Thank God for the slow downs.

Sometimes as an actor, we just want to be busy. We want a lot of auditions and we want to book a lot of jobs. That's normal - that's sometimes how we measure the success of a working actor. BUT what if we decided to look at our careers through a cycle and what if the cycle was something like:

1) Auditioning & Booking work

2) Creating my own work, sharpening my skills, filling my soul with people and things that make me whole.

3) Auditioning & Booking work

4) Creating my own work, sharpening my skills, filling my soul with people and things that make me whole.

etc.

I think I'm coming to a place where I'm equally happy in both phases. I do love to audition. I really have come to a point where I enjoy it. Not only because I really enjoy presenting my take and ideas on a script or piece of music, but also because I love the process of preparing for auditions as well. I also appreciate being able to run into the same groups of people at auditions and being able to catch up briefly before or after auditions. I think it's hard to keep track of everyone in your life and you actually can create/be a part of a supportive environment of actors that help one another. I've been lucky enough to find that in some small communities of people I run into at auditions weekly.

I'm also learning to love the times where I get to find my creative voice and write my own projects and develop ideas that might never see the light of day. It's exciting because it also helps me to identify what's important to me. I'm also building my writing skills and my producing skills and I believe that that's helping my acting skills for when I DO book my next job.

So I'm learning to be more thankful for the slow periods. WIthout them, I wouldn't be writing as much or painting or doing things that just make me happy. I like this balance. GIven my druthers, I probably wouldn't plan my career out like this so I'm sort of glad it's not in my own hands all the time.

Here's to the slow downs.