Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves--I'm in a good place at the present moment.
After all the lessons and classes and Ben Franklins* I've thrown into voiceover, it seems that my demo isn't quite appealing to folks who pay. Monday night I attended a videogame-focused VO seminar and didn't do my greatest work. Then the agent lectured us all on how we couldn't expect to get representation from our demos and instead needed to rack up a resume......which, he admitted, is tough to do without an agent representing you.
It's a classic chicken-egg scenario. Or double-edged sword. Or generally annoying. Whichever you prefer!
I have a running spreadsheet of the agents I've contacted, the date, the feedback received, and the date I followed up. It's very well-organized, but no amount of OCD can eclipse my failure.
But it's okay!!! I was talking to a friend last night who is very happy and positive but not annoying, and she said something that is actually working for me this morning: Instead of seeing it as a failure, consider it a good thing--you're racking up rejections so you can get to the yes!
It's true. I mean, in this reality-tv, "who-wants-to-be-the-biggest-american-idol-inside-the voice of a celebrity rehab" world there's so much instant "success" that it's easy to forget that most people before 2003 just put in the work and put themselves out there--repeatedly. You had to get rejected a billion times, lose Star Search, get yanked off Amateur Night by the Sandman, be told you're talentless by someone in a position of power about 20 times, and then finally have Clive Davis recognize your brilliance.
Okay, that last part mostly applies to any female singer in the late 80s and early 90s, but you get my point.
I remember being at a family friend's barbecue in the D when I was about 11 or 12 years old, when Anita Baker came by. I'd heard that my aunt was friends with her over the years, but I didn't really know what that meant (or if it was even true). Well, turns out, they went way back--back to when they both worked in a kitchen at a restaurant.
Y'all, 8-time Grammy winner Anita Baker spent her 20s washing dishes! Now that's a "Behind the Music" moment.
Writing about watercolor is my washing dishes. And I just need to be chill. Being rejected is just more fuel for my inevitable Netflix-produced documentary "Blackting is Reacting."
In addition to clocking 10,000 hours, I've got to get 10,000 rejections....divided 100. Yeah, just 100 rejections--I don't think my psyche could take more. If I could count my romantic history among them, I would have hit the mark years ago, but alas, we're going by career rejections, so we're not even close.
I can practically hear Destiny's Child crooning in my ear, "you be saying no, no, no, no, no / when it's really yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."
Of course, that song was about a shady dude and not career rejections, but I think the connection is clear.
*Speaking of Ben Franklin, I'm working on the treatment for my new film Ben Franklin: Zombie Killer/Dream Crusher. It'll star Michael Cane as the only founding father who knew those townsfolk didn't have cholera.
NB-- 7/19/12 Follow-up in a gchat with a fellow strong black woman:
Scribe: ur post is so positive, love it
me: thanks, girl. i was having a moment of positivity!
i didn't mention that Anita touched my hair and asked who did my braids (because she could get some)
and i thought i had been touched by god
Scribe: umm, yea that is essential to the story
thats super awesome
Scribe: well to me, cuz im Black and I get the whole Anita-Baker-is-god concept
1 comment:
You have inspired me this morning. That's all.
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