Several weeks have passed since this October’s production of An Evening Unveiled, the twice-yearly show presented by my dance school, Orlando Bellydance. As darkness falls sooner and the nights grow cooler, so too the rhythm of our school slips back into a quieter routine of classes and workshops. But underlying the quietude there grows a pervading hum, the question those of us who have been dancing for a year or more at the Master-level have the opportunity to ask ourselves: am I going to audition? Are you?

Auditions for Orlando Bellydance’s four professional dance companies are held once a year, usually in December or January. To audition, a dancer must choreograph her own 3 to 4 minute solo (which doesn’t sound like a lot, but trust me, there are quite a few 8-count measures in a four-minute number). Our teacher, Suspira, encourages all Master-level students to audition although rarely do dancers make the cut on the first try; she believes it is an important step in a dancer’s development to choreograph and perform a solo of one’s own. Plus she provides detailed feedback at the end of the audition session whether you are selected for one of the troupes or not. The experience alone is valid reason to try out, whether one can, or desires, to commit as a professional.

So there’s no real reason not to audition. Especially since last year I said that I would, fully intended to…but then got accepted to Yaddo. While I was immersed in writing historical fiction in upstate New York, heaters blasting over my socked feet and downing cup after cup of tea, dance felt as far away as the moon, never mind creating a solo. As it turned out, I couldn’t perform in the spring show anyway. But that isn’t the point.

This year, I have no excuses not to come up with my own choreography to a song that I love, and audition. And tonight I found just the one—a longtime favorite which never fails to raise the hairs on my arm, a necessary sign in creating art—and began the process of hitting iTunes repeat while experimenting with different moves. My feelings regarding the output of my creative efforts swung wildly from, hey, I think this might workit may even be pretty good! to, who am I kidding? No way is the choreography I’m coming up with going to compare with the dancers’ solos of those already in the troupes.

Sound familiar, writers?

What I’m really wondering is how much potential rejection I can take right now. Six weeks ago, I sent my novel query letter to the first round of agents, five of whom requested partials or full manuscripts, all of whom are still reading. Another big New York agent just asked for the first 150 pages this week. I have gotten a handful of rejections on queries and partials, and one rejection on the whole manuscript so far, painful the day it arrived in my inbox, but I moved on. More rejections are inevitably in store in the coming weeks, and this is what puts me on shaky ground: I know what it means to invest one’s heart, mind, soul, and body fully into an artistic endeavor, and what kind of crushing blows and disappointments arise as a result when your best just isn’t good enough. I’m not talking about bruised ego here, either; I mean the despair of when you truly put everything you’ve had into a project, and it fails to resonate with whom you want it to most—an audience. And although I’d like to pretend it’s not the case, much of my writing career hangs in the balance with landing a book deal for the novel, from teaching jobs to travel and fellowship opportunities. You can say the reward lies in writing the book itself, and I would say, yes, that’s certainly true. But the reality is there’s much more at stake.

When it comes down to auditioning, I’ve got to ask myself: can I really handle the pressures, doubts and potential rejection in two art forms right now? I know I can find the time to choreograph the solo over the next month, along with writing deadlines. But what happens if I make the dance troupe, but the novel doesn’t get picked up? Or vice versa: good news with the novel, but a no-go for the dance troupe; whether I’d have to decline because of other commitments or don’t get picked, the disappointment will equally sting.

But in some ways, these questions barely scratch the surface of even bigger, potentially more shattering ones. Questions so terrifying that we, as artists, usually stifle them before the thoughts can even be formed into words. Since I’ve permitted these doubts to float up through my consciousness of late, however, I’ll go ahead and render the scariest here, namely: what if I just don’t have what it takes to create great literature, and never will, no matter how much I closely read, study craft, and revise? What if my work falls into the teeming category of pretty darn good—but just not good enough. Worse, no one is telling me this. And no one will.

At which point, the only question left to ask is: would it matter? Would I stop writing then, if I knew I couldn’t be among the best? Dancing?

I don’t know. I might.

For now, though, I can evade confronting such doubts for a bit longer. I will audition, if purely for the experience as my teacher encourages us to do (and because I am the immersion-junkie writer of this column). I have never auditioned for anything in my life, so in the very least my Flashdance moment will become part of the well from which I draw future fiction. I will remind myself that I chose to practice bellydance in part, as a reprieve from writing, that striving to become a professional dancer in addition to a literary writer may be more than I can creatively chew. That no matter what, there will be something to be learned that is highly worthwhile, as with writing the novel. And I will await the outcomes of both the audition and the novel-querying, because sometimes that’s all you can do. Wait.

Before I sat down to write this tonight, I made a rare, impromptu move—plugged the word “audition” into Google and looked up the Dictionary.com definition, as follows:

            Audition. Noun.

            1. a trial hearing given to a singer, actor, or other performer to test suitability for employment, professional training or competition, etc.

            2. a reading or other simplified rendering of a theatrical work, performed before a potential backer, producer, etc.

            3. the act, sense, or power of hearing.

            4. something that is heard.

Of course, I had been expecting the first definition. But I was taken aback by the remaining three. I hadn’t thought of sending my novel to agents and editors as an “audition” before, but to submit writing for publication is a trial, after all—why not call it an audition? More revealing, however, are the last two definitions: “the power of hearing” and “something that is heard.” How simple and lovely are those words. I’m performing my choreography, offering my novel to you, just for the sake of being heard. How so much that is terrifying loses its power with those redemptive words.