This year has been such a rollercoaster and it's certainly flown by.
Personally and professionally I've experienced so many changes - many of which I wish I'd done a better job of chronicling here - but all of which I've hopefully learned from in one way or another.
One major shift over the last few months is that of seeing myself as an actress who likes to dabble in writing and producing to seeing myself as a creative person, period. I've been doing a LOT of writing lately, much more writing than acting actually (a big part of that is simply because you don't need to wait on anyone to hire you to write, you just DO it) so the thought of being able to make a living as a writer and in turn using my writing to open up more opportunities for me to act, is very appealing. I did resist this shift at first because it felt like a change in my identity, and I talk about that resistance in an interview I did with Lisa Nicole Bell on her podcast, "
Behind the Brilliance." Ultimately though, I have let go of my need to define what I do by one label. Yes I'm an actress, but I'm also a writer (I have a literary agent now, whaaaat?!?), producer (packaging the feature version of Muted is priority numero uno), event planner (I don't get paid to do this anymore but I have an event series for women in the industry in the works for 2015 that I'm excited to plan) and baker/cookie decorator (I DO get paid for this and it's been a lovely thrival job during the holidays -
www.sugarswag.com), not to mention someone who loves to sing and dance (yes I will be in a musical again one day!). Simply put, I'm a Creative.
With this revelation, writing a blog under the "Adventures of an Actress" heading, no longer makes sense. It doesn't fit who I am anymore since my adventures now fall under many creative categories, not just acting alone. So in the new year I'll be changing my blog to "
Candid Confessions of a Creative". With a new blog name comes a new web address so please add the new link to your bookmarks or subscribe via email if you'd like to stay updated since it won't automatically switch over your subscription.
I hope you'll continue to take this journey with me as I start a new chapter but if not, it's been quite a lovely ride. :-)
May you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and for those of you continuing on, I can't wait to share much more in 2015!
Cheers,
B
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:
- Wrote a short
- Wrote a feature (extended said short)
- Said feature advanced to the final round of consideration for the 2013 Sundance Screenwriters Lab
- Established a relationship with the CD's and associates at one of the top casting offices in town via a weekly volunteer position.
- Joined SAG-AFTRA
- Met with a HUGE manager with multiple A-list clients
- 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!
- Learned that anyone in this industry is accessible - we just gotta get over our fear of reaching out (This discovery was huge for me!)
- Had 7 auditions
- Booked the webseries Math to the Rescue and the training video ABLE with Group 1 Productions
- Booked an industrial for Hertz with High Heat Media
- Attended 27 networking events
- 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.
- Did 4 cd/agent/manager workshops
- Started a monthly goal accountability group
- Had 15 coffee/lunch dates
- Opened a business account for our pending production
- Celebrated my 5th wedding anniversary
- Found a great & affordable facial cleanser (as someone who's struggled with breakouts all my life, this makes me very happy!)
- 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.
"There is a definite distinction between "wanting" and "committing." "Want" lives in ideas, dreams, fantasy and imagination- you can "want" lots of things and never HAVE them. Implicit and required for "committment" is ACTION.
When one is committed, action is a natural behavior, which leads to results consistent with one's commitment. So ask yourself: "Do I want this?" or "Am I COMMITTED to having this?"- big difference! We have results in life consistent with what we are committed to, not with what we "want." ~
Lauri Johnson, Entertainment Industry Life Coach
I recently read this quote in Acting Coach
Carolyne Barry's new
Hit The Ground Running book and it really spoke to me because (as my family & close friends know) I "want" a whole lotta things but I've yet to show any real commitment towards having them. They've heard me say for YEARS that I
want to move to LA, I
want to be an actress, I
want to write screenplays, I
want to produce feature films, I
want to learn Spanish, I
want to start dancing again, I
want to own my own wedding & event venue, I
want, I
want, I
WANT! I'm sure most of you can relate as it seems most artists want the world {and on our own terms at that}. But I've come to the point where wanting just isn't enough anymore and I've got to take action in order to see some real results.
First Step: Auditing Classes over the next 2-3 weeks.
