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Are you allowed two passions in life? Well in my three score 10, my satisfaction has been in dancing and writing; hence my business name ‘DancWrite'.

This week's Write Space by Gaye Hemsley.

The dancing started when I was about 10 – quite old to start ballet .The writing and dreaming up stories began much earlier. I had poems and riddles published in ‘Pixie Pages', the children's page in the ‘Women's Weekly'.

As an only, but not lovely child, I invented lots of make-believe friends and characters. When I was given a composition exercise at school I would choose subjects like ‘Life of Penny'.

As life progressed I discovered how well writing and dancing mixed. Instead of waiting perpetually to be discovered by a publisher, I took the bull by the horns and self published, starting with a series of books called ‘Dance a Poem'.

I keep my creative juices flowing by belonging to writer groups such as Tauranga Writers.

It's so important to receive other writer's feedback. Communicating via online websites can also be an advantage.

I wonder how many creative people out there wake in the night like I do with ideas jumping into their mind. It's a bit of a bore needing seven or eight hours sleep to function efficiently. I always keep pen and paper by my bedside to jot down ideas in the dark and hope I can read my scribble the next morning.