"None of us suddenly becomes something overnight. The preparations have been in the making for a lifetime.- Gail Goodwin


Showing posts with label actor pysche. Show all posts
Showing posts with label actor pysche. Show all posts
For the last 8 months I've been working on a deal that fell apart earlier this week. The short version is that we (Tara & I) reached out to a well-known actress (she's a series regular who also acts in feature films) whom we read was beginning to transition into directing. We sent her manager the script, she loved it, she met with us (which was SO awesome) and all we had to do was figure out the scheduling. Well since our meeting she's gone on to act in a short, act in a feature, direct her first feature and now her TV show has gone back into production (of which she's recently been offered to direct an episode of as well) so despite all our efforts we just couldn't get around scheduling conflicts. *Sigh* We were SO close! This left me kinda bummed and feeling like last year was a bust until I read this awesome post from my friend DaJuan. Here's a snippet:

"I bet that if you look back to January 2012 you’ll see you are in a much different place than January 2013. Sure you may not be on the tv show you want to be on yet or you did not sign with that new agent you wanted to land — but, it’s COMING. You have to believe that... “REMEMBER THE WINS.” Sometimes we just forget how awesome we are doing and need to be reminded. It helps to keep a list of your accomplishments somewhere visible. Yup, write them down. Call it your 2012 WIN LIST if you like... Anything goes here and hey, it’s your list nobody else has to see it. By doing this you will have a tangible visual to help remind you how far you’ve really come. I’ve said this before, sometimes in our business there aren’t a lot of tangible things to show our accomplishments. This helps calm my anxiety and I can say, oh yeah, I forgot — THAT HAPPENED."
So I got together with Tara and my other friend Danette and we came up with our 2012 wins. Here are mine - mostly career but there are a couple personal ones towards the end as well:
  1. Wrote a short
  2. Wrote a feature (extended said short)
  3. Said feature advanced to the final round of consideration for the 2013 Sundance Screenwriters Lab
  4. Established a relationship with the CD's and associates at one of the top casting offices in town via a weekly volunteer position.
  5. Joined SAG-AFTRA
  6. Met with a HUGE manager with multiple A-list clients 
  7. Had lunch with said A-list client of whom I've been a fan of for years and she was every bit as nice and down to earth as I'd hoped she'd be! 
  8. Learned that anyone in this industry is accessible - we just gotta get over our fear of reaching out (This discovery was huge for me!)
  9. Had 7 auditions
  10. Booked the webseries Math to the Rescue and the training video ABLE with Group 1 Productions
  11. Booked an industrial for Hertz with High Heat Media
  12. Attended 27 networking events
  13. Had two successful table reads of my short. The first I organized on my own and had a bunch of friends help me out. The second came months later and was part of a weekly workshop put on by We Make Movies where writers can submit their work for actors to read on stage. Both reads were incredibly helpful in terms of shaping the characters and refining the plot and I made some new friends from the WMM read which is always nice.
  14. Did 4 cd/agent/manager workshops
  15. Started a monthly goal accountability group
  16. Had 15 coffee/lunch dates
  17. Opened a business account for our pending production
  18. Celebrated my 5th wedding anniversary
  19. Found a great & affordable facial cleanser (as someone who's struggled with breakouts all my life, this makes me very happy!)
  20. Made my first cake pop sale (yeah I'm a budding baker now, a topic for a later post)
Compiling this list helped me feel SO MUCH BETTER about the last 12 months and served as a good reminder that we're usually a lot harder on ourselves (and our PERCEIVED lack of accomplishments) than we should be. Again, Dajuan:

"Finally it also helps to remember that although you don’t see it sometimes you have just laid brilliant seeds for things to come. Which may not look like much, but down the road when everything comes together so wonderfully it will all make sense."

Amen, amen and amen!

What are your 2012 wins - personal, professional or otherwise? You don't have to share them with the world but write them down somewhere to remind yourself.
I haven't blogged consistently in a while but I think this year I'll be getting back to that. Going too long without getting out my feelings & experiences doesn't work for me. It just makes me feel like I'm taking everything in without releasing it back out into the world and letting it go - and my blog helps me to do that. 

So with that said, Happy New Year! 

May this be the best year of your life financially, emotionally, physically and in every other way possible.
We all want the work we're making to be as good as our ambitions but it takes time (and a lot of work) to get there. This video is such a simple yet effective reminder of that.


Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Click this link if you can't see the embedded video above: http://vimeo.com/24715531
This is EXACTLY how I've been feeling lately! I'm Jennifer and the ballroom dancers all rolled into one...



Got some great things in the works. Don't wanna share until everything is signed and it's a done deal but just know that I'm in a really fantastic headspace right now.  Loving my family, loving my friends, loving my LIFE in general and truly Focusing On The Work as I said I would this year.

Hope you are all doing well.
For the majority of last year I was in a conflicted headspace:

  • Happy to deepen friendships that I've made out here while disappointed with some of the friendships I had to let go. 
  • Happy to live in LA rather than Long Beach while frustrated to not have a car. 
  • Happy to have family support while saddened by Stephen's desire to leave LA. 
  • Happy to get auditions for shorts and student films while anxious to get representation and better opportunities. 
  • Happy to be self-producing while disheartened by the rising costs of it all. 
  • Happy to have a night job while dissatisfied with the amount of family time it requires me to sacrifice. 

But that was all in 2011.

In 2012 I am...

  • Thankful for the friendships I have and the lessons learned from those I've lost.
  • Thankful for the car we share and the patience to wait until the right time to buy a new one.
  • Thankful for my husband's flexibility and understanding especially since I know he misses his family.
  • Thankful for the auditions I'm able to get and the industry relationships I'm able to develop on my own while I continue to seek the right people who will be excited to represent me. 
  • Thankful for the knowledge gained and the connections made from the projects I've produced and excited for what is in store for those I'm producing.
  • Thankful to be receiving unemployment until my job starts back up again so I can take a much needed break and spend more time with my family. 

Basically I have a different mindset. And though I didn't necessarily need to wait until the new year started to begin to think this way, I'm one of those people who loves the freshness that the new year brings. It feels like a clean slate where I can start anew or the first act of a whole new play. It invigorates me and gives me the impetus to make changes in every area of my life. And so, with the new year comes a new mindset where I'm much more focused on the blessings that I have instead of the things I lack. It's a much lighter state of being and one I hope to remain in for the rest of the year.
I really haven't felt like blogging about my day to day journey lately. Rather, I've been kind of taken over by my feelings and emotions about everything. Life, marriage, friendships, money, jobs, kids, goals... Sometimes I feel like there are multiple people living inside of me and they all want to do something different than the other. One wants to run away from all these responsibilities that seem to be piling on top of me. Another wants to keep pushing forward with each audition, hoping someone gives me a break. Another wants to be the dutiful wife and mother who whisks her family away to a better quality of life. Yet another wants to say f*ck it! And do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it and not care what ANYONE thinks, family included. And finally there's the one who always seems to prevail who says, hey, if this is really what you want to do then put that "S" on your chest {Alicia Keys "Superwoman" reference for those who don't know} and suck it up gotdamnit!

Feelings. Oh god they can take you on a rollercoaster ride if you let them.

*Sigh* I really need to act in something soon to help get all of this pent-up, conflicting, emotionally-charged energy out of me.