Auditions, Rejections, Resolutions

Yesterday, for the first time, I had a voice acting audition in front of people I didn’t know.

With acting — even just the voice-only type — there is zero room for self-doubt. You’ve got to go for it, put yourself out there. You’ve got to nod when you’re given direction and assure everyone that, yes, you can do it. You’ve got to be angry when the dialogue is angry, or happy, or frustrated, or sad. You make faces, you gesticulate wildly, you do everything you can to capture the emotion in just a few tiny words.

In short, you have to be unabashedly uninhibited.

And then it’s over. You’re thanked for your time, everyone makes appreciative noises, and you have no idea if they actually liked you. Will you get a call-back, or in a few months, will you see the project released with someone else reading your part?

It’s crazy! But I will say this: having fifteen years of writing experience is certainly helping me cope with this new adventure. All those rejections — hundreds of them — really helped to prepare me for this new variety of emotional turbulence. I didn’t get the part? No problem. There’s always the next audition, the next role, the next opportunity. Sometimes a story isn’t a good fit at a particular market or with a particular editor, just like my voice may not fit with a project’s “direction.”

Picking yourself up after failure is actually a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets.

My next goal: bring more of that “unabashedly uninhibited”-ness to my writing. (Although, I might have to tone down the gesticulation in order to type.)