Sorry for the rudeness--hope the kids aren't reading this. I'm sure most have heard the story, but that's my favorite quote from a professor at the University of Toronto. Andy Orchard is possibly the most brilliant man I ever met, able to rattle off dozens of ancient epics from memory, master of a dozen dead languages, and a respected scholar in his field. That was the nicest thing he ever said about me in his Beowulf class.
It came to me because that's what feels like happened to me today. Man. Not that my troubles compare to real troubles, like people forced from their homes by natural disasters or living in a war zone or begging on the streets, but bad for me. I've been wiped out today, feeling tired, and somehow twisted my knee while trying to nap at my desk at school. I don't know anyone else talented enough to injure themselves napping. I must be special.
Our Voicetrax class had another local producer from the desert sit in to give us his perspective on the ad game and bring us copy to read. Only he didn't bring us copy--he just gave us the vague outline of "characters" he thought were interesting (that is, basically promotional mascots for various businesses) and had us improvise as that character with other actors.
How did I do? Let's just say that I won't be doing the voice of Texas Joe or Nevada Bob any time soon. I consider myself a fair improviser--I've got LARPing experience and roleplaying experience and murder party experience and other experience in the field that a lot of people never touch. But I was at a loss tonight and all my attempts were pretty feeble. It didn't help that I was the first one in the booth for both characters. I have to work with someone good to really get my best performance out--while I did have good co-actors this evening, I just couldn't catch on. What's worse, several other folks turned out to be brilliant at the improv. So I got a major gluteal whooping.
And now, when I finally straggled home, I find an email from Pat that was not such good news. We've been working to convince an audio publisher to let me read for them. Turns out that's not going to happen in the near future, at least with this publisher. Their budget just doesn't allow it until next year. Pat was upbeat and suggested that there are other possibilities, but it's still kind of a blow, especially since it sounded so certain. Heck, I even did that testimonial. I hope no one thinks I'm a liar now...
But this is all why my constant prayer in this process has been for God to help me keep my eyes on Him. If I went with my emotions along the way, I'd be carving out my own eyeballs with a wood chisel at the moment. But I know He's got a plan, so all I can do is faithfully plug away and trust there's something else on the other side of this particular valley.
My hinder still hurts, though.
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