It was just two days, but I really did have a great time with these guys. It's weird how you can come together for a project and just get on with people you've never really met before. There were times where we even got on too well and had to be chastened mildly so we could get our work done. But! For a few days, we made zee magics for the camera and we had a lot of laughs and that was just raw fun.
Basically, my whole role takes place around the D&D table. Some of us had scripted in game characters. I was Sam-Dumb, the Barbarian, whom I decided was a gnome. While we were waiting for shots to get set up, some of us actually filled out our character sheets. You can have a look at mine here. It contains gems such as "Maximum Hit Points: Infinity" and "Flaws: Hybris... NONE."
We obviously weren't looking to create characters by the rules, but the jokes on everyone's sheets were genius and I'm only sad that they never really get featured. We'll just chalk it all up to our very rich character development rituals. My personal favorites for other people included:
Alignment: Bi
Alignment: Pilates
Languages: Horse Whispering and Horse Yelling.
A caster's health points: 180
I seriously should have take more pictures of our stuff. It was great.
One of the great privileges of working on this was getting just be an actor. Often times on webseries sets, you have multiple jobs. Frankly, at the Renaissance Faire we all chipped in when and where we could to get the whole job done. That was definitely the case for other people on this set, but I really just had to show up, get dressed in my costume, have my make and hair done, do some line throughs, and get the scenes shot relatively unscathed. I say relatively because for some reason after we punch in to my close ups, I always have a tendency to somehow FORGET my lines. How silly is that? It was just really nice to be able to focus on character and exploration and being present when the cameras got rolling while not trying to do a million other things at the same time, which I always seem to be doing on my other projects. It was so refreshing and such a gift to get to focus on what I enjoy doing most for the last few days and it was just a nice bonus that the other people on set, both cast and crew, were so much fun. Plus, on my second day, our Costume Designer, Elise VanderKley, gave me Princess Leia buns. MY WILDEST ON CAMERA DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE. I can die happy now.
So please take a moment to visit the Bill Lowe (the pillow) Facebook page. You can watch the season one videos on YouTube and follow the show on Twitter to keep abreast of all Pillow type uploads and news. I'm sure there will be more as they ramp up to release season two! I'll certainly be linking my episodes here and on my Facebook page (which you should Like on the side bar here because I link a lot of cool stuff there guys!).
I did not manage to eat any better today, so I just got it out of my system and had the ice cream I've been craving on my way home. Bah. Tomorrow will be a better day and a day to get on track once more. The good thing is that I have a lot already cooked, so I don't have to really try very hard.
I made it through the day relatively well, considering I had social obligations in the evening. I probably didn't need TWO glasses of wine, BUT IT HAPPENED and white wine was on my Paleo approved list of alcohols. The fish was wonderful and fresh and I have to give a shout out to my friend Steven who gifted me such a wonderful dinner and introduced me to some of his awesome family members along the way. The Tuna, in every incarnation, was glorious. Everything was so glorious that I didn't take a picture for the blog until it was almost too late. So here. Have this tuna with ginger and a flower.
I also spent time preparing for this week by doing a bit of shopping and preparing some snacks/fruit for the first day of the Bill Lowe (the pillow) shoot. Food is supposed to be provided but I'm not sure whether it's stuff I can eat, so we'll see! Just want to make sure I can stay on track. I also had to pack up some options for costumes so the designer can choose what she wants me to wear. She sent some drop box images and it doesn't seem too hard bring her stuff that fits the mold. The character is a nerdy girl who plays a lot of D&D and is a bit snarky.
What a stretch. Heh!
But yes! I'm off to bed to get some beauty sleep now so I can be ready for my closeup in the morning.
I'm sure a lot of Slayers have been wondering where I went or why. It has been so rewarding to share my successes with you all since I started posting, but last year, just around Christmas, I started to feel like a real failure, and not just with health.
Oddly enough, it was at that time that I got a really great paid gig to teach theater/voice at my alma mater, Tabor Academy for a limited time during the course of their Winter Musical rehearsal process for Legally Blonde. The experience was incredible. The kids were so committed and spectacular. It was a real Anna from Frozen "For the First Time in Forever" moment. By that, I mean I had been struggling to find a place for myself when it came to the performing arts since college and especially after the majority of my weight loss. Sure I was exercising my creativity through cosplay, but I wasn't necessarily doing what I had intended to do with my BFA in theater from Tisch School of the Arts. I wanted to perform and to coach others and getting to do that and getting PAID to do it gave me both a thrill and also the sense that I'd been waisting my time with excuses for a too long.
For all my claiming that "my major physique change" made my resume look ridiculous and my reel material unusable, I realized that I had actually been fearing whether people would even accept the "new me" professionally. I'd played the butch lesbian and the ridiculous and ridiculed fatty for so long that I didn't really know how to type cast myself and go out for roles anymore. Getting to work with the kids at Tabor and share my wealth of knowledge and experience with them should have made me feel better about what I was doing with my life, but it actually made me feel worse because I realized I should have been searching endlessly for jobs like that all the time instead of becoming an artistic cripple in hibernation waiting until she became a butterfly.
On top of that, my day job became really soul crushing during the holidays. It's our busiest time of year and it is basically a customer service job, even though my title is Tour Guide. It's a lot of traffic and a lot of pressure to make the holidays happen for thousands of people in the course of 7 weeks and it really took it's toll on me. It's not that I hate my job. I actually enjoy it. I just suffer, as anyone would, from dealing with all the negative aspects of providing good customer service to patrons flowing in on an unbelievably relentless scale. By the time the New Year came, I just wanted to go to sleep FOREVER.
So yeah. Cue the self loathing. And then cue the relationship problems. I'll spare you the details, but for the second year in a row, I felt let down by my significant other when it came to being present during the holidays. It's really hard during that time of year because I am so beset by problems at work that I'm not always the best partner either during that time. The anxiety and frustration with each other just accumulated at a crazy rate. With all the stress and the previous year of denying myself holiday treats, I decided to say, for lack of a better phrase, "Fuck it." I was going to enjoy the treats of the holidays when they were offered and I was going to enjoy the food. I didn't gain a lot, but I did gain the holiday weight we all dread.
These negative nutritional changes also followed a few episodes of fainting at work while doing a Whole30. I felt like a complete failure and like this system that I really enjoyed wasn't going to work for me. The high fat was a lot for my gal bladderless body to handle and there were a lot of factors but in the end, my disappointment was another thing that led to my "Fuck it" behavior. I can actually remember the exact moment. I had gotten woozy for the second time at work and my boss handed me a corn muffin and practically demanded that I eat it. That was it. After that, the age of "Fuck It" was upon me.
I decided my New Years resolution was going to be "Don't work for free anymore." Any artist will tell you that making that decision is a HARROWING moment. People tell you all the time "You may never work again if you do that." I decided that I had wasted a lot of time on theater companies that wanted more than just my acting skills and who demanded a lot from me while giving almost nothing in return. It's natural to think that those projects may get you in the front door when those directors get in a position to offer pay checks to their performers. What I'll say is that the one time that happened for me, I NEVER GOT PAID A SINGLE DIME despite having a contract because the director didn't have anyone advising him on the financial side of doing shows and he ended up making promises he couldn't keep- including promising us a certain amount and then getting the cast to take a pay cut so that he could pay the people coming in from Jersey and Long Island more money. How is that my fault? Why should I be penalized? I digress. These are old festering wounds in the form of lessons that taught me to choose carefully who you work with, to make sure the work is paid, and to accept that this may mean taking less work than usual. Frankly, doing all of those projects was keeping me from even attempting to find paid work.
My relationship nearly crumbled at the beginning of February resulting in a lonely Valentine's Day and a lot of stress due to some health scares that I don't want to get into. Suffice to say I was completely rattled. I felt alone. Instead of pumping myself up at the gym, I went less and less. That's not to say that I was completely sedentary, but it IS to say that I got heavily into MMO's again and my obsession caused me to cook less and less and order out more and more.
As my boyfriend and I tried to mend the shambling corpse of our relationship, I attempted my biggest cosplay feat to date. I will always treasure my Daughters of the Eyrewood costume and the experience I got to have at PAX East 2014 because of it. I'm a huge Penny Arcade and I love those guys to death and I love their Eyrewood Adventures most of all. As you can see in our interview video with Nerd Caliber below, we ended up running into Mike Krahulik/Gabe, the artist who created our characters, and he invited us to play test his new game Thornwatch with the PA crew that night. He also showed off our costumes during his panel on the game. It was honestly just the best reception to a costume that I've ever had. To have your work truly appreciated by the original artist and to get to share the experience with them is really incredible. This was my first costume that I can say I completely made myself, minus my shirt, and it was the first costume that I used my new sewing machine on. It was also my first time wiring LED's into a costume. If Mike hadn't invited us to the play test, we never would have made it there because we got mobbed for photos all the time, something that really surprised me because these characters are so obscure. I think anyone who knows about the Eyrewood loves it immediately and I also think having costumes that light up, really rakes in the attention, FYI. This experience did a lot to repair the relationship issues that my boyfriend and I had been having and we really treasured and continue to treasure this experience. We got so close as we experienced our dream of what the best PAX ever could be and no matter what has happened since, I don't think we'll ever be able to top it.
We even got featured on the front page of Penny Arcade in Mike's post about the Thornwatch playtest at PAX East. Guys, when this game comes out I'm gonna run it for ALL THE PEOPLE ANY TIME ANYONE WILL LET ME. It's so badass I can't even. I cannot. Even.
Then I went to Italy, which honestly started out very physically. I hiked every high altitude path connecting the beautiful towns of Cinque Terre with my parents and my friend Passion, who happened to be visiting at the same time. These hikes were super challenging, but I was really glad to see that I could do them because I don't think I would have enjoyed the experience as much at 250 lbs. It was stunning and I felt great for the beginning of our three week trip. It's not that hard to eat healthy in Italy if one avoids pasta. I managed to do that for a while, but then the gnocchi devil got a hold of me near the end of the trip and I put on everything I lost on the mountainsides of North Italy. Also wine. I drank lots of wine with dinner because Italy. Sorry not sorry about that one. It was vacation.
The only problem was, I didn't really get back on track when I came home.
Photo by Adam Jason Photography
Photo by Ron Frary
I auditioned for and got a role in the New York Renaissance Faire as a part of the Sirens of Sterling, an all female six lady a capella group. I feel so blessed to have had this experience. I am in awe of my fellow cast mates and their improvisational and stage combat skills. We all had so much to learn from each other and I made friends that I really hope last a life time. It was also nice to know that I could still work creatively and get paid for it. Huzzah, indeed! On the flipside, I made a lot of poor food choices because I was walking, skipping, and May Pole Dancing for a distance of about 20 miles every weekend according to the pedometer I kept hidden in my waist pouch. I drank plenty of alcohol to lull myself to sleep in the freezing campgrounds and I made the most of the treats on site, including delicious morning pastries and Butterbeer once a weekend. Suffice to say, I may have overestimated how many calories I could burn in a weekend and I certainly wasn't keeping track.
Then, the coup de grace. My boyfriend of two years decided to move in with me after hemming and hawing for about nine months about where our relationship was going. He took two months to prepare for the actual move in. Every time I asked if he was ready, he made an excuse. He was going through a lot of life changes at the time so I didn't pressure him. I was trying to be understanding. After a while, I finally felt like there was something wrong. He admitted to me finally that he didn't want to move in and that he felt like his feelings for me had changed and that I didn't have my life together amongst many other complaints. In a fireball of shock and pain, I relied on my friends, new and old to get me through the last weekend of faire and upon my return, he landed his final blow and we broke up. Words cannot express how sad I still am and how worthless I feel all the time. It doesn't seem matter at all to my self esteem that I'm still acquiring paid creative gigs both as a performer, teacher, and through cosplay commissions. I still feel his doubt in me hammering away at everything I accomplish and it makes me wonder why I wasn't good enough? I should know that I am enough and that it just wasn't meant to be, but as anyone who has suffered through something like this will tell you, it's easy to question yourself even if you know you shouldn't. I have to accept that what he said was his truth and we're damn well better off apart if he feels that way.
I've gotten so much support from my friends and I feel like such a drag for still being sad, despite a month having passed. I feel like I owe it to everyone to try and pick up the pieces and get myself back to normal because they've put so much time and energy into making sure I'm going to be ok. They've cuddled me and counseled me until they were blue in the face and it has been so appreciated. I still sort of don't know how to be single. I've tried going on some dates just to help myself move on, but it just feels so pointless. I'm ready for the real deal and I'm ready to be appreciated and supported by someone who's all in (Thanks new Gilmore Girls obsession), and to give that to a partner in return. All of this dating BS is horrific and I just can't seem to let go and have a good time. It's hard to even have fun because I don't want to just "have fun." I want something real. It's a vicious cycle of convincing myself to take a chance, followed by a sadness spiral that I'll never find what I'm looking for, followed by telling myself not to look and just let things happen, followed by crippling loneliness. The hole in my heart makes me feel like someone died. I guess the person I thought my boyfriend was did die when he let me down. I know that seems over dramatic but that's just how it feels right now. Going from feeling like you're finally about to take that next big step with someone to losing them and having them tell you all your failings have made you less attractive to them is a real shock to the system. I know I'm strong and I can get over anything, but this really does feel like an insurmountable tragedy. I don't know how to go on. I suppose only time will help heal that.
I know this is post is super emo, but it's really just meant to honestly share with you all what my deteriorating mental state has become. I'm not that girl who ran a half marathon right now. I'm not Rainbow Dash. I'm not the elf rogue. I'm not any of those strong people I was transforming myself into for so long and it hurts so much to see myself in such a horrible light. I feel confused and lost. I feel restless. I feel like the problems won't go away. I just want to do something crazy and pick up my life and move across the country to LA or Seattle and just start over. In my heart, I know I'd just be trying to run away from what's gotten lodged inside me- which you can't run from anyways because it's an inside problem. Also bills. Jesus. New York is SO EXPENSIVE. I think sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can get your ass in gear to make good choices and that's sort of what this ticking down of events felt like. The contrast of seeing a better life for myself creatively mingled with the grief from the loss of someone who I thought was my biggest champion and the slow deterioration of my health is just crushing me and I need to get myself back in order. There are things you can't control in life and there are things you can battle. I chose my health long ago and I'm realizing that no matter what, I can keep choosing it, and in fact, I'll have to keep choosing it.
I started at New York Comic Con by focusing not a cosplay character who I felt would help me physically, but one who would help me mentally. I had to start getting myself out of the dumps. I chose to work on Pinkie Pie because I needed desperately to feel happy during my first cosplay/con experience since losing my boyfriend and cosplay partner in crime. It definitely wasn't my best received costume, but it is a start. I made a lot of people smile, true to Pinkie's style, and I discovered that despite my inner pain, I could still have fun, which was a big relief in a lot of ways. I still missed my ex, but I relearned how to experience a convention with friends and even by myself from time to time. It wasn't so bad. I saw a lot of really cool things and all the other costume artisans inspired me to step up my game for PAX East. I haven't made any final decisions on what I'm doing, but it may be Star Wars themed. More on that later.
When you feel yourself slipping, the best way ahead is to make a plan. Then all you have to do is execute it. Now you're saying, "Yeah Anne, but executing is hard!" It is hard, but it's even harder if you're just flying by the seat of your pants.
So here's my plan for the next 6 weeks. I've been on vacation in England, enjoying the Ren Faire every few weekends, and attending conventions all summer. That's all fine, but I have fallen off the wagon when it comes to my health and its time to get back on it and get my bum in gear (and in squats) so that when the holidays hit, I'll be back in the habit again!
It's dangerous to go alone, I hear, so I'm teaming up with my friends Shannon and Steven for this adventure! We have some separate goals but are overlapping in a few areas. It will be nice to have two good friends to stay accountable with.
Goal 1: Fly, you fool! I have to get back to running 3x/week. I fell out of the habit on vacation and the few times I've tried since getting back... it's been terrible. I can blame it on the heat all I want, but I know the real issue is just that I've lost a lot of the stamina I built up. No more excuses. My running should be composed of one HIIT workout with sprints and 2 longer runs (35-40+ minutes) each week. They can be outside or inside on the treadmill.
Goal 2: They'll be back, and in stronger numbers. Strength training 2x/week. This will all be bodyweight based and done through yoga or circuits. Idealy I'd do this more than twice a week, but I'm not going to pressure myself to workout more than 5x total a week right now. It's more important that I get back to regularity than to overpressure myself.
Goal 3: Whole 30. I'm going to be detoxing all my bad decisions with this month long program. I was inspired by Mike's juice fast and I think this will be a great way to kickstart my Paleo routine again whilst cleansing my system. Shannon and Steven are joining me on this adventure and it will include opportunities for us to all get together and cook new things. My alternate reason for committing to a Whole 30 is because NYCC is coming up in 3 weeks and I want to be at my best for my Dragon Age cosplay. You can follow along with construction on Facebook if you're interested!
Goal 4: Let's Put on a Show! My career (as far as the arts are concerned) has been totally destroyed by this transformation process. That seems like an extreme statement, but because my body has changed so much, nothing that's on my resume or that has been made for my reel is helpful because I'd never be hired for those roles anymore. It's like everything I built doesn't matter towards building my life into what I want it to be. That's always been the thing I DID have under control while my weight and health suffered. Now it's the other way around. I've been struggling a lot to figure out how exactly I'll turn this around and stop the self loathing/frustration cycle. I suppose the best cure is to get myself back to work and make new things. Shannon asked if I wanted to do a concert with her and another friend and I think it's the perfect opportunity to get my feet back into the water. We know that the concert will be in January, so it will take more than six weeks to finish the goal completely, but there are specific steps we're planning to take in the next six weeks. They are:
Set a date
Meet 1/week for a "state of the union"
Secure accompanist/ music director
Secure filmographer (so that I can get some new reel material)
Make a budget and plan
Save $25 a week towards the cost of producing the show
So those are my goals for the next six weeks starting TODAY! It's a little scary but I'm excited to be playing this game co-op with some fellow geeks! Do you have a plan you're trying to execute? Why not share it in the comments so we can all show our support!
Today's post is going to be a bit of a departure from focusing on the physical and nutritional side of weight loss. After all, you're weight and fitness are not the only elements that determine your happiness. There's this sneaky little bastard called "Quality of Life" and I'm finding that it's pretty important too.
As I mentioned in my last post, I've been experiencing a lot of stress because it feels like my creative career is going nowhere. I can create things all I want, but if I can't figure out how to monetize my creative endeavors or the skills I use to create them, then how can I expect to pay the bills by doing what I love? Yes, dear readers. It would seem I have a few more stats to reroll on this here quest for greatness.
As actors we're taught to take any job that will have us at the beginning of our careers. Get out there, get the experience, get the exposure, and eventually it will fall into place.Maybe I'm luckier than I give myself credit for, but I have no problem finding unpaid gigs. I've been doing them for years. For every paid acting job I've had, I've probably had eight unpaid full scale productions in which I've been abused by directors, other actors, or frankly, just plain knocked around by an overall unprofessional process. I'm not saying I didn't learn from these experiences or didn't benefit at all, but for the most part, I gained roles to put on my resume and nothing else. That's not without value, but at a certain point, you have to ask yourself if it's worth the time and the energy to commit yourself to unpaid pursuits with guaranteed experience vs. working less, but being able to focus all of your energy on getting those elusive paid opportunities.
This goes for writing as well. I've been so honored to have so many fellow bloggers ask me to join their staff of unpaid writers/reviewers, but at this point, I don't have have any more time to pour into more unpaid work. I'm organizing the future of Project Reroll so that my amazing community of readers can flourish and share what they've learned on their own health journeys. I already review and discuss geeky topics as an occasional guest-host with my friends on the Anomaly Podcast (which you need to check out if you haven't!). Plus, I am currently managing a very lengthy and involved post production process on a web series that I wrote/produced with a friend. When I turn down these unpaid opportunities, I'm not being snobby. There just aren't enough hours in the day for me not to get paid for any more extra time and effort. My dance card is pretty darn full.
I know I'm not the only artist or entrepreneur going through this struggle, but over the last few days I've realized something surprising. I might be the one who is standing in my way. How am I supposed to receive currency in exchange for goods if I'm afraid to place an actual value on my skills. Obviously, waiting for someone to pay me for things that I've very publicly given away for free is a terrible marketing plan.
So here's my new goal; It's time to embrace my inner rogue. Would Jayne Cobb work for free? Even Han Solo wanted pay for his fair cut for saving Princess Leia from the Death Star. Bronn might give Tyrion color commentary for free but when it comes to his sword, he's paid to use it in Lannister gold. Well boys, step aside. There's a new rogue for hire in town and her name is Anne!
So how to start on this quest? Like any of the other skills I've "rerolled," I started by creating steps to help me break down my overall goal into more manageable bite sized pieces.
Step 1: Determine my marketable skills and be prepared to place an actual value on them. For me these would be acting, writing, and creativity/life coaching. I'm going to think very critically about how to turn these skills into marketable business ventures and place actual values on them so that I can charge for my services. When you fear no one will ask you how much you're worth, it doesn't seem worth going to the trouble to price your skills, but if you don't, then you'll be caught with your pants down when someone does! The ensuing frazzlement could lose you the gig... and they may be confused by your lack of pants. Of course, that doesn't mean I can't cut deals for friends or for projects that I really want to do, but then I'll be ready when someone says, well how much do you charge for that?
Step 2: Do some research on what you should charge. If you get confused or nervous about what you can ask for when it comes to compensation, look into what your peers are charging and how they've managed to get paid jobs in their fields. For me this will mean looking at people I know with similar experience levels who are getting paid and seeing how I can emulate or even undercut them when it comes to price. This step comes to you directly from my uncanny ability to "win" at the Auction House in every MMO ever. Time to get some real-life bags of gold. Lok'tar Ogar, people.
Step 3: Be prepared to negotiate and to face conflict. You need to accept the fact that with this new great power to get paid for your work will come more responsibility on your part. If people are actually paying you, they'll have every right to be demanding of your time. You'll have to develop firm hand when it comes to scheduling you're time and dealing with clients. You'll need to come to the table with a strong sense of self and what you do. If you can't face conflict productively or negotiate business deals without collapsing in on yourself like a dying star, then being an entrepreneur isn't for you. You are the CEO, the production line, and customer service rep all in one. You'll get all the praise, all the cash, and all the grief so you have to prepare yourself to deal with all of that.
Step 4: Update Your Websites/Create a Store. When you embrace your inner goblin and start shamelessly hawking your wares with a hearty, "I got what you need," you'll need somewhere to direct your traffic. For me, that will mean creating a public listing of my services so that I can give someone my business card with a quick pitch and then send them to my website for a more detailed breakdown of what I'm prepared to offer them. This ties in with the first step of figuring out what you can sell, but in this case, you'll also have to think about how you're going to make it the most appealing deal your client can find.
Clearly I'm at the beginning of this process and I have no business talking like a know-it-all about this stuff, but this is where I am with it right now. I'll post more about this as I move through the steps and hopefully my depression will dissipate as I make a more active effort to handle this stressful issue in my life. I hope my conclusions and my process provide some inspiration if anyone else in a similar conundrum. If you have any advice for me or other readers, please leave it in the comments!
