(Neil Gaiman, Photo from his Masterclass Series, Teaching the Art of Storytelling)
I haven't read nearly enough Neil Gaiman, and I think even if I had read everything he's ever put to paper it still wouldn't be enough, but nonetheless the man is a creative inspiration to me. In a 2012 keynote address to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, the author told his audience of students and faculty the following:
I don't fall into bouts of depression as deeply as I used to, due to a combination of proper medication and deciding to live the life I want to live not what I felt was expected of me. But I do suffer from burnout and imposter syndrome. That voice tickling the back of your mind telling that you aren't good enough, you didn't get enough training, you didn't practice enough, you're a fraud and they're going to catch you at any moment, or you should be working more and therefore you do not deserve to work at all. The last one's a bit strange, I know, but I feel like more than a few of you know what I'm talking about.
I ran headlong into one of those walls this weekend. I'd had a fantastic live recording session with a local podcast here in Portland that I will detail in a later post once the pictures and such come out, but then I came home and decided to look up the submission rules for the most recent round of Chuck Huber's Now Voice This on Twitter. I missed the last round, so I was excited to fling myself into this one because why not? Seemed like a great opportunity. But then I saw what was being put to the test: Impressions.
My dog above, I hate impressions. Not only have I been told by seemingly every professional voice actor and acting teacher in the entire world that they really don't matter all that much, I've just never wanted to do them. I've dabbled in voice matching, but I thought in order to be a competent and competitive voice actor I had to bring something original to the table. So beyond that bad Christopher Walken impression everyone and their mother does, I. had. nothing.
I had nothing. My mood instantly tanked. It should be simple. Everyone else has a whole stable of these fantastic impressions they can whip out for so simple a task. It was the first round, right? If you don't make it past this one you have no business ranking yourself amongst the talented competition. I got irritated, depressed, self-hating, wanted to rant about impressions being a waste of-
Okay, whoa. What is this? What was I thinking? I had to get a grip. This was a fun, little competition not life or death. More than that, I have plenty of voices I could tweak into an impression of someone else if I gave it a little thought. "Make good art." I reminded myself. It doesn't matter if you win, it doesn't matter if people like it. No one else has your instrument. You can't rate your talent by comparing it to others. They're not scaled the same way. So sit and think.
As with most of the solutions to my problems, the answer at least started with my wife. We were watching cartoons before dinner the other night and I do that annoying thing where I start mimicking the characters onscreen without even thinking about it. She laughed at my dumb jokes and stupid voices, instantly filling that soul-sucking void in that way only she can. There's just one possibility. Surely if I thought about it I could think of more! I thought about the menagerie of NPC ("non-player character" for you non-D&D nerds out there) voices I pull out of my hat for my weekly games and jotted down a few more possibilities.
Getting to the other side of burnout, imposter syndrome, and creative anxiety almost always lies outside of your own head. You're not going to find a light at the end of that tunnel if you keep spiraling down into it. When I catch myself starting to head down that road, I find that the best way to combat it is to stop what I'm doing, get up, and walk away from it for anywhere from a few hours to a weekend. Do something else that fulfills and inspires you -- a hobby, film, music, friends, family, pets, books. Almost always for me it's not some grandiose obstacle I must conquer if I just take a step away to recharge. The mountain always looks more like a molehill when I come back to it. And more than that, getting out of my own head means getting second and third opinions. Getting out of my dark, little padded booth and bringing in the people close to me helps to give perspective.
Now that I've come back to it I've got some ideas, and a hell of a fun time ahead. I can't wait to see what I can produce to meet this challenge. Even if I don't make it to the next round, any new aspects to my voice I discover during my playtime can be used in other things. My journey never stops, and as long as I'm putting one foot in front of the other I can keep walking forward. And I'm doing something I love no matter what, and how many people can say that?
Remember, friends, it doesn't matter how slow you're going. It doesn't matter if you're jumping and leaping forward or you're inching along, pulling yourself the next inch with your fucking teeth. Forward is forward. The only way you can fail is by giving up and turning back. Never stop. Go farther. Take another step. Fly. Swim. Dig underground. Break through.
"Make good art."
Footnote Episode IV, A New Foot: For the full keynote speech from the absolutely fantastic Mr. Gaiman, follow this link. It's worth listening to, and not only because Neil has a voice and way of speaking that is just enthralling. I heard him speak at a raconteur event while I was dating my wife (again, everything good in my life starts with her) and I could listen to that man read the phone book. Seriously.
Footnote Episode V, The Foot Strikes Back: I'm still working on putting together a few talented individuals to help me create my next voice acting demo. Scheduling being the way it is, I expect most of the work on it to happen next month. Will keep you updated and irritate you with the end product endlessly when it's finished!
Footnote Episode VI, The Return of the Foot: If you haven't found this blog through it already, check out my Twitter in a day or two for what I end up vomiting forth for NVT4, Round One!
Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do.
Make good art.If you want to be a creative, make good art. He was being serious, he said. Make art. Make the art only you can do. Expose your soul to the world and run (figuratively) naked down the street. Do this especially when things have started to get difficult.
I don't fall into bouts of depression as deeply as I used to, due to a combination of proper medication and deciding to live the life I want to live not what I felt was expected of me. But I do suffer from burnout and imposter syndrome. That voice tickling the back of your mind telling that you aren't good enough, you didn't get enough training, you didn't practice enough, you're a fraud and they're going to catch you at any moment, or you should be working more and therefore you do not deserve to work at all. The last one's a bit strange, I know, but I feel like more than a few of you know what I'm talking about.
I ran headlong into one of those walls this weekend. I'd had a fantastic live recording session with a local podcast here in Portland that I will detail in a later post once the pictures and such come out, but then I came home and decided to look up the submission rules for the most recent round of Chuck Huber's Now Voice This on Twitter. I missed the last round, so I was excited to fling myself into this one because why not? Seemed like a great opportunity. But then I saw what was being put to the test: Impressions.
My dog above, I hate impressions. Not only have I been told by seemingly every professional voice actor and acting teacher in the entire world that they really don't matter all that much, I've just never wanted to do them. I've dabbled in voice matching, but I thought in order to be a competent and competitive voice actor I had to bring something original to the table. So beyond that bad Christopher Walken impression everyone and their mother does, I. had. nothing.
I had nothing. My mood instantly tanked. It should be simple. Everyone else has a whole stable of these fantastic impressions they can whip out for so simple a task. It was the first round, right? If you don't make it past this one you have no business ranking yourself amongst the talented competition. I got irritated, depressed, self-hating, wanted to rant about impressions being a waste of-
Okay, whoa. What is this? What was I thinking? I had to get a grip. This was a fun, little competition not life or death. More than that, I have plenty of voices I could tweak into an impression of someone else if I gave it a little thought. "Make good art." I reminded myself. It doesn't matter if you win, it doesn't matter if people like it. No one else has your instrument. You can't rate your talent by comparing it to others. They're not scaled the same way. So sit and think.
As with most of the solutions to my problems, the answer at least started with my wife. We were watching cartoons before dinner the other night and I do that annoying thing where I start mimicking the characters onscreen without even thinking about it. She laughed at my dumb jokes and stupid voices, instantly filling that soul-sucking void in that way only she can. There's just one possibility. Surely if I thought about it I could think of more! I thought about the menagerie of NPC ("non-player character" for you non-D&D nerds out there) voices I pull out of my hat for my weekly games and jotted down a few more possibilities.
Getting to the other side of burnout, imposter syndrome, and creative anxiety almost always lies outside of your own head. You're not going to find a light at the end of that tunnel if you keep spiraling down into it. When I catch myself starting to head down that road, I find that the best way to combat it is to stop what I'm doing, get up, and walk away from it for anywhere from a few hours to a weekend. Do something else that fulfills and inspires you -- a hobby, film, music, friends, family, pets, books. Almost always for me it's not some grandiose obstacle I must conquer if I just take a step away to recharge. The mountain always looks more like a molehill when I come back to it. And more than that, getting out of my own head means getting second and third opinions. Getting out of my dark, little padded booth and bringing in the people close to me helps to give perspective.
Now that I've come back to it I've got some ideas, and a hell of a fun time ahead. I can't wait to see what I can produce to meet this challenge. Even if I don't make it to the next round, any new aspects to my voice I discover during my playtime can be used in other things. My journey never stops, and as long as I'm putting one foot in front of the other I can keep walking forward. And I'm doing something I love no matter what, and how many people can say that?
Remember, friends, it doesn't matter how slow you're going. It doesn't matter if you're jumping and leaping forward or you're inching along, pulling yourself the next inch with your fucking teeth. Forward is forward. The only way you can fail is by giving up and turning back. Never stop. Go farther. Take another step. Fly. Swim. Dig underground. Break through.
"Make good art."
Footnote Episode IV, A New Foot: For the full keynote speech from the absolutely fantastic Mr. Gaiman, follow this link. It's worth listening to, and not only because Neil has a voice and way of speaking that is just enthralling. I heard him speak at a raconteur event while I was dating my wife (again, everything good in my life starts with her) and I could listen to that man read the phone book. Seriously.
Footnote Episode V, The Foot Strikes Back: I'm still working on putting together a few talented individuals to help me create my next voice acting demo. Scheduling being the way it is, I expect most of the work on it to happen next month. Will keep you updated and irritate you with the end product endlessly when it's finished!
Footnote Episode VI, The Return of the Foot: If you haven't found this blog through it already, check out my Twitter in a day or two for what I end up vomiting forth for NVT4, Round One!
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