Yesterday, we met on King’s Lawn at the university and had an official photo shoot for our new society.

The CIRCUS ARTS & FIRE SKILLS society!

photograph by Jamie Hughes

This photograph will go into the Freshers’ Manual for next year so we can advertise our society to all new students. I think we look like a very fun society!

The people in this society have become my family. I now also have a regular job teaching acrobatics to adults in Studio 202. Things are really coming together.

With all the colours in my life in Aberdeen, I still look wistfully across the water at the Other Life I could be living – but I’ve lived it, haven’t I? Now it’s time for this.

(but like everyone else, I need occasional reminding)

So summer is coming and I’m back on Skype a lot with Mark. I post the occasional picture of our digital conversations, which must be completely fascinating (ah, the sarcasm) but I have no other way of letting you know that we’re hard at work!

this is the one I mean

Mark is magical. I don’t know if I have said that enough: we have had our share of ups and downs concerning the ILLUSTRATIONS. Then, last week, he sent me a DROPBOX LINK. “Here it is. Have fun.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I might have gone crazy that day. All the illustrations were in there. ALL! (Except the cover.)

I can’t publish any spoilers but I do want to share one or two illustrations with you, because you have been so wonderfully patient and supportive all these years. This share is just for my beautiful ayllu – and you know who you are. Here are a few, not-photoshopped.

I once knew a group of flying men and women, and although they were born with their gifts, they worked very hard to perfect it and be graceful in the air. I met them at a time when my head was in a muddle and I walked around looking like a baba, all my thoughts in confused knots on top of my head. After making love to one of the flying women, I agreed to travel with their caravans for a while and see if I could do something about my knots…

by Mark Klawikowski for “Qayqa” by Ritti Soncco

by Mark Klawikowski for “Qayqa” by Ritti Soncco

by Mark Klawikowski for “Qayqa” by Ritti Soncco

I called him to congratulate him – and we ended up discussing the cover for an hour. This is what it’s not going to be, but a rough idea of what it will look like. If you’ll remember, this was the sketch I gave Mark:

And this is what Mark transformed it into:

rough sketch by Mark Klawikowski

 

It won’t be this one because he’s messing around with what kind of water colours / ink to use. Why did we spend one hour talking about it? We discussed if Damian should stand still (as he does in my sketch) or if he should be walking (as in Mark’s). We agreed immediately that he should be walking. We discussed the edges of the words, which I want to be natural, organic and full of rough edges. I wouldn’t want them to be clean & clear. Mark said you couldn’t see it, but he had already started giving them rough edges. We discussed if you could see the desert behind Damian, and if not, how to hint at it. We discussed what Damian is carrying in his hand.

You know, details.

Well, my dearest ayllu, I must be off. This week, I’ll be studying for my exams next week and, during my breaks, I’ll do the last digital editing on the illustrations and begin to lay them into the book.

The final stages are upon us… Soon, I’ll blog about the BOOK TOUR.

So please stay tuned.

And thank you for your continuous support, dearest ayllu. This dialogue has been my continuous support to continue fighting for my work to be published – and to fight off my snide little doubts. Some of my occasional Skype chats with Ben have been about our doubts, and yet we continue fighting. As long as we support each other, there’s no need to give up, is there?

Congratulations, once again, dear Ben, for everything you are doing. For not giving up, for believing in your voice, and – above all – for staying so humble. You’re doing a damn fucking amazing thing, and you can really give yourself more pats on the back! There’s a part of me that really believes that everything you touch becomes gold.

 

Love, Ritti

Love Letters in Ulm

It’s a cloudy, moody day in Ulm; the kind that brings out the green in trees. I’m sitting in an empty house near the park, near the city center. My host family is out and about, living their lives and going to school, and I am loving the quiet nothingness.

my host family

My host children are circus students of mine, and back in June 2013 the family showed me their guest room and said, “When you come back to Ulm in 6 months, you can stay here, for as long as you like.”

6 months later, the children wrote me: “Are you coming? Are you staying with us?”

Who am I to say no! It has been such an uncomplicated, relaxed and fun stay that I am already sad to leave at the end of the week. An example of how lovely it’s been is a quote I tweeted last night:

Just told my host it’s coincidence that every time they’re about to eat, I walk in. He said: I think it’s evidence of pre-established harmony.

cuddle puddle

I’ve been uploading pictures like mad onto Facebook and, looking over the album two nights ago, I realised I could boil my life in Germany down to two things: friends and the circus.

my host girl

Or even a fusion: circusfriends.

family portrait

The evening I arrived in Ulm, I went straight to the Ulmer Messe for the Kunstschimmern art event, where Mark was showing our films and performing afterwards. It was a great way to see many artist friends at once, but it was also very emotional and I felt on the verge of tears for most of the night.

There I was, the beraggled university student – and people still remembered me as the writer. I was having a lovely conversation with a young lady when a man joined us and she turned and introduced me for me: “This is Ritti, she wrote that book.” I didn’t know she knew who I was! Everyone still remembered my crowdfunding project; everyone still asked me about Qayqa. And there I was, the beraggled university student.

So to answer all your questions ABOUT QAYQA.

The Easter holidays are just too short a time to do much with Qayqa in terms of publishing and touring. Lucky for me, Scottish university closes earlier than schools in Germany, leaving me with the whole month of July to perform in Germany. That, at the moment, is the plan. I’ll return to Germany in July, publish and perform Qayqa, and everyone will get their book.

I know it’s taken a lot longer than people wanted, and I myself am quite torn about this. On the one hand, a lot changed in my life: I went from being an artist to a university student! On the other hand, I would have loved to have closed the Qayqa chapter before opening the university one.

But it wasn’t possible. The illustrations weren’t done, and I still had some editing to do on Qayqa. I apologise to the people who have been waiting, but I really am not about to rush the publication of my first novel. I hope they can understand that.

And perhaps it’s good that I couldn’t close the chapter, because this way, Qayqa is alive during my university experience, and I haven’t quite shaken loose of my artist identity. So while it’s a bit crazy to have two identities at once… Perhaps it’s what I’ve been doing my whole life, and I really should be used to it by now.

Robotermark performing at Kunstschimmern

Working with Mark has not always been easy. I’ve been keeping relatively quiet about it on my blog, but last night I thought there are some things that can be said.

Mark is my best friend, and – in my opinion – one of the greatest artists of our time. His potential is limitless. The Kunstschimmern was an epic example of this. He can seamlessly slip from the role of film maker to comedy-singer who improvises all his lyrics, makes them rhyme, and inspires other musicians to be swept away by his current…

Mark Klawikowski with his makeshift band concept “Songlotterie”

… to creator of giant robot suits …

… to painter, to illustrator

… to my best friend.

Mark & I

Mark creates art I didn’t understand, and through our many conversations over the years, he explained his thoughts, passions, motivations and I came to understand and love an art form I had never cared much for before. We supported and motivated one another, and in our three years together, we made 5 films, won awards, toured Peru, gave workshops in the Netherlands and Germany, gave exhibitions and wrote books.

We were together while I was writing Qayqa and it was clear, from those early days, that he would do the illustrations. Our separation didn’t change that desire – not for either of us – but our separation did block us. For people who don’t understand why the illustration process has taken so long: artists are also people.

That’s not to say I was always understanding and patient. That’s not to say we didn’t occasionally rip each others’ hair out. But we worked – in all senses of the word.

The year I met Mark, the Ulmer Museum had an exhibition whose posters rocked my circle of friends. Everyone I knew was tearing the posters off the walls and hanging them in their rooms. All I can find on the internet is this:

Niki & Jean

The exhibiton was called L’art et l’amour, art and love.

Shortly after the exhibition closed, Mark and I drove to Tuscany to visit Niki de Saint-Phalle’s magnificent Tarot Garden. If you’ve never been there, I cannot recommend it enough.

Us

There was a pillar that, over the years, I have never managed to shake out of my head. I just found it in an album; it’s called “Love Letters”.

It is a dedication from Niki de Saint-Phalle to her artist partner and long-time partner Jean Tinguely.

Somewhere amongst the Love Letters is a small panel that struck me the most, and I didn’t take a photograph of it, perhaps because I didn’t want to think about it at the time. It is a drawing of both Niki and Jean, and the words above them: CAN WE STILL BE FRIENDS? And between them the word: YES.

I knew returning to Ulm would be emotional. This wasn’t something I was going to blog about, but now I understand it’s just an important testimony to artist cooperation, as everything else I have blogged about in the past. To artists who separate and continue working together, all I can say from my experience is: It can work, but it will be work.

Mark and I will always be artist partners because it enriches our lives. With every reason I have to strangle him, he just hugs me back.

And when people hear my frustration about how long the illustrations are taking, about how many deadlines we have missed, they (quite rightly) ask me: “Why do you want him to do the illustrations?? Why don’t you just ask someone else?”

Well we met the other day and Mark showed me the illustrations. All but one are complete. I looked them over and although he had no idea what I was talking about, I blurted: “- Because you get it.”

Every single illustration he showed me shone with love, beauty and understanding for Qayqa. Every single one caused a minor tremble within me that made me, the author, fall in love with Qayqa again. He understood details I had forgotten all about. He understood moods I hadn’t created on purpose. I look at his illustrations and it inspires me for Munay. 

I don’t know if anyone else, looking at the illustrations in the finished book, will feel the minor tremble. I am curious if you do. But through the illustrations I felt a deep connection to my artist partner and best friend – one that has survived all these years – and that’s a damn good connection.

We’re working on the cover for Qayqa now. I had this idea.

Sketched, it looked like this.

Mark didn’t like it. So we threw ideas back and forth some more, and then I had this idea.

I drew it down; Mark laughed at my stick figures and terrible trees. We liked it.

And this, dear ayllu, has been my love letter from Ulm.

When Progress Happens Quietly, It Must Be Wearing Socks

Exams are over and life at Aberdeen University is returning to normal. If you’ve been following the news, you’ll know that the island of Great Britain is being battered on all sides by strong winds and floods. Up here in Scotland, it’s not necessarily cold. It’s just very wet.

Wet students are a miserable sight. But to be honest, I am very happy exams are over. Those two revision weeks bored me to tears. Finally we can all get back to living our lives again! I was going mad in my room.

At the moment, I am fighting on two battlefields: one is the Battle of the Illustrations; the second is the Battle of the Silks.

The Battle of the Silks

This battle began in November 2013, between the Juggling Society and the University of Aberdeen. I teach acrobatics within the Juggling Society (because it’s the closest to a circus society, and because these people are fine people and are my friends), and we have been hunting for a way to hang up my silks. The president of the society has been an amazing help. We tackled the administrative offices of the uni, all of whom say NAY! to our quest to hang up my silks; and then we rang the doorbells of about 6 different schools (and a kindergarten) around the city of Aberdeen, asking what the politics are to rent their gym halls.

Last Friday, I got Sick Of It All. It was a surprisingly sunny day, slightly warm, so with the help of my amazing friends, I hung up my silks at Seaton Park and had my first silk session in 5 months. 

finally I wasn’t hiding my face

Now it seems as though I may finally have found a hall to hang them up in! The trouble is that most gym halls in Aberdeen aren’t built “the usual” way, with beams hanging openly in the ceiling for aerialists to hang up their silks. Most halls are built for gymnastics, basketball or badminton. Silks are a rather unique thing with such strict requirements, so I’m not surprised it’s been hard to find a suitable place. But that it’s been so hard…

Now, with a hall in sight, I have to do all the necessary paperwork and navigate around British bureaucracy. These are new waters for me, so please keep your fingers crossed for us. If this works out, we will found Aberdeen’s first aerial group, and I will be able to transform my acrobatics group into an aerial and acrobatics society!

 

The Battle of the Illustrations

The past three weeks have found me whispering into my computer’s microphone while my flatmates sleep, discussing illustrations with Mark over Skype.

Over the last few months, Mark has had a bit of an artist’s block when it came to certain illustrations that correspond to Damian’s time in the desert. He’s been working madly on all the other ones, and has sent me many 90% completed illustrations, which are looking STUNNING.

He also held up a couple of new illustrations over Skype, and we were able to discuss in realtime what kind of frame it needs, how to continue certain parts, what the novel says about this particular section. Here’s a picture of Mark showing me a new illustration of Damian:

Damian is looking quite different here. I’m quite glad that it’s a bit blurry, because this is one of the last illustrations of the book, and it shows his physical and emotional transformation towards the “end” of his journey.

I was in despair about how slowly the illustrations were coming along over the past months. I receive many emails asking me when Qayqa will come out, and along with your feedback to the excerpt recently, I know it’s her time. Mark and I had many conversations about why he’s stuck, how I could help him, how he could help himself. Part of the reason why he is stuck has to do with the very vague and slippery notion of the desert Damian falls into. How do you depict emptiness? How do you illustrate a divine deity, an earth goddess? – without being all hippie ethereal.

I know how hard it is for me to get over writer’s block. How do you help an artist get over illustrating block?

Mark has many illustrations of Damian and Pacha Mama, and we were both unsatisfied with them. When we were in Peru in 2009, touring with our film Children of Roots, Mark created several fascinating illustrations that so wonderfully tapped into Peruvian art and culture. I was amazed that a man who never studied Peruvian art could mimic it so well. We agreed that one of them would make it into Qayqa. This one: 

pre-production illustration by Mark Klawikowski

He tapped into the Peruvian mythical world so well here, but with Qayqa, there are stricter guidelines, not to mention that Pacha Mama is such an enigma to paint.

For a few months, I have been toying with an idea, and one night when I couldn’t sleep, I sent off the message I had been writing in my head for months. I wrote an artist friend.

He is someone I volunteered with at Helping Hands in Cusco two years ago. Let’s just call him “Ryan”. I called him to discuss the possibility of him illustrating the desert scenes in Qayqa. Ryan’s work is … surreal – but I’m not entirely sure what other genres or categories to use to describe his work. You decide:

“Foxes” by Ryan and Amy, painted at Helping Hands Cusco

“Love from Peru” screen print by Ryan

When I spoke to Ryan on the phone and explained briefly what Qayqa – particularly the desert scenes – is about, he became very excited. Having spent several months traveling Latin America with his girlfriend, he understands not only the concept, but also the love and lifestyle behind “Pacha Mama”.

My main worry is that having two artists illustrate one book might not have a homogenous outcome. But I promised to be honest to you, and I want you to participate in this journey of my self-publication – with all possible pitfalls. So you know now that this is something we are considering.

I just sent a long email to Ryan with a short description of Qayqa for him to hold on to, and several of Mark’s completed illustrations, so that he can see the direction Mark has taken so far. I also sent Ryan excerpts from Qayqa, from the chapters of Damian in the desert so that he can send me 3 sketches as suggestions of how he would approach this job.

When I spoke to Mark about the possibility of Ryan boarding Qayqa, he was very optimistic – and relieved. The main argument for two artists working on one book is that the world in the desert is completely distinct to the world of the caravans, of the flying people. It is almost an alternate universe, so perhaps an alternate approach could work. It really all depends on how Ryan approaches what Mark has done so far. Either way, it will be incredibly interesting to see!

At the moment, Mark is finishing his two final illustrations. Then we’ll move on to discuss the cover of Qayqa. He is also working on little sidekick illustrations which will appear either within the text or framing it at the end of the page. Here is one I love:

by Mark Klawikowski

I would love if we could bring Ryan onboard, but this is a question of two styles finding a common ground. It could either enrich Qayqa‘s desert world – or not. But if it doesn’t work, at least I left no stone unturned.

I suppose these are the experiments we have to dare to take. We have to find solutions for artists’ blocks – and who knows if a collaboration is a good solution?

I’ll let you know what happens.

This is the quiet progress Qayqa is making. A lot of whispering over Skype.

my celebratory countdown to my 30th birthday in June

Thank you to everyone who sent me feedback to my excerpt from Qayqa! I was surprised at how diverse it was; I honestly thought it would be more unanimous. But thank you so much for speaking up, for critiquing, for being honest. I sincerely appreciate it.

The main thing you taught me is this: I have to continue listening to my gut. It helps so much to ask you, and I learnt that several gut decisions I made in the past were good – because you said so in your feedback. You also helped me make some valuable decisions concerning the future of the excerpt, and when you read the book, you will see some differences and you will know it is thanks to you. I will post another excerpt soon. I wanted to tonight, but I think this post is long enough as is.

I am very happy to working so closely with you on this. How many artists can say that? I honestly love that Qayqa is growing up so close to you, that you are influencing her. I’d like to see how far I can take this. Until then, thank you for being out there.

I wish you all a beautiful & happy Valentines’ Day on Friday. A grateful hug to you from Scotland. 

Love, Ritti

My Four Lives

Updated 9th July 2013:  SWR Radio Interview

Updated 2nd September 2013:  re-cut video of Ritti’s aerial performance

Today I did a few things I haven’t done in a really long time. I sat in a café for careless hours and wrote until I could write no more. I met up with my best friend and we talked about life. I had dinner with Mark and we didn’t talk about work.

I walked slowly.

I feel like I have been living 5 different lives just this week.

Actually, it was 4.

LIFE NUMBER 1:  GIVING A FILM WORKSHOP AT A SCHOOL

My beautiful circus friends Marina and Moni were commissioned to give a circus workshop all week; I was commissioned to give a film workshop which would document the circus workshop. I was basically giving my 8th graders a crash-course in documentary filmmaking.

preparing the technology

Moni giving Juggling 101

We got up every morning at 5 am so that we would be at the school on time. I’m a night owl. Getting up at that hour was pretty exhausting. I was sleeping 3-4 hours every night. By the end of the week, I felt I had the rhythm in my system – and then it was over. I still wake up at 6 am wondering why my alarm didn’t ring…

(l.t.r) Ritti Soncco, Marina Colovos, Monika Kolb – Charlie’s Angels, right down to the hair!

There was a lovely newspaper article about our work in the Schwäbische Zeitung, which you can read here:  http://www.schwaebische.de/region/biberach-ulm/munderkingen/stadtnachrichten-munderkingen_artikel,-Die-Foerderschule-Munderkingen-macht-Zirkus-_arid,5462832.html

It was a beautiful, beautiful week – though tiring – and I’d love to tell you more, but when you teach at a school, you sign a contract in which you vow not to reveal all their secrets and not to post pictures of their students on your naughty little blog. So I’ll tell you instead that I had a great time working with these two very talented, very smart, very worldly circus artistes, who I am very much in awe of. Moni told me a lot about the aerial scene in Sheffield and Edinburgh, which made me very excited about my move to Great Britain in September…

LIFE NUMBER 2:  PERFORMING AT ULM MOVES! DANCE FESTIVAL

Here is the official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/466583263412456/

From the Thursday 4th –  Saturday 6th July, I was commissioned by the Strado Dance Company to perform on my aerial silks during a parcours – a parcours which took the audience to various stations in the city center, where architecture or grounds which we normally take for granted, were now used for performance and thus set in a different light.

For example, the walls of the Deutschhaus parking lot:

Marion Glöggler & Yvonne Graf of the Vertical Dance Company. Photograph by Guido Gerlach

Photograph by Volkmar Könneke (Südwest Presse)

A playground:

choreography by Jeanette Füzesi. Photograph by Guido Gerlach

Graffiti:

Strado Dance Company at the Roxy. Photograph by Guido Gerlach

The founder of the Strado Dance Company & organiser of the Ulm Moves! event, Domenico Strazzeri, approached me about hanging up my silks at the Ehinger Tor bus station. We had a meeting with the responsible people at SWU who had to tell us that it was too dangerous. If anything happened to me, they would be sued. Even if I didn’t sue them – the state would. They couldn’t risk it. They were very sorry, but they had to say no.

Domenico isn’t a man of “no”s.

Domenico is a man who moves mountains.

A weeks of phone calls and texts later, he called to say he had organised a crane and would I hang myself from it. A crane? Cranes carry things way heavier than Ritti, even Ritti in full-propellor-motion. I said YES. Domenico got in touch with Andreas Dukek-Haferkorn of the Kulturfahrschule Ulm, who agreed to give us the courtyard space.

Domenico had moved a mountain.

My new workspace was a crane.

red crane, red silks

Domenico may not know this, but ever since the Fab Fab showed me an epic video of aerialist Seanne Sharpe giving an illegal performance on the Williams Bridge (watch it here) I had wanted to give a silks performance in an industrial atmosphere. High up, with iron around me.

Secret dreams come true.

by FOTOGRAFIE Heike Göltenboth

photograph by Heiko Mozer

I was at about 8 – 10 meters height. I’m scared of heights. Plus, there was wind: a terrifying, unpredictable factor. During rehearsals, I dared climb only halfway. It wasn’t until Saturday that I finally climbed all the way up and touched the carabiner. An incredible feeling. And a ritual among aerialists: you always climb up and touch the carabiner.

photograph by Sabrina Fischäß

photograph by FOTOGRAFIE Heike Göltenboth

photograph by Heiko Mozer

More joy at the office: working with an excellent and brilliantly sweet crane technician. Here’s us:

Denis, his crane, I & my silks

On the last day, Denis had a brilliant idea. I begin & end my performance wrapped and hidden in a cocoon. He suggested my cocoon be near the ground when we begin, and he slowly lifts me up; when my performance is over, he’ll then lower me to the ground again. I was scared – simply because it was something new. But we tried it out and the movement of the crane was so soft, I didn’t even notice we were moving. When the performance began, I secretly peeked out because I wondered why he hadn’t begun lifting me – and I was already 3 meters in the air by then!

And then the Fab Fab showed up. And as usual when the Fab Fab shows up: he shows up with technology. He showed up with a few GoPro cameras, one of which he stuck to the crane so that it could film me from above. There’s a fancy GoPro app which acts as a remote control for the camera. I had installed it onto my iPod at Fab’s command, and so he was able to manipulate the camera on the crane during my performance.

What a man.

Not only that… He already finished editing the video! When I began writing this blog, I received an email from him giving me the link. I think the video is BEAUTIFUL. Can you feel the electricity in the air?

Videos sometimes don’t substitute the actual event, but they do act as perfect reminders of amazing moments in our lives. As for me: I am so grateful that the Fab Fab is in my life.

Ulm Moves! was an amazing event. It was fantastic to meet the other performers, to see how much art & culture is bubbling beneath Ulm’s quiet surface. All we needed was someone to string us together and we exploded for Ulm. The audience was great too. I was told we had a total of approx. 400 visitors following the parcours. The applause I received was juicy and a beautiful acknowledgement of my work. I sat in my little cocoon in the end, listening to the applause, the adrenaline of the last drop surging through my veins, and I screamed.

No one heard it, but I screamed. I bowed my head into my knees and I screamed and screamed with joy. This was one of the happiest moments in my life.

photograph by Guido Gerlach

Thank you, Domenico, for giving me this fantastic opportunity.

The Südwest Presse wrote a great article on the Ulm Moves! parcours: http://www.swp.de/ulm/lokales/ulm_neu_ulm/Ulm-Moves-Zwischen-Verwirrung-und-Staunen;art4329,2095581

SWR Radio interviewed the performers and audience:

A final anecdote:  I had a beautiful moment in the air that I want to share with you. On Thursday, my first performance, I was sitting up in the cocoon waiting for the music to begin. I could hear the audience coming into the courtyard and I was very aware (and wary) that I was suspended at 6 or 7 meters in the air, held only by a simple knot tied around my foot. I was keeping myself up there – and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

In the midst of my nerves wrecking and my doubts shouting, I sat in the cocoon telling myself that I knew exactly what I was doing & that all would be fine… when the sun came out from the clouds. I was sitting just over the rooftop of the Kulturfahrschule, so when the sun came out, it hit my silks directly. The inside of my cocoon was suddenly flooded with light as the sun shone at me. Privately, I sat there. Alone in my height, swaying in the wind like a leaf. Like a real cocoon.

It was a quiet moment before my performance, and I slipped out of my cocoon with a quiet little ecstasy. When I die – if life really flashes before your eyes – I hope this is one of the moments that flash before me. It was a very powerful moment for me.

LIFE NUMER 3:  CROWDFUNDING

So it actually worked. Can you believe it? I am astonished. Grateful. Amazed.

I was saying to a friend: “This isn’t a publishing house saying Okay, Ritti, we’ll publish your book. This is 45 people out there saying: You want to be a writer? Okay, we’ll believe in you. Go out there and be the best writer you can be.”

That’s how I see it.

For a while it didn’t look like it would work. We were stuck under €1000 for the longest time.

I was exhausted. I had just come back from receiving my circus pedagogue diploma. My mother, who I rarely see, was visiting. It was my 29th birthday. All I really wanted was to sleep.

As you can see from this post so far, I live several lives at once. There could have been a better time to start this crowdfunding thing, but time was beginning to run out, and I knew: If I don’t do it now, I’m never going to do it. 

I was becoming static and depressed. I couldn’t socialise in real life; I could barely socialise online. I couldn’t socialise in real life; I could barely socialise online. I thought: If my crowdfunding doesn’t work out, it really is my own fault. 

I was exhausted.

The challenge about doing something is that you are open to critique, and you will always always always have the feeling that you are not doing enough. 

It made me so tired.

I had a Serious Business Meeting in bed with Power Ranger when we were both hungover. With a groggy voice she pointed her finger at me and said: “You can still do it, Ritti. But you need to do something!”

She believed in me.

I sat in the bathtub and wrote everyone I could think of.

Maybe it was because I posted a picture of legs in the bathtub.

“How much spare time do you have as an artist? Here’s a clue: I’m in the bathtub with my iPod, writing people asking them to support my crowdfunding project. It ends in 4 days! Without your support, I cannot publish my first novel! Please support!”

Maybe it was because Sarah pestered everyone she knew – and everyone she didn’t know online. (thank you!)

Maybe it was something else. But overnight, we raised €800!!! We were back in the game! That’s when I thought: I’ll be DAMNED if I lose this money now, now that we’re closer to the finishing line! 

I wrote, pestered, tweeted and wrote some more. And in the last 10 days, the money literally poured in. Most pledges came in over the last 5 days. The majority was at € 25 (a copy of Qayqa with your name in the acknowledgements) but there were larger sums pouring in too. I now have 2 dinner dates (they go at € 500); one with a great friend, the other with a complete stranger.

And now, Qayqa will be published. She will be yours.

*shaky knees*

*puts on business voice to hide shaky knees*

Here’s the deal: We raised more money than expected! This raises more opportunities. Mark and I have reserved this week for a lot of business talks, planning and layout testing. We’ll meet tomorrow and discuss everything that needs to be done and set it in a timeframe.

But I do want to say this:  THANKS to your generosity, I have more opportunities to make Qayqa the best she can be. This extra amount will make so much more possible. I have a few ideas, but I’m going to run them by Mark tomorrow and we’ll consider all our unexpected, new possibilities, and I’ll announce ASAP when you can expect Qayqa to become a proud member of your bookshelf.

LIFE NUMBER 4:  THE WRITER

Today is Sunday the 7th July 2013, and my 3 other lives have ended. Today, I had a calm shower, ate calm breakfast, packed my computer and went to a café with wifi. I had coffee with my best friend. When she left I turned on Spotify, I opened Munay and I began to write.

I wrote for as long as I wanted to.

Then I paid for my cappuccino and I left.

A Crowdfunding SUCCESS!!!

Updated on 4th July, 16:20 pm

It’s 00:24 o’clock and I’m feeling quite bedazzled. Let me tell you what’s going on: I’m setting my alarm for 5:20 am, because at 6 am I have to get into a beautifully ricketty bus with two gorgeous circus artistes to drive to a school where we’ve been giving a circus workshop all week. My part in all this isn’t circus-teaching; it’s film-teaching: I am teaching 8th graders to make a documentary about the circus workshop, beginning from the first classes to the full-on performance for the school & parents on Friday afternoon. If you want to read more, it was in the Schwäbische Zeitung today: http://alturl.com/fa698

Apart from that, I am also participating in the first Dance Festival in Ulm: ULM MOVES! I will perform tomorrow (Thursday), Friday and Saturday as part of the “Parcours”, wherein dancers, actors and performers make static buildings come to light. Marion Glöggler, for example, will do a “vertical dance” in which she suspends herself from the walls of the Deutschhaus car park.

Marion Glöggler of the Vertical Dance Compagnie

I am at the Kulturfahrschule (at the Ehinger Tor), performing on my red aerial silks, suspended from a red crane… Here is an image from today’s rehersal:

photograph courtesy of Sabrina Fischäß

If you want to see it, here are the dates:

Thursday, 4th July:  approx. 6 pm

Friday, 5th July:  approx. 6 pm

Saturday, 6th July:  approx. 4 pm

I say approximately because my performance is part of a tour / parcours through the city, so when I perform really depends on when my audience arrives. I’ll be told some 5 minutes beforehand, which should give me enough time to climb the silks and get into position.

But none of this has anything to do with the title of this post! I just wanted to show you what I’m up to, give you a bit of an insight as to why I haven’t been blogging lately: BECAUSE MY HEAD IS in the air… in school… on the StartNext Website!

Which brings me to the POINT.

THE POINT!

It is now 00:43 o’clock.

It just happened. 5 minutes ago we were beneath the goal. Now. RIGHT NOW, I clicked “refresh” and everything suddenly moved slower…

screenshot 00:45 o’clock on http://www.startnext.de/qayqa

We did it. We actually actually DID IT. 

About an hour ago, Pixie called me from the States. All she said when I picked up was: “Congratulations!” We hadn’t reached the goal yet, but we were €50 away.

I couldn’t believe this. I replied: “I feel like I should do something crazy as a thank you for all these amazing people! Like maybe jump out of a window naked.” She laughed and said: “You totally should!”

Dearest most wonderful, most beloved ayllu of my heart. I owe you more than words can express. I owe you more than a ridiculous blog post 4 hours away from getting up again.

You have baffled me, bewildered me, AMAZED me. You supported me, you believed in Qayqa, and now, my dearest people of the world: Qayqa you will get…

I want to take this moment to express my absolute sense of … UTTER PANIC. If you’ve been watching Qayqa on StartNext, you’ll know that we were slowly trickling, and when people asked me if I thought we could make it, I replied honestly: “I really have NO IDEA. It could work. It could not. No clue.”

Then a sudden overnight leap of €800. It put us back in the game! And that was the moment when my panic struck.

Shit. People will actually read Qayqa. To the end. What if it’s rubbish? What if no one likes it? Is it too late to back out now?  Maybe I should go back quickly and do some serious last-minute-full-of-panic editing. Delete everything. New ending. Damn damn damn. Why do I always do such silly, ridiculous things? I never learn.

So, no lies: you are actually going to get Qayqa and that makes me feel a terrified – and excited!

I want to post properly about my crowdfunding experience, but the main thing I need to say right now is that I always felt like I wasn’t doing enough (and I probably wasn’t). There were amazing people out there who sent me long emails / messages, suggesting brilliant new tactics to get more supporters. I couldn’t follow up on all the ideas, and I often felt like I really wasn’t doing enough. For example, I never got around to making a Qayqa facebook page. Such sacrilege!

And yet. Crowdfunding: A SUCCESS!!!

I made you a video just now. It’s just me being nonstop grateful in my pajamas:

A few days ago, after the €800 struck overnight and I first realised we could actually make it, I was pulling a heavy suitcase along a train platform and my head began singing a song. This song, my darling ayllu, my beautiful supporters, IS FOR YOU. For everyone who believed; for everyone who supported; for those who wrote saying they couldn’t pledge but believed & wished me luck; for everyone who spread the word (like love), who hit the forums, who believed.

THANK YOU for helping a dream come true. This song – along with all my gratitude – is for you. Y’all made Qayqa feel pretty damn mthrfcukn special. 

1:21 o’clock. GOODNIGHT AYLLU.

You people kicked some serious Crowdfunding BUTT. I also decided something:  In the last pages of the book Qayqa, I will publish an excerpt from her sequel Munay, in English, so that you get a feeling for what is coming next…! Like?