Waiting…

At the point in my life, I find myself in a nearly constant state of waiting. I’m not a particularly impatient person, but I do find myself wishing that I could take a more active role in my life. Unfortunately, many things that I could be doing require me to have money that I simply do not have.

For example, it was recently pointed out to me that in order to promote my book more I need to have more copies to sell, hand out, use for book signings, etc. Unfortunately, the way my publisher works is that I have to pay for copies of my book to have them to sell/use for my own devices. Additionally, if I am going to get any sort of author discount I have to order a minimum amount of 25 books (which would be roughly $250, with my discount). All in all, this is a great deal, but when you factor in rent and living expenses, it’s a difficult number for a young actress who also has to worry about health and paying back school loans.

A peek inside my book, “Silly Billy’s Guide to the Theatre”

However, this fellow author whom I was speaking with brought up some very good points. I would be able to make the money back simply by selling the books, therefore not really losing anything. The difficult part is simply getting the money to start with. He suggested possibly taking out a loan or setting up something through Kickstarter. Since I had never heard of this program, I needed an explanation: Basically, Kickstarter is an online fundraising program designed to help artists, such as myself, begin projects. People can donate money on the site towards these projects, and are given rewards based upon how much they spend on your project. The best part? If you don’t reach your monetary goal by the date that you set, no one is charged anything. So someone could donate money towards the cause, but not have to pay if the project is scrapped for some reason. Cool, right? It’s definitely worth looking into, although I worry whether or not there would be anyone willing to donate money towards my cause, but you never know if you don’t try. Plus, I’ve already been asked to do a few book signings, so it wouldn’t necessarily be an exercise in futility.

Another route I’ve looked into is selling some of my artwork. Well, technically I have already been doing that (thank you, Redbubble!), but I’m speaking specifically about selling some of my oil paintings through Etsy.

One of my oil paintings, currently making my kitchen wall a bit more classy

Instagram made the coloring a bit brighter than it actually is, but you get the picture (lol, lame unintentional pun). For those of you that don’t know, Etsy is essentially a site designed to help artists sell their art online without having to worry about not getting the product or not getting paid for your art. Shipping would still be my responsibility, of course, but this not only gets my art out there, I don’t have to worry about giving it away to someone who will neither pay for nor appreciate it.

Another route I’d like to look into is doing comedy on a bigger scale. This is something I may not have to wait for, I just need to be more aggressive on finding work. However, I am making the choice to do this after…

The finished product! It took a lot of work, but I finally have the poster where I want it. It’s definitely one of the better posters I’ve created.

Murder in the Cathedral! We are drawing closer to tech week and the inevitable opening of the show. I am truly fortunate to be in yet another show with so many of my friends. I am also fortunate that the director has been very patient with me, I have unfortunately been fighting a cold for several weeks now. I’m hoping that this will have passed by opening night, though the doctors are, frankly, a little stumped at this cold’s insistence on staying in my system. Never the less, as the old saying goes, “the show must go on” (and it’s often forgotten counterpart, “or else we’ll have to give them their money back”). Speaking of the show, I have to get some things ready before rehearsal tonight, so I will end this entry here.

“All things come to him who waits – provided he knows what he is waiting for.”  – Woodrow T. Wilson

Boom! Headshot!

Hello again!

I finally have a chance to sit down and update this blog on the happenings in my life as of late. Firstly, for those of you that read my earlier post, I went to see The Hunger Games this past Thursday and it was honestly better than I expected and my expectations were fairly high. I was incredibly pleased that they kept to the book, omitting things that were unnecessary for a film version and including the things that were necessary without adding too much. I particularly enjoyed how the Hunger Games promo in the film (a short added scene that basically portrayed the Capital putting a positive spin on the games) seemed to be an homage of the Nazi propaganda films back in WWII. While all of the actors gave a phenomenal performance, I was particularly fond of characters Haymitch and Cinna, played by Woody Harrelson and Lenny Kravitz, respectively. Though both characters were somewhat underplayed in the film, the short bits with them brought a smile to my face every time. It is a complete and utter shame that others have not taken too kindly to the casting of Cinna due to racial preferences. I recently read an article that claimed that many people were upset with Cinna being played by a black actor. Though everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I think it is idiotic to judge an actor, or anyone for that matter, by the color of their skin. Kravitz gave a phenomenal performance and if people cannot see that, then they are clearly not looking hard enough or have warped views on what makes a good actor (which, being an actor myself, I can say has little to nothing to do with the color of one’s skin).

On a happier note, my headshots came in! Huzzah!

My favorite of the bunch! For a couple of my other favorites, check out the actress tab and there’s a link to them or find my page on Facebook to see the rest.

My hair is so red in this and I love it! Personally, don’t think that I photograph well, but Cole Simon (see previous post) is a genius and made it so that I don’t look terrifying and/or freakishly pale. With these, I can finally start being submitted for work! My casting manager informed me that I should hopefully start hearing back about shoots/auditions/etc. in a couple of weeks and I can’t wait to get started.

Other than that, Murder in the Cathedral is going very well and my job waitressing has as well. I don’t get to perform as much stand-up as I would like and there seems to be some silly rumors flying about because of it, but for me that doesn’t seem to be out of the ordinary. If people can’t find a story that suits them, they will make one up. As long as the people who matter to me aren’t affected by it, I don’t see any reason to get upset. Regardless, I am working on a poster design for a fellow comedian (clearly he has not heard the rumors! Le gasp!) and I hope to have it done within the week. I also need to update the Murder in the Cathedral poster since we have a space for the show that is much nicer than we anticipated (not to mention in a different location then to that which I have on the poster currently.)

It’s about 12:30 a.m. so I best be signing off for the night. The temperature has dropped considerably and as my health has been questionable lately I’d rather not get sick from a lack of sleep as well. Until next time!

“If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”  – Alice Roosevelt Longworth

New Facebook Page!

Due to a growing amount of networking connections, career changes, etc. I have opted to finally create my own Facebook page (as opposed to my profile/regular page). My main reason for doing this is privacy, but also so that people can follow what I’ve been doing as I begin work in the entertainment industry. Some might say that this is self-absorbed or whatever, however, I want to have people be able to view all the cool things I have gotten to do without having to read my occasional rants and crazy posts on my actual post. Make sense?

In other news, I have recently found out that I sold 50 copies of “Silly Billy’s Guide to the Theatre” in the first quarter! Considering the fact that I was only published for half of the quarter, I feel like this is pretty darn good. However, I do need to work on getting myself out there and promoting so that I will be able to sell more and hopefully convince people that there is a lot more to theatre then what meets the eye.

When you publish a book, one should always have the nerdy picture of themselves reading the published version.

In other news, I will be speaking to my former junior high for their annual “Career Day.” It feels really weird to be going there to talk about my career when it feels like I didn’t even graduate all that long ago. When asked what I should speak on, I was given the answer of whatever you want, so I will be talking about my career as an actress, author, comedian, and makeup artist.

Speaking of makeup art, I have finally updated the makeup section of this site to include photos from Lionface Production’s Winter One Acts 2012! There were three shows performed and though I did the makeup for all of them, I opted to only save photos of two of them (given the similarity and simplicity of the makeup for one of the shows). This time, I was able to incorporate some liquid latex and the result was pretty awesome.

A sneak peek at the nastiness that I have created! Muhahaha, mine is an evil laugh!

Other then that, I’ve been having rehearsals for Murder in the Cathedral (which is going fantastically!) and preparing for headshots on Monday (stay tuned for the exciting reveal of the photographer I’m going to and my new headshots!) I may or may not post again before then, but for now I feel that this is a good place to wrap up.

“Human kind cannot bear very much reality” – T.S. Eliot

My Life as it Stands

Hello everyone!

Here’s what’s going on in my life at the moment.

I’m in the process of getting new headshots so that my manager can start submitting me for work! For the time being, I am not going to release the name of the company I am associated with (for privacy reasons, of course), but the type of work I will be submitted for includes film, commercial, theatre, etc. As for the headshots, I have a couple of different leads and will hopefully schedule an appointment tomorrow.

As for what I am working on currently, I was cast as Chorus I in Lionface Production’s Murder in the Cathedral. As many already know, I also do the poster designs and some general public relation things for Lionface and I am very excited to be acting for them again. Additionally, I have already completed the poster for the show (though it is subject to some changes).

Not going to lie, I’m pretty proud of this one.

I can’t wait to get started!

In other news, I’ve started a new oil painting. This one is inspired by my nerdy adoration of Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games and excitement for the upcoming movie.

A rough sketch on canvas

If you can’t tell from the sketch, it’s the Mockingjay pin. I’m actually doing the film version of it, which has it on fire. I did this yesterday, and earlier on today I applied the base.

Base coat on the mockingjay, check out the tail

The only part that is even close to being done is the tail. The rest is just a base to get me started on, so I can work around it without leaving white spots on the canvas (which is pretty annoying when you have it on the end product). Naturally, I hold no hopes of this being a “perfect painting,” but I love the challenge of it.

That’s really about all I have at the moment. I’m not a huge blogger by any means, but I hope to start keeping up with it fairly regularly. We’ll just have to see how it goes.

“I am not afraid, I was born to do this.” – Joan of Arc