It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written a blog post. And it’s not like there’s nothing going on in my life. On the contrary — I’ve been incredibly busy. But I feel like I’m in the middle of a lot of projects and endeavors, and not ready to write about them yet.

I’ve had a number of initial conversations about job opportunities that are still up in the air. I’ve been working on a freelance social media project that’s not yet wrapped up. My YouTube channel continues to grow. I have an upcoming video editing gig.

These are all endeavors that will make great topics for this blog. But I need to see them to the end — or at least to a major milestone — first.

And this all has gotten me thinking about the future of this blog.

I started this blog with the sole purpose of documenting my journey exploring potential new career paths during my sabbatical from work. Of course, since then, it has evolved to include entries about personal struggles and developments, as well as reflections on work and life. 

But I like to think that, on the whole, my primary focus of Better Late Than ______ has remained my career journey.

So, what will happen when I return to work?

Obviously, I’ll still be on a career journey, but the changes and developments will happen over a longer period of time. I anticipate increasingly larger stretches of time where I’m “in the middle” of something, with not much to update.

So, does this blog shift to more personal development topics? I definitely have a lot to tackle in this arena.

It’s really hard to determine now. And maybe I don’t really need to determine anything.

I think no matter what the topic, I have recently decided to only write a new blog when I feel like I have a valuable update — thus the longer gaps in between posts.

So here’s my update to say: I don’t really have much to update … yet.

Let me start by stating the obvious: 2020 has not panned out the way I expected it to.

Yes, I know. Understatement.

At the beginning of the year, I was groggily adjusting to life with a newborn, starting to plan my return to full-time work, and wasting no time returning to theater. 

I was in rehearsals for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, playing a bucket-list role, Maggie. And later that summer I was going to be taking on the role of Isabella in Measure for Measure. This was promising to be a big year in theater for me, with huge creative growth.

And then, we all know what happened.

Mid-march, a week before Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was slated to open, California’s shelter-in-place order came in. As the weeks went by, and the order continued to extend, it became clear that the production wasn’t going to open anytime soon.

Even more weeks passed, and I got the official notice — the summer Shakespeare season was being pushed to (hopefully) 2021.

And just like that, my year of reaching new artistic heights vanished.

Or so I thought.

Theater in the Time of Coronavirus

At the beginning of Shelter in Place, I joined throngs of theater people desperately trying to find any substitute for the stage and rehearsal room.

I filled my evenings with Zoom play and other script readings. I even got to read Isabella — admittedly not quite as satisfying speaking to a computer screen, reminding my scene partner to unmute himself.

I wouldn’t say these readings did much to help improve my acting skills. Rather, I saw them as a way to stay connected and prevent “getting rusty.”

Then came a voiceover gig for a mobile game, and more recently, voiceover work for an animated video series. I also took part in a radio play of sorts, performed via Zoom.

These projects allowed me to really focus on my voice and fine-tuning that instrument.

And then came Much Ado About Nothing. I was doing Shakespeare this year, afterall! And in another bucket-list role, no less — Beatrice.

We ended up doing the production pretty much as a film, which really allowed me to work on my film acting skills. I also performed in a Zoom production of Dracula; while live, the closeness of the camera and microphone also had me tap more into film acting techniques, rather than stage acting ones.

While theater acting has to be big to a certain extent (especially outdoor theater), film acting allows you to practice subtly. 

And for the past few months, I’ve role-played as part of a Dungeons and Dragons game live-streamed on Twitch. This has allowed me to really work on character development (I wrote a 5-page backstory) and improv.

And, of course, I haven’t only focused on acting. As I detailed in my previous blog post, I also wrote for a 48 Hour Film Project competition, and won the Best Writing award! And, of course,  I launched my YouTube channel, gaining valuable skills in video production and editing.

All in all, I’ve probably worked on more creative projects (and more diversity in projects) this year than I have in any year past!

I can definitively say that I’ve achieved that creative growth after all.

The key was accepting projects for what they were. Not trying to make them be substitutes for live theater shows, expecting the same experiences or to gain the same skills. But rather, appreciating the opportunity to develop different skills.

These new experiences — many of which, I might not have explored if the pandemic didn’t happen — and the new skills I gained from them, have ultimately given me a more well-rounded acting tool-set leaving me more poised than ever to excel on stage, when live theater returns.

What do you do when you’re tasked with creating a politics-themed short film, in 48 hours — oh and because of COVID restrictions, there can only be one actor on set?

Write about debating office supplies, of course!

This was the scene, last month, when I participated in another 48-hour film project competition. Once again, I joined as head writer for my team, challenged with writing the script in one evening.

And I will say — this was some of the fastest writing I’ve done!

It’s always daunting going into this competition. What if I can think of any good ideas? What if I run into major writer’s block? What if my dialogue all sounds cliche and derivative? In other words, the imposter syndrome is in full force.

But without fail, the ideas come. The words flow. And the dialogue brings a smile to my face. 

After writing for three of these competitions, there are definitely some tricks that make the writing process easier. And these can apply to any writing project — or in some cases, any non-writing project.

Prepare what you can ahead of time

In case you’ve missed my past blogs about the competition, the 48-hour film project charges teams with creating a 4-7 minute film in … you guessed it — 48 hours. The night that the competition kicks off, each team randomly receives two film genres, and their final submission must be one of those two genres. There is also a required character, prop and line of dialogue that has to be included in the film.

While teams don’t receive their requirements until the competition commences, there’s a lot of pre-planning that can happen. From a writing standpoint, you can understand the limitations and resources.

For our team, we knew that given the restrictions around COVID, we would only be able to film at the director’s home and would only have one actor to work with in person. However, we did have access to other actors who could do voiceover, so early on, we thought a story with a person and an inanimate object might work well.

And while we wouldn’t receive our genres until the first night of the competition, we did know all the possible genres we could receive. So I was able to do some early thinking on possible concepts for each genre.

Split up the project into stages

Friday night of the competition we received our genres — Politics and Mystery.

With only one evening, the instinct can be to start writing as soon as possible. But I knew from past competitions, that breaking the process down into stages would ultimately make the entire process run a lot more smoothly.

Here was the flow of our process:

• Brainstorm ideas for each genre
• Review all ideas and choose the winner
• Sketch out the basic story line
• Identify traits of each character
• Split up the story among each writer for individual drafts
• Combine dialogue
• Edit
• Edit again
• Edit some more
• And did I mention edit?

It seems like a lot of steps. But by breaking down the project into smaller stages, we were able to focus on each task and prevented ourselves from getting too overwhelmed.

Know when to work as a group vs. individually

For this year’s competition, I worked with two other writers. And while there’s benefit to having more points of view and ideas, if you tried to make every single decision by committee, nothing would get done.

So, we started out by separating and doing an individual brainstorm of story ideas for each genre. I know that may seem a little counterintuitive — shouldn’t the brainstorm phase be where people work as a team? Well, by starting with an individual brainstorm, we were able to generate 3 times the amount of ideas in the same span of time. Plus, with a group brainstorm, sometimes less experienced or less confident people may hold back their ideas.

From there, we toggled between individual work and group work. 

We came together as a team to review ideas, choose our winning story idea and do an initial discussion about the basic story and characters. 

Office supplies having a debate about which one was the BEST office supply.

Then we separated to do an individual brainstorm on character traits.

Ballpoint pens are the standard and traditional. Staplers are about unity and bringing things together.

From there, we regrouped to finalize the characters and stories and split up the story into acts. With individual writing assignments, we then broke to draft our respective sections. After that, we came together again to combine our scripts.

By switching between working together and working separately, not only were we able to take advantage of which phase benefitted from group vs. individual work, we were also able to avoid (or at least delay) mental fatigue.

And in addition to gauging when to work as a team and when to write individually, as head writer, I had to know when to ultimately take the reins and complete the project on my own. Once we combined our scripts, it made sense for one person to edit, refine and get it over the finish line to make sure the final product had a consistent voice.

Nothing is precious

I had a co-worker give this advice to me once: “Nothing is precious.”

What she meant was that sometimes we need to give up on or majorly change an idea or piece of work, if it doesn’t end up working for the project.

And this happened multiple times during this writing project. Great lines of dialogue we had to cut out due to time. Funny characters we gave the axe to because they didn’t fit within the story.

By keeping an eye on the ultimate goal — in our case, an engaging story that fit within 4-7 minutes — we knew when something had to be cut.

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In the end, we came up with a funny, yet poignant script, that we were all quite happy with…

… and so were the judges — we won Best Writing! And Best Film! And a slew of other awards!

Check it out:

As an actor, one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received is that “when you walk into the audition room, you aren’t just auditioning for a role, you’re auditioning for the director.”

This is really speaking to the fact that sometimes there are factors outside of your control that will prevent you from landing the part. The director is going for a certain look. The director already has another actor in mind. The director wants the character to tap dance (in a non-musical), and you’re a beginner, at best (yes, this has actually happened to me).

But just because you don’t get the role, doesn’t mean you didn’t make an impression on the director, who may keep you in mind for a future project. And it doesn’t mean you didn’t gain valuable learnings from the audition — areas you’re particularly strong in and opportunities to improve your skills for the next audition.

And the same can be said for job interviews.

I recently had an interview for a content manager role. And while it didn’t turn into an offer, I still got some valuable lessons that will help me in my future interviews.

“What are you hoping to grow into or gain from this role?”

This was an interesting question to get, and to be honest, in the moment, I didn’t have a great answer.

I’ve spent a lot of time refining my narrative about my career history, this sabbatical and why I’m looking to pursue content-related roles. But I haven’t put much thought into what my path looks like once I do land a content marketing/management role. 

Part of that is just unfamiliarity with the typical path in that specific field. In which case, I just got a new homework assignment — learn more about these types of roles, people who do this type of work, and what a typical career in content marketing and management looks like. 

Learning: Be prepared to talk about where you’ve been, but also where you want to go.

“Tell me about a time when you made content decisions based on results analysis.”

Ok, ok. This question was obviously very specific to this particular role, but almost any interviewee can expect to be asked to give an example of a project related to the role.

And I was wholly unprepared. Rookie mistake.

Now, I was prepared with examples and anecdotes about managing content production projects. And to be fair, the job description did focus on that type of work. However, I should have paid attention to the job responsibilities and requirements that were further down the list, and have work examples ready for those.

Learning: Be prepared to speak to every single bullet point in the job description.

“Do you have direct experience working on SEO projects?”

Ah yes, this was the question I was afraid I was going to get.

Again, this specific question was related to the role I was interviewing for, but it reminded me of a common thing that can happen when applying to and interviewing for a job: there may be a duty included in the job description, and it’s sometimes difficult to determine how big a part it plays in the role.

For this role, it was search engine optimization. The job description mentioned doing keyword research to help identity potential content topics. And under experience, they asked for some familiar with search engine optimization best practices. However, they also mentioned that the content manager would work cross-functionally with SEO, which led me to believe there was a team that really specialized in the nitty-gritty of SEO — particularly technical SEO — and that as the content manager I would just need to be familiar enough to best implement their recommendations.

And I did take some online courses ahead of the interview to brush up on the most up-to-date best practices and techniques.

But during the interview, it became clear that the hiring manager was looking for someone with more direct, hands-on SEO experience.

And perhaps, there’s not much else I could have done. It’s not like I could suddenly just take on and complete an SEO project.

But knowing that this could possibly be a question, I could have had a better-prepared answer, proving that while I didn’t have examples of SEO projects I’ve worked on directly, my combination of knowledge and related experience would allow me to get up to speed on the type of work quickly.

Learning: Even if you think a particular duty or skill is just a small part of a role, prepare for it anyway!

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While I didn’t move forward with that particular role, I did get the feedback that the hiring manager really enjoyed speaking with me and that they’d be in touch if any future opportunities became available.

Again — you’re not just auditioning (or interviewing!) for the role, you’re auditioning for the director.

For the last couple of posts, I’ve talked about trying to carve out time to focus on some major goals. One of those goals — which seems particularly valuable while we continue to shelter in place — is to accomplish a deep clean, organization and purge of our apartment. 

I set upon tackling this goal by doing what I would do with any project — I created my to-do list of tasks and milestones that would get me to my ultimate goal. For this residential endeavor, it meant going room by room and breaking down the work into small, manageable chores.

Vacuum the rug. Dust the TV stand. Scrub the shower. Mop the kitchen floors.

From here, it’s as simple as going through the to-do list and checking off my tasks, right?

With any work project, that’s what I would do. But here’s the thing with a project like this: I check off an item, but before I can make it through the entire list, I’ll have to go back and do that task again.

This is an apartment that is lived in and used after all. Even more so now. I can’t just vacuum the rug once and be done with it forever. I vacuum the rug, do some other tasks, vacuum the rug again, do some other tasks again while also trying to find time to tackle some new to-dos.

It’s an interesting cycle. It’s not as simple as moving through a to-do list one by one — greeting a task, working on it and then bidding it adieu to meet a new task. Instead, I find myself undertaking item after item, only to then add them to a growing list of maintenance tasks; all while trying to still take on new to-dos with my shrinking availability.

And this seems like a perfect analogy for my whole life right now. I feel like I have a long list of things I want to explore and try, but a roster of commitments to maintain that leave me with less and less time to take on new projects.

Treading water gets you nowhere. And treading water too long leaves you little energy to swim forward and reach the shore.

So, that’s how I’m feeling at the moment. I don’t know if I have the answer on how to fix it. For now, I just have to try to keep the shore in my sights and my head above water.

Last week, feeling overwhelmingly busy yet underwhelming productive, I tasked myself with taking a step back; reflecting on my priorities; and carving out more time to work on some major goals.

Confirming my goals

As part of this re-prioritization exercise, I wanted to revisit my top goals to confirm these were still the areas I wanted to work on. After all, was there a reason I had not devoted much energy to any of them?

My original goals were:

• Get my home clean and organized
• Lose weight and get in shape
• Generate income from acting
• Generate income from podcasting

I ultimately decided to change that last goal to: Generate income from content creation. I will likely focus on YouTube, blogging and Instagram as my outlets for this new goal rather than podcasting.

SMART criteria

As I shift more of my focus to these big goals, I want to put them through the SMART test. According to Wikipedia, SMART is an acronym, “giving criteria to guide in the setting of objectives”. It stands for:

• Specific: goals are well-defined & focused.
• Measurable: you are able to provide evidence of progress.
• Attainable: you can reasonably accomplish the goal.
• Relevant: goals align with your values and long-term objectives.
• Time-bound: goals have a realistic, yet ambitious, deadline.

Specific & Measure

These two criteria often go hand-in-hand. The process of narrowing your goal and outlining the specifics often involves putting numbers around what you want to achieve. 

These criteria were easiest to apply to my weight loss goal — I simply identified a target weight I want to achieve.

For my home goal, I specified that I want to be able to walk into every room where all the surfaces are clean (dusted, swept, vacuumed, etc.), every item has its own place, and each object is wanted or needed (though, it doesn’t necessarily need to spark joy!).

Now, my two career-based goals were a little harder to define. What exactly do I mean by “generate income”? 

Technically, I already have and regularly do make money from acting … albeit not that much. So what is different and/or new that I want to accomplish in this arena? Well, let’s say I want to make at least minimum wage from the gig (sadly, none of my theater gigs come anywhere close to this). I have gotten gigs here and there that meet that criteria, so I don’t think securing one gig is enough to feel like I’ve accomplished this goal. Instead, I’ve set a goal of doing at least 10 acting gigs where the stipend/rate/pay compared to the hours that go into it equal at least minimum wage. I figure by the time I achieve 10 gigs, I will have a lot of learnings that will allow me to set my next goal in this area.

As for generating income from content creation, I’ve never done that before. So, I feel like my goal can be a little smaller (though no less hard to achieve since I’m just a beginner in this area). I will consider this goal achieved when I have made any ad revenue or secured at least one sponsorship.

Attainable

My weight loss and home organization goals are definitely attainable … because I’ve achieved them before.

The career-based goals are a little less certain. Both are areas where a lot is out of my control. No matter how well I do at an audition, at the end of the day, I just might not be what the director is looking for. I can launch a YouTube channel/blog/etc but there’s no guarantee that people will watch/read/etc.

I do think the acting and content creation goals are ultimately attainable, but it’s hard to know what time-frame to set.

Relevant

As these are all personal goals, it’s pretty clear they are relevant. But in general, this is a good criterion to ensure that you are pursuing goals that really matter to you and not because you feel like others expect them of you or because your peers are working toward similar goals.

Time-bound

This is the area I’m still working on for all of my goals. I think before I can set a clear end date for each goal, I need to outline the milestones and tasks that will lead up to my ultimate goals. Once I do that I can more easily put timelines around everything and set target dates. I think my career-based goals will have longer time-frames than my other two goals.

I am pausing my blog series on starting a YouTube channel because there’s something more important to talk about right now.

The deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd have sparked outrage and protests across the country … and the world. 

The sad thing: we all know this isn’t new, and they aren’t the only ones. Why the hell is this still happening?

Inaction.

Inaction from our leaders. And for a lot of us, inaction from ourselves.

So, let’s act. I’ve compiled some of the resources that have been circulating social media. This work is not my own; I’ve merely put them together. This is by no means an exhaustive list. If you have come across more, please post in the comments.

Take immediate action

Demand Justice & Change

• Resources for Accountability and Actions for Black Lives: This document was put together by Carlisa Johnson. The top of the document includes steps to demand accountability and justice for David Mcattee, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Sean Reed, and James Scurlock. There are also links of bail funds and other organizations to donate.
• H.Res.988 – Condemning All Acts of Police Brutality, Racial Profiling, and the Use of Excessive and Militarized Force: Email your rep in Congress and ask them to sign on to support.

Donate

• Black Lives Matter
• NAACP Legal Defense Fund
• Bail funds by city/region: Support protesters in your area
• Bail funds: split your donation: You can split your donation across all of the bail funds
• Other consolidated lists:
  • The Cut: How to Support the Struggle Against Police Brutality
  • Allure: Where to Donate to Support the Black Lives Matter Movement Right Now
  • Thrillist: Here’s How You Can Support the Black Community & the National Movement Right Now

Protest

• Wired: How to Protest Safely: What to Bring, What to Do, and What to Avoid
• Amnesty International: Safety During Protest
• Vox: How to more safely protest in a pandemic

Educate

Consolidated Resources

• Talking About Race portal from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture
• Scaffolded Anti-Racist Resources
• Anti-racism resources for white people
• Resources: Asians for Black Lives

Reading Lists

• San Francisco Public Library reading list about racism, #BlackLivesMatter and the pervasiveness of white supremacy.
• Children’s books to support conversations on race, racism and resistance

Be an Ally

• 10 Step to Non-Optical Allyship from @mireillecharper

Support Black Businesses

• Black-owned restaurants in the Bay Area
• EatOkra app: find local Black-owned restaurants
• WeBuyBlack: global marketplace for Black-owned businesses
• Official Black Wall Street app: Search & discover thousands of Black-owned businesses near you.

Make it a Long-term Mission

After the media coverage and protests have died down, it will be easy to fall back into inaction. But if history has taught us anything, this is a long-term fight, and we need to keep the momentum going.

We won’t necessarily always do or say the right thing. This is a time for learning, re-educating and listening with humility.

The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward. https://t.co/DL3c2vIXcB

— Ijeoma Oluo (@IjeomaOluo) July 15, 2019

My friend Vera recently gifted me “Becoming: A Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice”, which is a companion piece to Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming. The journal includes many prompts that really push you to do some self-reflection.

Well, I cracked open the journal and immediately found myself stuck at the first prompt:

What’s your story and how have you learned to embrace it?

My mind raced. What is my story? How — or when — would I start? How would it end? Is there even an ending yet? I feel like I’m still in the middle of my story and the ending is still very much a mystery to me. Hell, I don’t even know what to expect from the next chapter!

It’s an interesting question because it made me realize that we really get to write our own story. And I’m not talking about the future and making choices that affect our journey. I’m talking about looking back at the whole of our life and weaving together the bits that we choose in order to create the tale of us.

Our story is not a complete documentation of our life. Our story is a curated history. We choose what to tell and what not to tell.

Do I only tell the good parts? Well, if you’ve read my blog, you know I wouldn’t do that. But what do I focus on? Is there a main theme? How long is this story?

I’m still not sure how I’ll answer this prompt. I’m sure there will be many drafts. But my goal is to reflect on it this week and try to get something down on paper.

So stayed tuned. Maybe I’ll have a tale for you next week.