DISQUS

Great topic, and a great article. Thanks for posting it! I like how Armstrong refers to studying athletes, because acting seems to take almost as much energy and focus as sports or other such endeavors. It's also helpful if you can start to perceive your "nervousness" as "energy and excitement," then you can actually HARNESS that energy and turn it to your advantage. Instead of appearing shaky and desperate, you will appear energetic and highly focused. I also like how Armstrong mentions being prepared, which is so valuable to easing fears. Ironically, an actor also needs to be willing to throw away all preparation at a moments notice and accept unexpected changes or direction... Which if you think about it is actually... VERY FUN! Most actors got into acting it for the fun of it, and having fun in the audition room is always your right and privilege.

Cool point, Amy. I totally agree about the value of juggling multiple projects, sort of like "playing one against the other" in order to get that emotional distance and perspective. The strategy also clicks nicely as far as time management, because when you're feeling burnt-out on one piece, you can move to the other for a while and avoid any stalls from what people typically see as Writer's Block. There's nothing better than when you go back to a previous project after some time and you've almost forgotten what you wrote, and you can view it with fresh perspective like an objective reader... suddenly the parts that should be cut jump out so much clearer!

Awesome topic. I might be incorrect about the source, but was it William Faulkner who advised that in writing... "we must kill our little darlings" ? That seems like good tough advice... The notion that sometimes the biggest obstacle to creative thinking is when we hang onto some previous idea that should really be tossed out for the good of the whole. We might be clinging to the thing just because it's one of our favorite moments... It could be a line of dialogue you wrote, a block of action, your favorite scene in your script, or even an entire character that really serves no purpose because so much around it has changed in the re-writing process. It's the hardest thing to delete something that seemed like such an inspiraton at first, and sometimes it's easier to compromise by cutting the idea and pasting it into a separate file of "excess" ideas - in case you decide you want it back. But I bet most times, you end up not revisiting it, because "killing it" freed you up to consider so many other creative options that work better.