Interview with Lee Lane
Author of All in a Day's Dance by L.R. Lane
All in a Day's Dance became a novelette years ago after being a classical duet of piano and ballet for the live theater where the muse created the drama as "a mirage behind rose-colored glass."
A pivot from the live theater to a real world internet stage transformed the illusion into an antagonist made up of half-truths and advanced riddles where music is now playing a key role, being the only thing capable of making him a fulfilling counterpart and complete.
This is truly a cyber tale for a discerning internet audience.
The antagonist shows up unbeknownst as an ontological riddle with a terpsichorean twist on how to level a farraginous playing field intending to upstage the main character's creative drive for success in all of her endeavors, but can simply writing a book describing a need for music be the answer?
Contending with such a persona requires special skill beyond the academic and theoretical and in this case the story is much larger than fiction between two covers.
Music the equalizer, with dancing as a metaphor for creativity streams with Amazon River-like passion through the protagonist making her feel whole and alive which is fine and dandy. However, the story though vivid will never reveal the music as it really is. Someone else must hear it.
Her void of half-truths remains and the antagonist still poised to exploit her for her brilliance is yet to be fathomed. The two halves must make a whole and the protagonist trapped in the book with nobody hearing what she is hearing taps diligently into her creativity.
It enables her to be aware that her unwavering rival uses illusionary tricks to assume authority for dealing hands of fate and behooves her to always have an ace up her sleeve.
How she got her music out of the book still remains a mystery.
https://www.allinadaysdance.com/welcomepage.htm
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Why did you decide to write this book and title it All in a Day's Dance and what is the story about?
- When I was an accompanist for my wife's ballet classes and doing public performances we decided to give the ups and downs of the occupation a title referring to the outcome of any plan as being an unknown variable. Therefore every significant occurrence is All in a Day's Dance.
More succinctly I saw it as being about those of us who are trying to get the most out of our lives everyday, facing a new set of challenges and somehow having to dance through it.
I created two characters who are really one in the same, yet one is the protagonist and the other the antagonist Farrago which on the surface might seem thematically similar to something else - it is not, because in contrast to other manipulative, conniving, sinister personalities nothing about my antagonist is evil even though he is absolutely unlikable, so those who lean towards Svengali, gas lighters and narcissistic types are not going to understand the relationship I describe with my story.
It is about a young woman using her creativity to grow and she loves music, dancing and life, but what she doesn't know is that there are a set of unknown circumstances both past and present influencing her direction - a common condition pretty much everyone lives with and has no solution to which is the platform on which the antagonist Farrago thrives. All of the things you do not know and are trying to deal with he magnifies. However, to me he is always a disorganized version of the truth and when I introduced him to the protagonist in my story the opportunity for nuances of expression correlating to my music suite came to light. As a result, facing the music the main character invents compositions making what is disorganized become organized.
How significant is recognition to an author such as yourself for your artistic merit?
- It is vital.
I have to keep in mind that none of what I do is anything like a Hallmark movie where being published always equals a successful outcome.
So much has changed technologically and with the way people think influencing culture.
In my opening I referred to my work as a cyber tale meaning I have upgraded the characteristics of an old-fashioned libretto.
Historically the word referred to a 15 to 40 page book on sale to 19th century ballet audiences in Paris and was called a libretto meaning booklet in Italian. The books contained a very detailed description of the theater production, scene by scene.
Therefore the directors and producers of those performances knew the value of supplying prose for audiences to connect to the forthcoming action. I view my position as being one in the same considering my need for connecting the audience to the drama of my story using music, a novella and my website.
This story is written for people to do something with which is something not generally done in response to fiction, so it's all about what you are supposed to do.
The value to come out of it should stem from the freedom readers have to mold their own experience by matching chapters from the story to titles in the music from the suite.
All in a Day's Dance is in no way meant for children, considering how mature readers are reflective. We evaluate our daily performance on things that have happened.
Audiences today have it much better than the highest level dignitaries of the pre-twentieth century when no smartphone allowed theater patrons to peer into the contents of a program, deciding whether or not to like what they see. Now anybody can be ahead of the game by becoming familiar with the concept in a way that is comfortable to them.
The two intellectuals depicted on one of my website pages whom my wife and I nicknamed Randolph and Ruby jumped on the opportunity to do so and we think their discussion probably began as a relaxing way to "break the ice" and show each other how sophisticated they are.
The last time we checked they were still talking about it.
There is much more to it than back and forth chit chat though, especially related to the music involved because it is one of the stars of the story and cannot be relegated to a written description.
Everyone can listen to it.
This is indeed about the importance of my artistry being recognized because it's a darn good deal which might sound like a brazen sales pitch, but everything is free to interact with on my website.
To judge All in a Day's Dance as merely a book by its cover is not something anyone should do.
How are you promoting All in a Day's Dance and what makes it different from anything else, especially considering that it is a novella??
- Where promotion is concerned a book cover has a lot of work to do and the author is hard-pressed to rely on it for encouraging at least a first sentence read because it is static.
A book trailer might be more eye-catching because it moves and being able to hear it is helpful, so I made one with the idea that getting a longer look from readers will be effective.
https://www.goodreads.com/videos/169216-all-in-a-day-s-dance
Instagram is a great platform for highlighting special features of my book too.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CXelvhOhn0e/
The subject and style of All in a Day's Dance are original, but I have occasionally second-guessed the wisdom of creating such a condensed portrayal into a novella because although it is fictionally described in the book anyone can actually listen to the music, therefore a lengthier story would not likely be complementary. However, it isn't difficult to see how every character in the story can have an expanded biography for some potentially entertaining spin-offs.
"All in a Day's Dance by L.R. Lane brilliant read! Love your writing style. Value seems to be directed by the momentum and vastness of context. Creativity then becomes an opportunistic dance with changing realities." a comment from from Newsletter Creators (1March2021) refers to the Medium newsletter extensions from my website which firstly condense my antagonist into a one character "F" then augment it over the course of a series of nineteen newsletters.
More importantly All in a Day's Dance is designed to entertain with alliterations, word inventions and some newly coined phrases - in general unusual word play - so the page count is not a top priority.
It is an anomaly linking prose and music together in a way that cannot exist anywhere else in the world.
Are you planning to write more stories, and if so, what subjects are you interested in addressing?
- I always have to have a good reason for writing because needing to deal with the unknown when I wake up every morning, just to be able to communicate and see value in connecting people to the music within them as in the common phrase "face the music" is imperative to me as a creative person. I want the reader to sense the extraordinary relationship building between the illusionary maestro in the story and its inventor. The subject has never grown old or tiresome enough for me to consider moving on to anything else.
My music suite is woven into the context of my story so it is impossible to consider doing a sequel and I have been focused on seeing All in a Day's Dance fulfill its purpose to the point that I must use my writing skill for marketing purposes and all of the other requirements for elevating the appeal of my creative work.
I am committed to collaborating on the design of my website and finding complementary extensions for it throughout the internet. The work is as demanding in its editing and vetting needs as developing a new book calls for.
I am pleased with the way my list of links for showcasing has grown over the years and how they increase the quality of experiences related to my website. Hopefully anyone searching through them will keep in mind how difficult it is to find helpful sites such as these as well as what is done here on Profile Critics.
https://www.booksshelf.com/authors/L.-R.-Lane
https://thirstyauthor.com/book.php?b=27040
https://www.allinadaysdance.com/CoverebookNewsletter.htm
https://medium.com/how-to-know-if-creativity-is-fictional-or/how-to-know-if-creativity-is-fictional-or-functional-5e19a8686773
https://medium.com/literature-music-invention-and-creativity-where/how-to-get-the-f-out-introduction-a-creative-game-by-l-r-lane-48a0816e5c2c
https://lrlane.bandcamp.com/album/the-tw-suite-2
https://www.goodreads.com/videos/169216-all-in-a-day-s-dance
Since you are referring to music as vital to your story how important is it to non-musical readers?
- Trying to market this work to anyone who has no comprehension of musicality would be like expecting a football fanatic or a physics expert to be immersed in a Gordon Ramsay book on cooking. However, considering that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll paints a picture of rather zany experiences through literature, it is not too different than music being stretched to extremes using literary descriptions and never actually hearing any of it.
What do you think readers will appreciate the most about your story?
- Being unWalter Mittyish, it leaves just enough to the imagination to be able to relate to everyday situations with a slap in the face to bring the reader back to reality where they can see more clearly that the things we have to deal with everyday are what pushes the envelope of our creativity.
It really is a "cybertale" of music in a context describing how we all see the same things differently.
What authors do you pattern your own writing style after the most?
- Authors who have a larger than life (ominous) personality when it comes to trying to understand what makes them tick have always been the most inspirational to me, but I really have not spent any large amount of time living vicariously through other peoples creative work(s). It is really more important to me to find new and better ways of communicating effectively on my own.
Does anyone have to be a dancer to get something out of this story?
- Not necessarily, because at the end of the day if we play everything back in our mind we will see a kind of choreography to perhaps a routine or new steps carved out to tackle different situations that in some way require us to perform and that's the context of the opening to The TW Suite music, not specifically linked to any lifestyle or occupation.
https://lrlane.bandcamp.com/track/echoes-of-the-concert-hall
Can you sum up your story in one phrase?
- Anyone's performance characterized, caricatured, dramatized and rationalized - all riding on the amount of heart put into it.
Is there a particular setting and time for the story All in a Day's Dance?
- I guess it can be said that this story is timeless since it is told using metaphors to describe the complexities of human emotions within the realm of daily life and there is no specific place or time, nothing described in it has ever really taken place and the way the characters interact (although it is in their own special world) seems familiar, but from a new perspective.
