Get ready...

The tag on my Yogi Tea bag says, "Work, but don't forget to live."  Which is exactly what I need to hear right now.  It's Christmas Eve and I pretty much have been working all day long.  I had my laptop out at work during my down time so I could do some research and think up a plan of action for the start of the new year.  What am I researching, you ask?  Production companies, ad agencies and talent agencies.  Yes, I'm trying really hard to hit the ground running with a much more effective strategy come next week.  Proactive is the watchword, something I haven't really been.  It's quite frankly been a few cautious half starts for the past year and a half with this VO thing and, while I have been building slowly and making progress with my voice, I feel like I haven't really done the brunt work of truly marketing myself.  It's like I've essentially been just dropping business cards in midtown hoping that some ad agency employee will pick it up off the ground and call me.

Anyway, I've spent the better part of the day on this plan, opening up my laptop again upon finishing dinner and continuing the hunt, while admittedly sitting in front of the television.  Now it's about 10pm and I've cut myself off.  But I did want to type up a blog since it's been a bit, minus the blurb about the concert from the other day.

It's also getting excruciatingly close to the end of the year and you know how I get.  Reflective.  Reflecting? Reflect-y?  I think I was right the first time.  Anyway, I always start to look back and see how far I've come and size up where I am, when the new year rolls around.   I like putting things in perspective.  Life just sort of starts to run together unless you mark time and parse out events and check your progress.  It helps to assign meaning to what's going on and remember why I'm doing what I do.  

I've also kind of been thinking about something some snooty guy said to me during the first few months I was here in 2009.  "It takes about three years to really get it together here.  That's the general rule."  Whatever that is.  Define "getting it together."  Who's rule is that?  Anyway, despite not fully being there and to some extent still working on what "there" is, I do feel pretty accomplished.  In fact, this newfound vigor with which I've been approaching the VO career is actually inspired by a sense of momentum with my overall career, in both music and film, and not by any sense of urgency to make something happen by that three year mark that could be defined as "getting it together" or "having gotten it together."  At the beginning of last year, I had this sort of existential "I'm turning 30" thing driving my reevaluation of my career.  It was a sort of franticness that didn't wholly lend itself to results, just a lot of flailing around…controlled flailing around, mind you, yet flailing nonetheless.  I job hunted, I reconsidered my approach to voice over, I considered a dozen different scenarios to make more money than I'm making now.  But it was all too rushed.

Now, I'm suddenly struck by a focused and rigid tenacity that's driving me to finally do something I haven't really truly been doing (at least not to any high degree).  And that is truly betting on myself.  A month ago I finished my new narration demo, taking some cuts from the old one, and also finished a documentary demo both of which I'm satisfied with, perhaps even proud of.  And now, I'm ready to get out there and really promote myself.  

On top of that, I have music and film jobs lining up, (two on the docket and maybe two more lined up), Tania and I have several collaborations planned and I'm starting off the new year with a recording session in Philadelphia for Lacy's new album.  I'm feeling pretty excited.  A new year and I feel poised to really take some steps forward.  So step back and watch out because 2012 is going to pretty awesome.  Merry Christmas all!