Crisis

I've had some crisis of faith, namely, a lack of faith in myself lately. I've been questioning my self, my performing and my writing skills. Wondering if I'm doing too much, reaching too high, over extending myself. Then I took a breath and let myself settle in. What am I looking for? External validation?

The reality is, not everyone will see me or you or any of us. You really just have to believe in what you're doing. And I promise that if you keep on working at it, miracles happen.

For example, take the screenwriting. It's not easy. I'm on draft 5 of my outline for my pilot. And I'm just starting to understand the genre. 

The thing I realized is that I just have to let myself get to that secret place of mine where all my stories, truth or fiction, live, and write. The genre and format may be different, but my process is the same. Truth is, I have never been an organized writer. I'm a "writing by the seat of my pants writer" as a writing professor friend of mine would say.

Sometimes, I also realize that I need too much validation and I need to let that go. I just need to do me, be me, and let the ego go. 

The one thing I know for sure is who I am. And I like me. I like my life. I love the performing and writing life I've built out a mix of of thin air, hope, dreams, my words and some pieces of paper stapled together. 

In the end, I may not be the perfect package. But I'm me. 

Reading

I'm wide awake. It's 2:41 am. 

It was a wild ride this week. Wednesday, I had to rush home after work to do my podcast. My account got hacked, my computer crashed and everything went wrong that could go wrong until showtime. Then, it all worked out. 

The next day, on Thursday after work, I drove to Venice. I left about 4:30 pm, thinking I would be early, but the drive took over two and a half hours. That damn LA traffic. 

The performance was at Beyond Baroque and I was reading with a legendary NYC writer and musician Peter Cherches and a Southern Californian writer, musician and one of my publishers, the awesome Dennis Callaci. It was intimidating to be performing alongside such great talent. And so I felt I had to step it up.

For the show, I focused on being present in my performance. On letting go. One of the pieces I read was a story called The Big O. It requires a lot of changing of voices. My YA voice, my mom's voice and my dad's, and there's a lot of dialogue. It's hard to keep my breath but I decided to try to do it the way I've been wanting to. I didn't practice because that messes me up. I just tried to be there, in the now.

I don't think I'm ever satisfied with my performances, but I did disappear while reading it. Meaning, I wasn't overdoing it, and I was present, in the moment, and just going with the flow and the story. 

My dad's voice is the one I so ache to hear. Yet, I never get his voice quite right. The tender side of it. My presentation of him sounds wrong to my ear perhaps because it's not him. It's me trying to capture him. On the page, I see and hear it. But when I try to perform it, I always fall short in my head.

Maybe one day, my dream of recreating my dad on the stage and/or screen will come to fruition. 

Until then, I'll just keep on reading. 

Rise up

Thursday 

My eyes pop open. My neck still hurts. With work and my evening podcast, I worked more than fourteen hours yesterday. I've started to see that I will have to make a choice soon. You can't have everything, or what I should say is, you can't do everything...

That said, I'm going to see X in Pomona this Friday. I need my fix although this is the umpteenth time I've seen them and I just saw Depeche Mode last week. Music rejuvenates me. It heals me. 

Friday 

It's Friday. Feeling much better physically. Had a heavy work day yesterday again, but nothing at night. It was nice to watch The Mandalorian with hubby and then a new limited series called Beef on Netflix (that's hysterical). I fell asleep by 10 pm and woke up now at 4 am. 

Seeing X tonight in Pomona if I can get the energy. I really want to go but even Pomona feels like a far drive.

I'm looking forward to this weekend. I'm working on a grant proposal for my podcast and some homework, and then taking my mom to breakfast on Easter. 

Ultimately, Easter is about rising again. And I will.