Hmm...

I have a desktop. I work at it from a desk. It does not go places with me. It does not experience the world, open at coffee shops, get out of the house and dream. It sits at a desk like a boss with a tie. Business business business, it says. But not tonight...

No, I didn't take my desktop off the desk and plop it somewhere else, although I have been known to do this. I'm just stealing my husband's laptop, lounging on the couch like I'm watching Hulu cause I can't sleep. Even with the swig of Z-quil (the best invention ever) and the mug of cereal. But no Hulu for me tonight. Something wouldn't quite let me zone out like that other part of me wanted to.

I'm working on a project. I haven't shared that here yet, but one of the main reasons I started this blog in all actuality is that I'm working on a project.

I'm an actor. I am completely comfortable with this fact, have accepted it down to my bones and am even proud of it. Not proud of it like, "Look at all this stuff I've done," or "Status update: I got an audition today!" or "I'm actually acting currently in some capacity, no brag intended, I'm just doing something." Not those ways proud, even though I have done all of these things at different times. I'm just excited that I know part of what I really want to do with my life. I'm proud that I was able to articulate that and find a great place to do it as a student. Proud that my parents supported me--that's big of them. And proud that I've survived, people, I've survived and kept my heart in LA for almost 9 years with the sole purpose of having a great life and working towards getting to create and pay my bills with telling stories.

I'm cool with going to auditions, getting the rehearsal schedule and showing up prepared, (most of the time.) I'm cool with going to fittings and hanging out on set and feel comfortable being an extra or the one the spotlight is on center stage. (Funny that the one time the actual spotlight was on me center stage, I would have given anything to just be an extra, cause the experience was so rough, so that's a mini lesson on what you think success is might not actually feel like it to the person living it.) I'm cool with teaching improv, even as I'm very not cool about practicing it--that s%#t is HARD. I love that stuff. I got that stuff. I'm down. Look how down I am. I'm so down, I'm Downey.

Let me tell you what I'm NOT cool with--what freaks the heck out of me--what makes me literally want to PACK MOVING BOXES or DO THE DISHES INSTEAD OF DOING. Create something from scratch, or try to make that thing that is now created happen, come about, produced.

Freaks me the heck out.

So much so I'd rather do the dishes.

Or sleep 2 hours past the alarm.

Or watch Hulu.

So, about that project, guess what it is?

Yeah, making something. From scratch. And producing it.

Damn thing!

Perhaps there are actors out there, or there were ages in time where people who liked acting, were disciplined, and trained to do it, got to do it some or most of the time. Perhaps there are people who are given a schedule and wake up and go in and are disciplined and do good work and then go home and have dinner with their families and then go back the next day to the schedule that someone else created.

Maybe there are those people.

Talk about the 1%.

If you are an actor, you know that even if you are totally AWESOME as a person and as an actor, this is a rare occasion! Even rarer to get paid for days like that! And there are great actors who get paid to do this who love it, and there are those for whom this is annoying work like any other business business business. Some of those actors are happy and some are miserable and working as an actor promises to make you happy just as infomercials promise to make you skinny! And I've been in one of those infomercials! The Ab Space Shooter will not make you skinny by itself in ten minutes, but committing to adapting your lifestyle and your food choices and working out for an hour a day plus ten minutes on the Ab Exploder for three months WILL!!! It is about the person inside the situation that makes it a good one or a not so good one along with a million different other variables.

All of this to say that when we "working actors" actually get to be "working actors" we are very happy. Background, lines, no lines, solos, paid or unpaid, whatever, usually this makes us happy. Thankful, perhaps, is a more appropriate word.

So, what do we do when we aren't working?

We are not prepared for this, those of us who have gone to school for "acting." I loved it, my four years of camp with a degree at the end. I worked hard, and I got good grades in my other classes too, I'm not saying it was always easy. I did homework at the library for hours on Fridays. I wrote an essay on the history of China and I fell asleep in math class and I took Cosmology and the teacher laughed at me when I asked a question. It wasn't easy like easy breezy, the process was full of EASE because I was doing what I loved doing in a warm and friendly environment. I'm just saying that I got to play play play play play and grow grow grow grow grow and someone told me when and where and I showed up and went along for the ride.

And then I moved to LA.

And no one gave me a syllabus.

And I sat on my figurative and literal butt and wished a syllabus would fly in so I could follow it, so I could play and grow.

And no syllabus came and Life introduced itself to me and said I'd be playing the part of "Adult" and it was up to me what it was going to about. The play that is Life.

If I had been trained as a writer, or if I had gone to film school, perhaps a bit more of my training could have been called into play (or maybe not, perhaps all schools help their students a bit too much, script a bit too much for them, don't take off the training wheels, and maybe that's not School's job, but Life's job.) I never had to really create anything at school besides a role that was already written. I took a playwriting class and did most of my writing the day before it was due. (Lots of my plays took place at Waffle House and were conversations between a couple of friends. Were they transcribed directly from my own conversations? We will never know.) I wrote a cabaret about my old house my parents were selling, and I asked for a couple of professors to read it over for me, which they did, and give feedback, which they did. It was harsh. Stuff like, "Maybe you should move this song before the other one." Or, "How about clarifying this detail." And that was enough for me to be scared and shelve it. But I did create a bunch of roles/characters that were already written. And man did I show up at rehearsals that were scheduled for me.

So flash forward to now. And this project. I recognize that I have skills in certain areas and that I haven't had experience in this other area. I could have produced/directed/written/created anything I wanted if I had wanted back then in my safe haven college days. But I didn't, or was scared to. Mostly I was really content getting to play with things where the hard work had already been done. But I decided to keep doing this professionally, and I'm plowing my fields, and the work is coming, but ya know, not really coming, not really throwing itself at me, "PLEASE LYNN, PLEASE BE IN MY AMAZING FILM WITH THIS CHARACTER THAT IS INCREDIBLE AND WE WILL PLAN THE SCHEDULE AND PAY YOU. PLEASE!" Not that kind of work, so in fits and starts I've realized, hated, fought against, gotten excited about, run away from, negotiated out of, hulu-ed instead of, and am finally trying to get cool with the fact that:

If you want to do it, do it.

You have to create your own work. You do not have a choice in the matter. Either do this or do something else, because it is too hard to live out here just waiting for someone to want you. You must want you. A few years ago I realized I needed to stop waiting for someone else to believe in me before I'd believe in me. So I did. I decided that I believe in me. And if someone else wants to, that is very cool. I love that, but I will not wait for it. I will believe in me, now.

But that doesn't mean it's constant or black and white decided. That was a turning in a different direction. Now I'm learning to walk forward.

So I have this project.

I will learn how to produce it. I will create that syllabus. I will obey myself and show up prepared. It will become real and it will be done. And I will do it, damn it. I will. Oh, help.

But more on that later. For now, I wanna watch some Hulu before my Z-Quil fully kicks in. Cause I created this. And if I created this, I can create. Little by little, piece by peace.---Whoa. That was a typo I just about corrected but caught myself... Piece by peace...

Hmm...

Piece by peace. Or maybe peace by piece...


Oh, and the project. Right.

It's called Cold Tangerines.