The Alchemist

There are 3 little truths about the way our minds work that can stop us in our tracks despite our best intentions:

• “avoiding risk feels good”
• “A little thrill now makes us feel better than a bigger thrill at some point in the distant future.”
• “we fear success”

That’s right: Procrastination often just feels better than getting things done! (No wonder I don’t get as much done as I want to!)

Of course we can overcome our self-destructive tendencies, and there are some tricks that help tip the scales in our favor. I found the following article to have some useful ideas, and just had to share it with you. Enjoy!

Read This Now! Stop Procrastinating and Get Stuff Done — or Else!

We all know that California is known for its earthquakes and Indiana not so much. And of course many of my friends reminded me of that little detail when I left there for Cali. Imagine my surprise, then, when I heard the news that the folks in Illinois and Indiana felt an earthquake at 4:30 AM EST this morning. Guess I moved just in time…

Dependence has won Best Picture in the 1 - 15 minute category in the Imago Film Festival! Congratulations to everyone involved!

Update: Dependence has crushed the Trojan Film Festival with 4 wins! Best Drama, Best Long Film, Best Cinematography, and Best Picture!

For those keeping score, here is the entire list of winnings for Dependence so far:

• Harvest Moon Film Festival (Official Selection; Audience Choice Award)
• CINE Golden Eagle Award
• Lake Michigan Film Competition (Part of the East Lansing Film Festival; Official Selection in Shorts Category)
• National Film Festival for Talented Youth (Official Selection)
• Imago Film Festival (Official Selection; Winner of the 1-15 minute film category)
• Trojan Film Festival (Official Selection; Best Drama, Best Long Film, Best Cinematography, and Best Picture)

Fantastic!

Ok, so I’ve posted a couple times now on how things are heating up and filling my schedule with auditions, callbacks, classes, rehearsals, and shows… but it will get old quickly. For example, last week I had:

2 rehearsals
3 classes
4 auditions
2 callbacks
1 seminar
1 preview show

So… rather than blathering on and on about how busy I am - and how really cool that is (and yes - believe me, I think that’s really cool!), I’m going to edit things down to only post the most significant stuff, ok? (Well, and maybe some statistics like above… we’ll see.)

So, here are most significant things this week:

• I had a callback for an indie film. The director said “You nailed it” and then asked me to stick around and read with another auditioner. Very cool. Hopefully this will go forward.

• My improv group (recently adopting the name “LoComedians”) held a preview show at The Next Stage in Hollywood. The show went very well and I’m proud of the work our group has done pulling this together! Next step: Opening the show!

Of course, there was lots of other background stuff as well… including some great marketing stuff I’ve been working on with my good friend Heather Lapham Kuhn. But I’ll wait to post more about those things as they come to completion…