Unfolding the Gordian Knot
Must be running away from a lot, I'm not just posting, I'm poking around at other blog sites for yet another blog presence for me. Avoiding my work and looking for excuses to drink more, because of course I want to write about drinking. They're like peanut butter and jelly for people who hate their livers and think too much. }:>
"Another Wine Blog" is taken and I don't know if wordpress would cotton to "Another Fucking Wine Blog" In any case I wouldn't stick to just writing about wine, I think. And it's not like drinking would even be the subject of every entry. The best drinks are tossed back while something even more terrific is going on. Maybe wordpress wouldn't blink if I called it "AFWB." Though I also got to thinking that it could be just a blog page on the supposed professional Web site I occasionally threaten to create.
That, of course, should be something I slow down and think about carefully. I have a lot to think about here, gearing up for making a voice demo as I am. Along with plunking down a hell of a lot of money for the production I also need to think about packaging, specifically design, and what that ought to look like. There are a few people who do this sort of work who are highly recommended, but they definitely cost a pretty penny, which would be over and above the demo itself.
Now this demo thing is a pretty heady subject by itself. It's a bit like a resume (well, really more like a portfolio, but hang with me here) so naturally you want it top-notch, but once it's done and you hit save you can't change one single thing about it. So it's like a resume carved in stone. No copy editing, no changing the font, no dropping an unexciting bullet point for something better you thought up at two am, nothing. You and a producer make it, maybe you get one free edit. Maybe the producer is fine with more edits - usually for a goodly price. But once the thing is done and out in the wild that's it. It had better be perfect.
By turns I'm confident I can put something together for a commercial demo that is solid, and by turns I find myself flailing, sure I still have a long way to go, wondering who will tell me straight what sort of coaching I still need and feeling totally screwed. Fun.
I get the distinct feeling that this may just have to be another one in the long list of goofy things I just up and do in order to get to the next step. I just hate to think of it that way. Because it's not goofy, it's a career that has to work. I'm in it to do this; it has to happen. But it's just how my shit happens, because it's not like going to college where it's just sort of the next step. It's not like someone is just going to call me up and ask if I want to voice work. And no way can I expect another friend to just invite me in for an interview which was how I ended up with my last full time gig.
But it's just...I get so good at sitting around and thinking about things but I don't do them unless I just jump into the things. The best games I've run were because I emailed people when the idea was still only part-way hatched and asked them, "hey would you like to...?" Three years ago I paced myself into a tizzy thinking that what I really wanted was to live in New York but how the hell could I make that work? and then I just fucking did it. I usually ask people out first (though that's sort of a chicken way to put it, since I usually keep it as low key as possible). Maybe it's just that I don't know how to make the next thing I do a natural outgrowth of where I've been that it has to feel like this great big dramatic undertaking. Or maybe it's just that I toss out a lot of regular ideas and friends oblige me and entertain my idea for as long as the conversation lasts, but when I really feel the heat of it I feel completely choked. I just act and then tell the masses. Meh, I dunno.
There's so much to voice acting that seems like not just diving in, but through, landing on the other side and then leaping again. The simple fact that a voice actor must perforce be a freelance worker is intimidating. I'm just not wild about freelancing because you're continuously job hunting. Even if you have a paying gig in the morning, the professional thing to do is try to fill the rest of your day with auditions, networking and working with other aids to your career. Surely by now you know my feelings on job hunting. Well, there's no getting around it. Steve said he books maybe one out of every fifty auditions. Melique calls auditioning scratching the lottery ticket. Everyone agrees: you go in to knock it out of the park and then you leave and go on to the next thing without looking back. Leave it in the booth, or so they say.
Sounds exhausting to me. No matter, that's the job. *shrug* That's what I'm going to do.
Still though, I wonder what I should do next, Intarwub-wise. I should update Linked-in, I guess. I give up. Everyone wants to treat it like any old fucking friends-linking-friends like that's going to do anybody any good. My actual professional links became far less useful, by several orders of degrees, when I made up my mind to change my career. So fuck it. Fine. Just send your link reqs to my yahoo account. Those that go to my hotmail get tossed because that's not the account I have associated. I should also clean facebook but I'm not even sure how. I keep meaning to be more tidy about what I post there, but it's like dieting, I end up thinking "just one more and then I'll start."
And I keep looking at Wordpress and thinking, oh why the hell not?
"Another Wine Blog" is taken and I don't know if wordpress would cotton to "Another Fucking Wine Blog" In any case I wouldn't stick to just writing about wine, I think. And it's not like drinking would even be the subject of every entry. The best drinks are tossed back while something even more terrific is going on. Maybe wordpress wouldn't blink if I called it "AFWB." Though I also got to thinking that it could be just a blog page on the supposed professional Web site I occasionally threaten to create.
That, of course, should be something I slow down and think about carefully. I have a lot to think about here, gearing up for making a voice demo as I am. Along with plunking down a hell of a lot of money for the production I also need to think about packaging, specifically design, and what that ought to look like. There are a few people who do this sort of work who are highly recommended, but they definitely cost a pretty penny, which would be over and above the demo itself.
Now this demo thing is a pretty heady subject by itself. It's a bit like a resume (well, really more like a portfolio, but hang with me here) so naturally you want it top-notch, but once it's done and you hit save you can't change one single thing about it. So it's like a resume carved in stone. No copy editing, no changing the font, no dropping an unexciting bullet point for something better you thought up at two am, nothing. You and a producer make it, maybe you get one free edit. Maybe the producer is fine with more edits - usually for a goodly price. But once the thing is done and out in the wild that's it. It had better be perfect.
By turns I'm confident I can put something together for a commercial demo that is solid, and by turns I find myself flailing, sure I still have a long way to go, wondering who will tell me straight what sort of coaching I still need and feeling totally screwed. Fun.
I get the distinct feeling that this may just have to be another one in the long list of goofy things I just up and do in order to get to the next step. I just hate to think of it that way. Because it's not goofy, it's a career that has to work. I'm in it to do this; it has to happen. But it's just how my shit happens, because it's not like going to college where it's just sort of the next step. It's not like someone is just going to call me up and ask if I want to voice work. And no way can I expect another friend to just invite me in for an interview which was how I ended up with my last full time gig.
But it's just...I get so good at sitting around and thinking about things but I don't do them unless I just jump into the things. The best games I've run were because I emailed people when the idea was still only part-way hatched and asked them, "hey would you like to...?" Three years ago I paced myself into a tizzy thinking that what I really wanted was to live in New York but how the hell could I make that work? and then I just fucking did it. I usually ask people out first (though that's sort of a chicken way to put it, since I usually keep it as low key as possible). Maybe it's just that I don't know how to make the next thing I do a natural outgrowth of where I've been that it has to feel like this great big dramatic undertaking. Or maybe it's just that I toss out a lot of regular ideas and friends oblige me and entertain my idea for as long as the conversation lasts, but when I really feel the heat of it I feel completely choked. I just act and then tell the masses. Meh, I dunno.
There's so much to voice acting that seems like not just diving in, but through, landing on the other side and then leaping again. The simple fact that a voice actor must perforce be a freelance worker is intimidating. I'm just not wild about freelancing because you're continuously job hunting. Even if you have a paying gig in the morning, the professional thing to do is try to fill the rest of your day with auditions, networking and working with other aids to your career. Surely by now you know my feelings on job hunting. Well, there's no getting around it. Steve said he books maybe one out of every fifty auditions. Melique calls auditioning scratching the lottery ticket. Everyone agrees: you go in to knock it out of the park and then you leave and go on to the next thing without looking back. Leave it in the booth, or so they say.
Sounds exhausting to me. No matter, that's the job. *shrug* That's what I'm going to do.
Still though, I wonder what I should do next, Intarwub-wise. I should update Linked-in, I guess. I give up. Everyone wants to treat it like any old fucking friends-linking-friends like that's going to do anybody any good. My actual professional links became far less useful, by several orders of degrees, when I made up my mind to change my career. So fuck it. Fine. Just send your link reqs to my yahoo account. Those that go to my hotmail get tossed because that's not the account I have associated. I should also clean facebook but I'm not even sure how. I keep meaning to be more tidy about what I post there, but it's like dieting, I end up thinking "just one more and then I'll start."
And I keep looking at Wordpress and thinking, oh why the hell not?