Finding My Voice (and My Balance) - Lauren Gibbons Paul - The RV Book Fair 2025

How Ballroom Dancing Sparked My Leap from Journalism to Fiction

After 30 years of writing and editing in the business and technology world, I did something I never expected: I started over. For most of my career, I told other people’s stories — founders, executives, companies — all through the lens of clarity and precision. Then one day, I realized I was ready to tell my own.

That’s how The Steps Between Us was born: a story about a restless empty-nester who walks into a ballroom dance studio and finds much more than sparkle. She finds transformation — emotional, physical, and existential. In many ways, she finds what I did.

From Reporting Facts to Revealing Truths

Journalism taught me how to observe — to distill complex information into something readers could trust. But after years of writing on deadline according to style guides, I wanted to explore something less tidy and more emotional. Fiction gave me permission to follow my intuition instead of evidence.

In journalism, precision rules. In fiction, I found rhythm and vulnerability. My writing voice grew warmer, a little more lyrical, a lot more human. I stopped trying to write perfectly and started trying to write honestly.

A Dance Floor Revelation

My creative transformation didn’t begin at a desk. It began on a dance floor. Like my character Ava, I wandered into a ballroom studio out of curiosity. I thought I might take a few lessons for fun. Instead, ballroom completely rearranged my sense of self.

Ballroom dance gave me permission to take up space again. It reconnected me to my body after decades of living mostly in my head. I learned that elegance and strength can coexist — that confidence isn’t about youth but about presence.

In dance, I found the same elements that make a story come alive: tension and release, balance and surrender, precision and freedom. The dance studio became my unexpected muse.

The Suspense Beneath the Sparkle

The more time I spent around dancers and competitions, the more I realized how much story lives behind the sequins. The world of competitive ballroom is beautiful, yes — but it’s also full of ambition, rivalry, jealousy, and desire. It’s built on performance, and that tension makes it the perfect stage for suspense.

In The Steps Between Us, the ballroom becomes both sanctuary and battlefield. It’s a place where characters chase perfection, but the stakes — emotional and otherwise — are deeply real. Every dancer I’ve met, especially the professionals, has shown me that glamour and grit are inseparable. None of my characters are portraits, but all of them are mosaics of real people I’ve met on the dance floor.

The Courage to Reinvent

Shifting from fact-based writing to fiction meant unlearning decades of habits. In journalism, you avoid adjectives; in fiction, you chase them. I had to learn to trust my instincts and stop editing myself mid-sentence.

Writing a novel after years in a structured profession was both exhilarating and terrifying. It required the same kind of courage it takes to step onto a competition floor for the first time: knowing you might stumble but dancing anyway.

If I’ve learned anything from this chapter of my life, it’s this — reinvention doesn’t wait for permission. You never feel ready. The transformation starts when you move.

The Choreography Between Writing and Dance

Writing and dancing have more in common than most people realize. Both rely on rhythm, balance, and partnership — and both ask for trust. When I dance, I’m listening constantly: to my partner, to the music, to the silence between beats. Writing is no different. You listen to your characters, to your story’s heartbeat, to the moments where stillness says more than dialogue.

The best moments, whether in dance or writing, happen when the steps disappear — when you’re not performing, but simply inhabiting the rhythm.

From Invisibility to Illumination

At its core, The Steps Between Us is a story about being seen — something I think a lot of women in midlife will understand. There comes a time when we feel ourselves fading from view, even as our lives are fuller than ever. Ballroom dance helped me reclaim visibility, not as the person I used to be, but as the woman I’m still becoming.

Writing this novel was my way of putting that transformation into words. It’s about rediscovering the spark that never really went out, it just waited for a new rhythm to bring it back to life.

I hope readers who open The Steps Between Us will find a bit of themselves in Ava’s journey: the courage to risk, the thrill of change, and the grace to step into their own spotlight. Because sometimes, the only way to find your balance again is to let yourself dance.

Lauren Gibbons Paul is a journalist-turned-novelist whose debut, The Steps Between Us, blends the glamour of ballroom dance with the pulse of psychological suspense. She writes about reinvention, visibility, and the beauty of learning new steps — on the page and in life.

Find out more at: laurengibbonspaul.com.

Article published in The Relatable Voice Magazine - December 2025 as part of The RV Book Fair 2025. Downolad the full magazine at https://www.relatable-media.com/the-relatable-voice-magazine