With apologies to David Mamet, in Glengarry Glen Ross, he got it wrong. ABC is not “Always Be Closing,” it’s “Always Be Creating.” Because a close, you can’t control. Creation? You can. Every time.
I’ll be the first to admit, there is very little we control, in creative careers. When I interviewed a larger portion of the casting community than anyone else ever has, a theme was, “Control what little you can.”
Back then — 1999 through 2003, when I wrote “Casting Qs” for Backstage — the things you could control included selecting a headshot that looks like you, formatting your resumé correctly, editing your demo reel to highlight your best work, submitting early and appropriately, and really working on your audition material before showing up (early) for your session.
Today? Things have changed. “No duh, Bon.” I know. But the biggest thing that has changed in the 15 years I’ve been writing for actors is this: You have no excuse to stay bummed, when you’re feeling as if you’re at one of those career lows.
Notice that I didn’t say anything about never GETTING to a career low. You will. I will. We all will. That’s part of choosing a creative career. We WILL be bummed sometimes. That’s okay.
And the way out is this: Always Be Creating.
Open Final Draft and bang out a scene starring you. Not inspired by YOU as the star? Write a scene for a friend. Not a writer? Take a writer friend out for drinks and pitch a concept for him to write up.
Not into writing at all? Rehearse a monologue. Pull down sides from Showfax and self-tape an audition for no purpose other than to study your own tics and tricks. Work out your craft muscle outside of your craft class.
The one thing that generates work — every time — is doing the work. Sure, a lot of other stuff *can* also generate work, but this one is foolproof. Creativity never stops flowing into your life when you never stop creating.
When you stop to focus inward, asking yourself: “Where did it all go?!?” after you’ve had a crazy-awesome run of bookings and suddenly things run dry, you stop the flow. That doesn’t mean you should never take a good, hard look at what you can improve. I’m assuming you’re always looking at what you could do better, or else you wouldn’t be taking the time to do things like read these columns every week. But it means you shouldn’t navel-gaze for too long, in service of “figuring out where it all went wrong.”
Get back at it. Get back at it fast (or else you’ll have a steeper hill to climb).
What can you create today? Lemme hear from you. I wanna know!
PS — I’d like take a moment to let y’all know that the 4th edition of Self-Management for Actors is HERE! Hooray! For those of you waiting for your pre-ordered copies via Amazon and Barnes and Noble, I understand it’ll be a couple of weeks, as the books make their way from our international distributor to their wholesalers and then to the warehouses of the good folks who sell books at the corporate level. If you pre-ordered through us, your copy went out last week! Yippee! If you’re in LA and you’d now like to grab your copy from us directly, please stop by the office at 310 Casting to do so. Thank you so much, beautiful people, for your support of this new edition. We’re excited to launch its accompanying website for up-to-the-minute downloads of information that keeps the book updated, as well as quarterly SMFA phone calls, to help with any tune-ups you may need along the way. Yay!
Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!
Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001777.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.