365 days of 40, #264-269

Okay, working 2 jobs really sucks. It's not even so much the hours, because when I'm on a film set, it's long crazy hours, but there truly is a difference between doing what you love and doing what you have to do to survive.  There is also an end in sight. Right now things life they're never going to get better.  Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to be employed, but I think there are better ways to go about doing it.  I'm also lucky, considering the different call lines I could have landed on, the xbox line is going to be pretty cake.

In the meantime, I submitted my script, JAL to the Nichols Fellowship.  Winning that would be spectacular, and I would love to win, but I'll settle for landing in the quarter or semi finals. It would be a huge boost to my career.  I've also been writing my application for the Sundance Labs.  It's taken so much longer than I had hoped, but it's definitely a good thing that I started already.  It's not one that waiting till the last possible date will work, they want you really work for it.  There are a couple of other contests that I want to enter, so we'll just have to see.

Once the Sundance Lab application is done, it's time to go back to Confessions.  The next production meeting will be on Saturday and then a conference call on Sunday.  I can't believe how things are coming together.  It's going to be nice to prove everyone wrong who didn't believe in me and show than just what I'm capable of doing. 

I keep repeating to myself, everything is perfect just the way it is right now. And it is.  The motivation for change is pretty overwhelming right now. 

365 days of 40, #261-263

So I'm on day 3 of working 2 jobs.  I have to say, it's not my favorite thing in the world, but it is keeping me motivated to do more than I already am. This is why I'm excited about Saturday, I have my first production meeting planned.  It's going to be be and my executive producer just sitting down and hashing things out.  I have a list of to do's and agenda items to discuss, but wow, it's such a great feeling to know that I'm taking a step closer to my dream. 

I would love to write more about stuff, but I'm so dang tired, my brain is wiped out.  It's time to just sleep.  Writing will come soon enough.

365 days of 40, #259-260

So yesterday was a geeky girl's dream. Not only did we get there early enough to see Nathan Fillion (and have really awesome seats), I saw Adam Baldwin and Sir Patrick Stewart.  I pretty much parked myself in the main ballroom and I managed to sir in the front row and saw Sci Fi icon after Sci Fi icon.  Extremely amazing day.

I also got to see old friends who I hadn't seen for ever and meet some new people as well.  I pimped Confessions and worked towards following my dream.

While there, I met an awesome author, Michaelbrent Collings, who was willing to spend some time talking to me.  I told him that I was on an emotional roller coaster, fluctuating between feeling like I could do it and being on top of the World to feeling like I was never going to make it and crashing to the depths of despair.  He reassured me that I was normal and if I wasn't feeling that way, I wasn't doing it right.  He even gave me one of his books, which I'm looking forward to reading.

The hardest part for me is knowing that I start a new job tomorrow, which means for the foreseeable future, I'm going to have 2 jobs.  I have decided to make the most of the limited time that I'm going to have and force myself to be the most productive writer I've ever been.  I'm only going to have 4 hours a day to work on things so I need to make it happen.

The game plan is on motion, it's not time to lose momentum now.

365 days of 40, #256-258

The last few days have been awesome, but again, still have very mixed emotions.  Comic con has been a blast, but not being able to have X attend really sucks. I spent the day looking for the perfect gifts for him, and since he's more than slightly obsessed with Minecraft, I found some good geeky stuff for him that he really liked. 

M has had so much fun, she's been so cute when she's met the authors that she likes, going a little star struck. Having her friend has been good, they can keep each other company, especially when I'm walking really slow. 

I managed to do a number on my knee, again. Yesterday, while crossing the street, I stepped wrong and I've had to spend the last 2 days walking on crutches, so I haven't taken nearly the pictures I wanted, but such is life.  I even managed to hand out my business card to a few people.

The hardest part has been the back and forth of emotions, from feeling that being a film maker is possible, to thinking is completely impossible.  The roller coaster has not been fun.  I'm trying to do a "state change" and it's only partially working.

Tomorrow is the last day of Comic con, and I'm falling asleep.  I'll write more later. Hopefully we can see Nathan Fillion in the morning. We have to get the early.  So time for bed.

365 days of 40, #254-255

Yesterday was very emotional.  Having a sick child is no fun and dealing with their school is even less fun.  Because of the cyclical vomiting syndrome that X has missed more school than he's actually been and needless to say, the school is frustrated and I can't really blame them.  His missing school has caused problems for all the teachers and it's just a pain.  No one is to blame in this situation, it's just a difficult position to be in. We'll get it worked out, I'm confident, it just might take a bit of effort on my part.

The hardest part for me though is seeing my handsome teenage son barely being able to get out of bed and throws up practically everything he eats.  The doctor and I have been talking a lot lately. We've had to make so many changes with his medications, trying to find the right ones that will help him feel better. 

With that all on my mind yesterday, things were not all that productive.  Today has been a much better day.  I got job applications out, worked on the Confessions website and had a job interview.  The interview want quite what I had expected, the shift wasn't going to ultimately work out and I said as much to the place, and because I have some good tech skills and scored well on their customer service test, they liked me and got me an interview with another department tomorrow.  We'll just have to see how it goes.

It will be nice to actually make enough money to support my family while I get the creative outlets in my life up and running. I can see a bright future in store with both career goals and with taking care of the family if I stay on track with my goals. 

I am choosing to believe that everything that is happening is perfect for right now and that's a pretty good feeling.

365 days of 40, #252-253

Yesterday when I got home, I was completely exhausted.  Mentoring was good and I'm glad I did it. It was a good reminder of where I'm heading and helped me get refocused for my journey over the next few months with my kickstarter and Web series.  I added a couple of people to my team and I'm looking forward to planning the first production meeting in a couple of weeks.  Between that and knowing that I'm going to be coaching my first power 90 course, I have a lot to help me get that moving.

In the meantime, I'm still looking for a fulltime job.  Hopefully something will pan out.  I don't know what, and it's completely stressing me out.  I'm trying to figure out how to create at least an extra $1000 a month.  It doesn't sound like a lot, until you don't have it.  I'm thinking about starting a couple of small businesses, but I'm just not sure how to make them work.  It just seems like it takes money to make money, but if you don't have money in the first place, it seems almost impossible to make any more.

365 days of 40, #249-251

Between not sleeping well because of severe allergies and being completely exhausted because I've been mentoring my first power of choice, the last few days have been rather hectic. 

Mentoring has been a good experience. I have some good students that I've enjoyed getting to know.  I'll write more about them tomorrow. Tonight, in writing about why I'm mentoring.  I'm definitely getting more out of it this time than the first time I went through.  The first time it was so overwhelming, because there was so much information.  Power 90 helped me cement those ideas into my brain and it's now a review for me.  A refresher course that has been very much needed. 

I've been letting negative thoughts over come me in spite of all of the things that I've doing to move forward.  Some negative experiences that happened when I worked on Action!!! kept coming to my brain and it is no wonder that I've had so much anxiety about shooting confessions.  I just have to keep reminding myself that I've learned from the mistakes that I made and I can make new and better mistakes.

I've been feeling paralyzed with fear, afraid to make mistakes because it would mean that I'm dumb but mistakes are a part of life.  I love my motto, because it reminds me that I'm normal.  What a concept!?! It's time to move past my fears and anxiety and accept me for me because I'm worthy of living my dream.

Here's to making my dream a reality.

365 days of 40, #248

What a day!!!

In the past, part of my problem was that I was a perfectionist and allowed myself to get hung up on things, if it wasn't done right, then what was the point.  This has been especially true when it comes to making movies.  I know what a professional set should be like so it's been hard for me to put that to the back of my mind and just make something.  It's also been why I've struggled to figure out how to shoot Confessions.  I know what it needs to be and in the back of my mind, if I couldn't pay everyone, then who would cone and work worth me.  The thing is, there are people who will work for free to build their resumes and get experience. I have a good project that will be lots of fun to work on. 

Today, I finally just let go of all of my pre conceived ideas of perfection and I'm just doing what needs to be done.  It's all small steps, but they are all things that need to be done, so I might as well as get off my butt and make things happen.  I bought the domain for my Web series and I bought business cards to pass out at Comic Con to help raise awareness of the show.  I have at least one kid who is bound and determined to give my card to Nathan Fillion. It's so awesome to have someone believe in me, and herself.  She wants the past of the teen girl in the show, so she wants to make it happen.  A good bit of motivation.

I still have so much to do, but launching the Kickstarter on June 1 seems to be doable. While it sucks to only have a part time job, this job is letting me get so much done.  I am being blessed, things will happen.  I just need to have faith and confidence in me and my abilities. 

365 days of 40, #243-247

I wish I could say I've been productive the lady several days, but mostly I did a marathon tv watching weekend, first I finished up The Killing then some Game of Thrones. One of these days I will get all caught up on the show.  I did actually work some more on getting my house clean and my kitchen is almost done.  Still working my way through the rest of the house, slowly but surely moving along. 

I did aldo get some job applications sent out this morning first thing.  The rest of the time was spent on the kickstarter for Confessions. I've been back and forth with trying to decide if this is going to be a webseries or a feature length film. There are pros and cons for each of them.  I think sitting down with my producers and having a heart to heart is really what's needed.  I have a tentative game plan, but without some concrete plans, it's not going to be going very far very fast. I think tomorrow I need to make a definitive list of what I need to do and what I need my producers to do. 

June 1 is coming fast and I have lots to get done before I launch the campaign. 

365 days of 40, #241-242

I've sent out 2 more queries for my screenplay.  One to a production company, the other an agent.  Hopefully as I go along, I'll get better at writing them, it's very nerve wracking.  But it's happening, really happening.  Slower than I originally planned, but still going it.  Setting goals is extremely important and having a plan makes it so much effective. 

I really need to settle down and write up my next power 90 goal.  I know part of the delay has been my indecisiveness about what I wanted to do.  I'm still torn, just trying to figure out what to focus on. There's something to be said for sticking with inertia and keeping focused on the screenwriting goals, but feeling like I'm going to be making movie is more motivating, so I could in theory be working with fundraising goals,  kickstarter stuff while I finish the script. In fact as I write that, it's the one that I think makes the most sense: Doing preproduction and development at the same time so that once the script is done, we just immediately move into production so that no time is lost in the transition, using each different aspect to push the other one towards completion.

Definitely something to consider.

In the meantime, I keep thinking about the 1st crush of my life and I hate to admit it, because I was trying to be all cool, calm and collected, but I really do hope he calls me. It's hard to say no to the allure, or at least the hope and daydream that the one who said no all those years ago will finally come to his senses and finally want you. I think all those who have been victim of unrequited love hopes for that.