LifeSoup by Cherie Dawn Haas

(this post was originally written in July 2021)

Before it was published, I had only hinted about the working title of my first novel, Girl on Fire. The original title was A Pretty Girl Who Can Dance, which was inspired by something I’ve only recently begun openly talking about. I think it’s time to share it publicly because:

A. I stopped crying about it a long time ago.

B. I want people to understand that the working title wasn’t a boast.

C. I think it might help others.

In 2012 I was hired by a talent agency to be a go-go dancer/hoop dancer at a casino in Indiana. On Saturday nights I would dance from 9pm – 2am for 45-minute stretches, taking breaks each hour to drink plenty of water and stretch my muscles. 

I had an intuitive feeling that it wouldn’t last. I knew it wasn’t the right environment for me; although I loved to hoop dance, I did so in a joyful way that celebrated movement and expression rather than serve as tantalizing entertainment in a bar. But the pay was great, and I had a wonderful time until I had words with the talent agency. 

The management lied about things like the amount of time that I was dancing each night. One night, they told me that I could go home early because the club was dead, and it was, so I did. Later, I received an email that the talent agency forwarded to me, unedited, from the management. Apparently, they were unhappy with many of the dancers who were getting booked. This is what I received:

I’ll give you a moment to process that.

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Imagine how I felt … As an adult, I’ve always had relatively average self-esteem. It takes a little more than that to be able to perform, but that’s easy to fake, trust me. Even attaining that average self-esteem was a long road. I was devastated by the email. Temporarily.

The aftermath of this showed up in “Girl on Fire.” I needed to write about it, to heal, so I came up with this blog post on Three Reasons to Always Say Yes (originally written a few years ago). It was my subtle way of saying that I wasn’t going to regret dancing at the club. The email, however, was burned into my mind. Eventually, I considered that it would be a great book title. A story about an insecure girl who gains enough confidence to dance in front of others, who becomes great enough to teach and be paid to perform, who gets a slap in the face, who falls, who rises and continues on. The story’s beginning is as solid as stone, but think of the ways it could have ended. She could have stopped dancing altogether.

So, friends, I have this advice to share with you, in case you or your art have ever been, or ever are insulted.

• Process it, and acknowledge the pain.
• Give yourself some distance from it.
• Talk about it! I went from crying when I repeated the words, to a sense of indifference, to where I am now: an understanding that it was just part of my path.
• Remember that sometimes – maybe more often than not – the person who is throwing the insult has their own “issues” they need to deal with. In other words, it’s not you, it’s them.
• Find a way to channel the negative into a positive.

This last one is the most satisfying, trust me. You don’t have to write a book about it, but you can draw a picture, write a journal entry, or dance a dance. The key is to not let the words of someone else hinder you. Let them fertilize your flower.

Peace, love, and fire,
Cherie Dawn

To get your copy of Girl on Fire: A Novel, find it on Amazon or visit your local bookseller.

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