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."
"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 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)
"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.
