Bon Amie,
I’ve just finished the 4th edition of Self-Management for Actors. I read the previous edition as well. I loved it. But I was in awe as I read the 4th edition (like a novel… I just couldn’t put the damn thing down), to see how much you had literally rewritten a new book from scratch.
Your writing is superb, alive, funny, enticing, and yet, as you say, you killed off your babies, which requires a lot of courage. By doing so, you applied the very principles you give: “Clear the clutter!” “Move on!” You definitely practice what you preach. Very inspiring.
Love,
Oscar
Oscar, thank you. I adore that you were able to appreciate how many babies I killed off, in going from the 3rd to the 4th edition. It’s always difficult, as I update a book, to trust that I’m not removing something I’ll later wish I’ve kept in, but it was especially important with this new edition to truly modernize the book. Now that it’s a textbook not just in colleges but in high schools around the world as well, I knew that walking the walk was essential.
When I look at actors’ demo reels and resumés and see them keeping around a lot of sentimental material that’s simply NOT serving them, I realize exactly why I call it “killing off babies.” It’s *tough* to let go of some of those favorite clips or credits.
But here’s what I realized about it all: If we get precious about our every clip on our reels, our every credit on our resumés, our every chapter in our awesome books, we are behaving as if our best work is not still to come. We are behaving as if our glory days are behind us and there is no room for the brilliance we have yet to create.
Think about that. We should rejoice in killing off babies because it means we have now done better work, created stronger babies (which we will someday kill off because we’ll have created a still stronger one, and another, and another). Let’s all get good at killing off babies! It means we are creating better work, every new round, and trust that we always will.
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/001855.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.