This photo perfectly complements the video below. Takeaway: Find your tribe.

"When a group of people get together and decide to do something, strange and mysterious things can happen..."

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind! Daniel turned 6 months old, Stevie graduated from kindergarten, the boys are out of school for summer vacation and I visited New York for almost a week to attend the American Black Film Festival where MUTED had its' world premiere.

2013 is shaping up to be a whirlwind year.

First of all, if you were one of the people who contributed to our Kickstarter campaign or even shared the link extensively with your network: THANK YOU! We raised over $16k which means Muted is finally happening! We are now in the midst of casting, selecting shoot dates and hiring key crew. It's all very exciting and there's a lot of work to be done but we have a great team already so I know its going to be such an awesome shoot. I'll keep you posted on new developments as they arise.

In my personal life, my little one is going to Kindergarten this year. I can't believe it! Next month he'll join his big brother (who is now going to freakin 4th grade!) at the same school. And if that weren't enough, Stephen & I recently found out that we are pregnant. YAY!!!! Well, it was more like WHAAAATTTTT???? when we first found out but now we're very excited. Hopefully I'll get a girl this time but we have a while until we can find out what the gender is. I guess this means I'll be doing a lot of writing as my stomach gets bigger and I'm forced to slow down in other areas. For now I'm just trying to take as many naps and go to bed as early as possible since my energy level is pretty low during this first trimester.

No other news right now, though I really think that's more than enough. Hope you all are enjoying your summer!

For the last 2 weeks I've been consumed with promoting my Kickstarter campaign for Muted. I knew it would be hard but WOW! This truly is a 24 hour job that requires a lot of reminding people without annoying people (or at least trying not to). We're hoping to raise at least $15,000 (just shy of $7,000 to date) and as with all Kickstarter projects if we don't reach our goal then we get nothing at all. Please take a moment to watch our pitch video and if it resonates with you then please make a pledge. The minimum amount is $1 and believe me when I say we are THRILLED when we see those $1 pledges come in because they add up quickly.

We've been shown some Twitter love from a few women who have retweeted our campaign including actress/director Regina King, actress Megan Good, Black Girls Rock creator Beverly Bond, comedienne Sommore, singer T-Boz of TLC and my "shero" herself Shonda Rhimes! We've also recently been covered by Clutch magazine: http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2013/06/new-film-explores-the-muted-voices-of-missing-children-of-color-2/.

I have some other things to share with you, including a new blog feature that I'm excited about, but first I've gotta make it to the 30th and see this Kickstarter campaign through to the end.

Muted Kickstarter
Muted Facebook page

It's happening...



Click the photo above to enlarge and go here to RSVP. Hope to see you there!

Only one more week left in March and then the first quarter of the year is over. Crazy right?

Well it's been a whirlwind few months for me. In good news I signed with a new commercial agency, Brick Entertainment, and have gone out a handful of times already so yay for that! I was also selected as a mentee for the mentor circles that Women In Film are spearheading this year and recently attended my first mentor meeting. LOVED IT!! The ladies in my group are all intelligent, ambitious, driven and so incredibly diverse that I'm really looking forward to seeing how all of us grow and stretch and accomplish our goals over the next 12 months.

On the personal tip, I left my day job. Well I didn't completely leave it. I still come in on Monday mornings and do paperwork for about 2 hours but I'm no longer an office manager. This is both gratifying and terrifying. It's wonderful because now all of my mental space & energy that was being consumed by this job over the last 8 months has been released! But it's also terrifying because I have bills to pay. Rent's gotta be paid, kids have to eat, a car NEEDS to be bought and let's not forget the never-ending expenses that come with the pursuit of an acting career. So, to make up for the hit to my bank account, I've signed on to work from home with 3 transcription companies. The work is tedious and confidential (so don't ask me which shows I transcribe) but I get to set my own schedule and, more importantly, telecommute. Such a beautiful thing!

In addition to transcribing, I've also launched my home bakery business - Sugar Swag Bakeshoppe - and I'm having SO MUCH FUN creating custom goodies for friends and family. Don't worry, I'm not gonna turn this into a food blog, but you can expect to see pics of any sweet treats I create that are entertainment industry related so you've been warned. :-)

What else? I'm sure there's more to share but that's enough for one post. Hope you're all well and making most of this (fast) year as it whizzes by.

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."

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.

Day 365: Took a final pass at my goals & action plan after reflecting on the last 364 days. I reviewed my audition tracker and saw that I've had 24 auditions, 4 callbacks, 1 avail and 2 bookings this year. What does that mean? I don't know. Some would say that's a great callback ratio, others would say it's horrible, either way I'm absolutely certain 2012 needs to bring in more bookings for me! Coincidentally I also attended 24 networking events this year which is really quite paltry for someone who absolutely LOVES to be social, meet new friends and reconnect with old ones so that number needs to at least double in 2012. I'm very thankful for all that this year has brought me {especially new friendships & colleagues that I adore} and all that this year has taught me in my role as a wife, mother, actress, writer, producer and friend. I'll roll out my 2012 goals to you all next week but in the meantime much love to you all and have a very Happy New Year!

Day 344: Cardio Hip-Hop class at Your Neighborhood Studio.

Day 345 - 346: Refined my 2012 goals and monthly action plan. Just need to type them up and possibly create a vision board to go with it.

Day 347: Follow up phone call to one of the Atlanta agents. She didn't answer so I left a voicemail. Since many of her clients have gotten co-stars and recurring spots on multiple shows out there I'm going to continue to pursue this agency.

Day 263: Met with Claire & Lex for coffee. We discussed DWP since Claire is directing eps 7 & 8 and Lex will be the DP and we'll also be shooting a scene for my reel in the next couple of weeks as well. Time flies when I'm with them and though we had a lot of laughs, we also got a lot done. Afterwards, since we were on Wilshire {aka agent-mecca}, I decided to pick up a dozen mini-cupcakes from Hansens {not the best flavor-wise but super cheap when you're in a pinch} and brought them over to my agents to thank them for all their hard work. They've been sending me out quite a bit and although the callbacks are nice, I really wanna book and show them that they made a good decision signing me. I was only there for maybe 15 minutes tops but I had a nice chat with both of them and then went on about my merry way.

Day 255: Rehearsal with Yvonne. Although I'm not in class this month (sad face) we worked on her scene together. I also attempted a drop-off at the Culver Studio Lot. I use the word attempted because when I got there, the security guard automatically thought I was there to audition for a particular role on the new show Ringer- apparently black girls my age had been there all morning. But foolish me, I asked how to get to the office which made him ask for my name to see if I was on the list. Why oh why didn't I just smile and walk away, finding someone else to point me in the right direction? Oh well. I know better next time. If someone lets me on the lot from now on I'll just go with it.

Day 248: Finished writing the last episode of DWP. It feels really good to wrap this up and close it out in a way that I'll be happy for it to end. Now it's time to start planning the shoot!

Day 249: TAN Power Group. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this monthly meeting is AWESOME! There's nothing like being around other actors who are DOING things, not just talking about it. It literally lights a fire underneath me every time I go. Besides that, it's also such a great way for us to help each other out. There's this segment called "Issue Time" where we can talk about whatever issues we're having to get feedback & assistance from the rest of the group. Sometimes only advice is given but other times actual tangible help is provided- like the actress who needed a cheap/free mansion to shoot her webseries at, yeah apparently one of the members in our group has a friend who owns a mansion and he actually let her film there. Actors helping Actors- I love it.

Afterwards I headed to Blank Spaces to view their offices to see if they'll work for 2 of my reel scenes that I want to shoot and they absolutely will. The price was low, the parking's good and the customer service was fantastic so I can't wait to get this done. This is the first thing on my agenda for next month.

Day 247: Internship. Today the casting director started complaining about Obama and I had to bite my tongue. No he hasn't gotten us out of the crappy economic hole that we're in but he also inherited most of this from his steal from the poor and give to the rich predecessor. That's what I wanted to say but I didn't. No talking politics to CD's who aren't your actual friends- especially when you have an opposing view.

Day 239: Wrote a procedural - CSI, Criminal Minds, Law & Order type scene for Yvonne and I and I love it. Now we have to find a place for us to shoot and someone willing to shoot & edit it for a free lunch or a low cost.

Day 240: Casting Internship, sent an eblast of DWP updates to hundreds of real wedding planners as well as family/friends/colleagues and mailed the From The Heart proposal.

Day 241: Wine with Greg & Lex which ended up being a 4 hour conversation. Between the wine and the time, I had to completely give up on going into work but it was so worth it!

Day 242: Documentary meeting. There have been lots of rumors regarding the possible settlement in the Mitrice Richardson case. Though any settlement will probably hinder some of our film efforts, it was nice to learn what is fact and what is fiction from her mother.

Day 243: Rewrites- edited 2 scenes in episode 7 of DWP.

Day 244: Worked on episode 8 of DWP. Added one scene and rewrote an outline for the remaining scenes of this episode.

Day 245: Watched another interesting documentary: Hot Coffee. Remember that multi-million dollar lawsuit some lady won against McDonald's after she spilled coffee on herself? Yeah, this film is about that. It's all about tort reform and it was very enlightening.