I'VE BEEN A REAL ADULT FOR A WHOLE YEAR WOW
...well, sort of.
It's a cause for celebration! For reflection! Taking stock! Not the New Year, you silly git, but the end of an era!
I year ago, I wrote this. And now that I'm here, a year later, I want to do a brief review of struggles and successes from the past year in a nice tidy blog post.
WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THESE STOLES?!?!?!?!
Hm. These blogs are a lot shorter than they used to be.
I often get so caught up in, "Oh god, I'm not getting anywhere with anything!" that I forget about all the things I actually have accomplished. So, without further ado, let the banner-waving begin!
Directly after graduation I was about as productive as a dead snail. I decomposed, is what I'm saying.
That's a tad dramatic, but I had a few months between graduation and actually making the move to LA and during that time, trying to get an acting career started was proving... difficult. And soul crushing.
I, um, came very close to having a mental breakdown. Thank you, Jinny, for putting up with me during that time. I was having trouble being creative at all - I was able to scrape together a revision and table read for a play I don't even like all that much anymore, but that was a herculean effort given my mental state at the time.
I was almost in a production of Julius Caesar in that timeframe. Almost.
It was a weird couple of months.
At one point, I decided to say, "fuck it" and disgorge a bunch of pent-up creativity by writing a story about the first thing that came into my head.
Months later, I've finished the first draft of my first novel. And a first draft of a second one. And now I'm 700+ pages into a fantasy epic that I just want to be done with oh god please let it end.
Neither of the "finished" ones are well and truly finished, mind you - but I'm getting closer and still shaping them. We will see what comes next.
I really discovered writing again as an outlet since graduation. I've always been a writer, but now I've buckled down and gotten real serious about it.
On top of two novels under my belt, I've had one play be produced and another workshopped in a prestigious festival. Writing wise, things are on the up and up!
I work two jobs to pay the bills. Hardly unusual for this town.
And acting, you know what, that's had its successes too. I did a student film, and indie film, a webisode, played Benvolio in R&J, am currently playing Baldock in the Faggot King (a super awesome adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II done for this year's Hollywood Fringe) and finally scored a commercial agent after months and months of trying.
I have confidence issues. I don't like to toot my own horn (so all the above felt really odd to write) and when I accomplish something, I don't really let it sink in or celebrate it - I just barrell onto the next project because MOMENTUM IS IMPORTANT DAMMIT.
And then I read the above and I think, "for a year out, you're doing alright, Drew. You're doing alright."