Recently in Away From the Mic Category

Dear loyal readers of my blog,

You may be surprised to see Twitter updates appearing instead of my normal essays about the topics of voice-over, marketing, and audiobooks. I have not abandoned my style or intention in maintaining this blog for voice talent. However, three life-altering events during the past 6 months -- primarily the loss of my mother -- have left me with little time to write anything of length.

I also realized that many of the links I have posted on Twitter are often excellent resources for voice talent and audiobook narrators. Even if you're following me on Twitter (and if you're not, it's always a good time to start!), you may have missed some of this useful information.

Therefore, I am including my tweets as a supplement -- not a replacement -- to my usual writing on this blog. I have more feature-length articles in the works. I also plan to expand my content to include more short entries like this one since I know it can be difficult to make time to read a longer article. 

I thank you for your continued interest in and support of this blog, and I hope you are living the life of your dreams!

Cordially,

Karen Commins

Photo credit: Akirastock/iStockPhoto

It was such a gorgeous day yesterday that Drew and I wanted to go swimming. We called our gym, hoping that the outdoor pool might be open. Most outdoor swimming pools closed Labor Day weekend, and the gym pool was no exception. 

I have always loved swimming, especially outdoors in the sunshine. Not only is swimming fantastic physical exercise, but it's also a wonderful meditative activity. I can't think about too much other than the present moment if I want to keep track of my lap count! Since voiceover is always on my mind, it's no surprise that I began thinking of parallels between swimming and voice-over during a recent swim.

No matter which word you pick, you now know what my web site designer and I "R" doing, which explains why I haven't posted a blog entry in over a month. 

No worries. I have so many ideas about voiceover and marketing still to discuss! I appreciate your patience during my web site renovation and promise to return with new content later in the month to reclaim my place in the voiceover blogosphere!

edited to add photo credit: Skip ODonnell/iStockPhoto

Washington Roebling's name may not be familiar to you. He's not in the voice-over industry. In fact, he has nothing to do with voice-over or entertainment. However, I recently read about him and his monumental accomplishment, and his quote applies to anyone pursuing a big dream, including a career in voice-over.

You see, Washington Roebling was an engineer -- not just any engineer, but the chief engineer behind the famous Brooklyn Bridge. I recently read David McCullough's fascinating and extremely well-researched novel The Great Bridge, which describes the people, risks, relationships, political environment, and long processes involved to build that bridge. It's the sort of sweeping, satisfying book that I would love to narrate, but these historical books are usually about men and therefore narrated by men in the audiobook. But I digress ...

Part of the story that is so remarkable is that Roebling fell seriously ill and wasn't even on-site during much of the construction, yet he pressed on until the Brooklyn Bridge was completed and his dream realized. With his wife's admirable and steadfast assistance, Roebling wrote such an incredible collection of notes and designs that his assistant engineers were able to complete the work to his specifications without his supervision.

The on-line Merriam-Webster dictionary defines vitality as physical or mental vigor especially when highly developed. I can't agree too much with Roebling's assessment that vitality is necessary to accomplish anything of importance, especially a voice-over career.  However, I would also add time to the equation. 

Many people jump into voiceovers with the expectation that a lucrative and easy career awaits them. Unlike an engineer, they don't study the landscape or make calculations about the best way to proceed. They may give up before achieving the level of success that they seek. 

I have often heard that entertainers and sports stars who are considered to be an overnight success usually have been working diligently and learning their profession for 10 years or more. This passage in John Maxwell's book Put Your Dreams to the Test: 10 Questions that Will Help You See It and Seize It better explains that theory: 

Drew and I visited New York City for the July 4th holiday, and we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Although I've seen it many times, I could only fully appreciate its immense size, strength, and beauty while actually standing on it. 

The construction process took 14 years, which was 2-3 times longer and at a far greater cost than the original estimate. Had Roebling not maintained his vitality and persevered through unimaginable obstacles over long stretches of time, this masterpiece of American architecture would not be standing.

I thought again about the time and energy needed to complete a dream while we watched Macy's July 4th fireworks on the Hudson River. We were treated to a spectacular 30-minute show, but the tremendous planning and coordination, including the actual fireworks manufacture and testing, must have started as soon as the festivities were finished last year, or perhaps even earlier. I created a short video of some highlights from the fireworks and added music from my royalty-free library. I am posting the video here for your viewing pleasure.

I don't bring up my personal obstacles to gain your sympathy but to point out that vitality is needed to sustain the momentum in my voice-over career while time marches on. You may have noticed that even my blog entries lately required an unusual amount of time and energy to complete. Many days, I have to judge my progress on my voice-over dreams based on incremental forward movement. However, like Roebling and his bridge, I continue to focus on my vision of success, counting my blessings and victories as I go along. 

What kind of correlation do you notice between time and energy in pursuing your voice-over goals? I'd love to hear from you with comments on the blog!

Having a full-time job as an IT specialist and working as a voice talent has made me feel like a secret agent with a double life. My voiceover business is not a secret from my employer; I followed the rules to obtain permission to have an outside business. However, I have felt that I couldn't talk about my voiceover work while on the job at the IRS because I worried that people there would think I'm slacking off in my duties or not interested in promotion.

At the same time, I wouldn't talk about my day job to voiceover peers for fear of losing respect and credibility. In addition, I felt that prospects and clients would look elsewhere for voice talent, thinking that I'm not serious about voiceover work, don't need the money from the gig, and/or might not be available to perform their script on deadline.

So why am I confessing now?

I started work at the IRS while still a teenager in high school. I never dreamed that I would be there 3 decades later! In fact, one day in 1996, I almost quit in anger over a reorganization that sent me to a job I didn't want. My very wise dad kept me from making a rash decision by doing some simple math to calculate an estimate for my monthly retirement annuity. You see, the government offers me retirement benefits that seem incredible in this day -- a monthly annuity and health insurance plans that will cover Drew and me for the rest of our lives. I never thought about my retirement annuity before that day. I decided that I wouldn't quit and leave our lifetime financial security on the table.

You'd think that I could retire with 30 years of service, and I could -- IF I also met the additional age requirement, which is still in the future. At this point, I plan to retire from the IRS in 7 years. It's mentally exhausting to be a secret agent, and seven more years of playing that role is too great of a burden.

Voiceover may seem like a career change, but it has called to me for my entire life. Beginning in 5th grade, my goal was always to be the voice of a cartoon character. I also aspired to be a talk show host and play-by-play announcer for major league baseball. When I went to college, I earned my degree in radio and TV journalism. I interned at a TV and a radio station and briefly worked at a radio station because I thought that was the best path to get my voice into commercials and eventually animation.

In my case, the career change happened in reverse. I did not plan my 25-year odyssey through IRS information technology positions: programmer, programmer analyst, first-line manager to a programming staff, LAN/e-mail/WAN administrator, and now technical advisor to a senior IT manager. In recent years, though, I have learned that every moment has meaning. My communications skills were highly valued in these very technical positions, and now my tremendous IT knowledge is a major asset in my voiceover business, whether used for marketing, equipment purchase/installation/troubleshooting or narrations for e-learning modules and corporate videos.

I finally accept that I am where I am supposed to be and doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I may not be a full-time voiceover actor, but I know that day is coming. In the meantime, I'm doing all that I can to prepare for that day while still enjoying my present life. One way to enjoy my life more is to stop worrying what other people will think about me in both of my careers!

By turning in my secret agent's badge, I am relieved that at long last I can be who I am and say what I feel. The benefit to you, dear reader, is that I now am liberated to share previously withheld observations and discoveries that may help others on their own paths of career change, artistic expression and self-fulfillment.

Here is a fun little exercise that someone sent me which contains indisputable mathematical logic. It also made me laugh because it seems true, whether we're talking about becoming a successful voiceover talent or anything else.

Using a strictly mathematical viewpoint, what makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103? What makes up 100% in life? 

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions: ?

If A B C D E F G H I J  K  L M N O P Q R  S T U  V W X Y  Z are represented as:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 ??

Then: 

H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K ?

8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98% ??

and

11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But 

1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100% ?

And

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that while Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, Attitude will get you there. However, it's the Persistance and Perseverance that will put you over the top!

You practise failure or success by the day
so ensure that you do something every day for your Voice Over career.
Keep a record of what you do and of the progress you make.
Coincidentally, the very story I wanted to relate today, on this first day of 2009, is about that very point. Once again, I'm going to quote another talented voice actor.

On p43 of the book Secrets of Voice-Over Success: Top Voice-Over Actors Reveal How They Did It, nationally-recognized promo voice talent Joe Cipriano offers the best and most charming explanation I've ever read about why you need to do something every day for your voice-over career. Here for your reading pleasure and call to action are Joe's words:

Since I've written recently about creating a road map for your success, Joe's story perfectly illustrates the famous quote from Lao-tzu: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The single step today may not seem like much, but the cumulative effect of daily effort is awesome!

Photo: BlackJack3D, iStockPhoto

Do you know where you're going to in your voice-over career? When planning either a trip or a career in voice-over, it's important to know your desired destination. You don't need to know HOW or WHEN you will get there, but you do have to decide where you want to go. When you make that decision, you might as well decide to have the very best outcome you can possibly imagine.

In addition to reading, interpreting and performing others' scripts for pay, I am convinced that the most passionate and successful voice talent seem to have an inherent love of reading. For instance, my friend Bob Souer finds and reads all sorts of interesting things on-line, which he shares with us on his blog. I recently had a discussion with another friend Dave Courvoisier about the merits and pleasures of the Amazon Kindle wireless reading device.

I plan to buy a Kindle for pleasure reading, but I may also use it in the recording booth to perform some auditions and possibly longer material. Since I have remote control of Pro Tools through my handy TranzPort, I'm really thinking of setting up a second computer monitor in the booth.....but I digress.

Any reader of my blog would know that I love words and language. I frequently refer to books that I am reading or have read since they help shape my perspective as a person and voice talent.

I have loved books since childhood. I can remember my mother taking me to the library so I could check out armfuls of books. At that time, I could read 50 books in the summer. I still frequently utilize my library card although my time for reading is more limited. These days, I might read 50 books in a year, and I am in the midst of several books at any given time.