Away From the Mic

Inspiration On the Path Toward Achievement

28 May 2019

Since I haven’t posted an article in over 6 months (gasp!), you might think my blog went into hibernation and never came out. However, I’m busy creating content that remains unseen to my audience.

First, I have several articles in progress for this blog to aid narrators with research.

I’m also writing a series of articles for my author blog. I’m basing them on the presentation I gave to the Atlanta Sisters in Crime chapter about the stages of audiobook production. I provided members with this rack card to plan their trip to Audiobook World. I recorded and transcribed my talk to re-purpose the info into a format I could share on my site. The articles relate to the stops on the map. I wanted to write all of these articles before I posted them so I could schedule them to publish on consecutive weeks.

Beyond developing stories for my blogs, I’m excited to tell you I recently launched a new site NarratorsRoadmap.com. This site will expand my work to help narrators of all levels. I’m gratified by the enormous positive reaction of the narrator community to this endeavor!

Currently, NarratorsRoadmap.com contains loads of terrific information and resources from a number of pros about getting started as an audiobook narrator. I’m working with Voice Actor Websites, a wonderfully creative and highly responsive team, on the design and implementation of the full site. Meanwhile, I’m creating the content. I hope you’ll sign up for updates! The first one will go out soon to give everyone the preview of coming attractions. (This tweet is a hint!)

Starting today, Tuesday 28 May at 10:00am and concurrent with this article, I will post quick tips on my Twitter account. I’ll write my #TuesdayTips on a postcard, naturally, and they’ll cover a range of subjects, from online safety to software usage to marketing tactics.

Even though I am a full-time empress of information, I continue to narrate books! If I don’t have an assignment from a publisher, I create my own projects. I’m prepping a comprehensive biography about Mary Todd Lincoln.

I wanted to share these activities with you to illustrate that just because we don’t see things happening, or our desires aren’t manifesting on our timetable, we shouldn’t give in to discouragement. Hidden forces are moving conditions around in our favor!

Here here are 4 quotes that sustain and inspire me while I’m on the path toward unlocking the next achievement. I hope you find them helpful, too.

1. Johann Goethe is usually credited with these lines, but the Quote Investigator site notes they should be attributed to Irish poet John Antser:
  
  What you can do, or dream you can, begin it,
  Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
2. I recently read the transcript of Tim Harford’s TED Talk titled “A Powerful way to unleash your creativity.” The path to the success you seek can be a meandering line among many projects.
  
  I would like to urge you to embrace the art of slow-motion multitasking. Not because you’re in a hurry, but because you’re in no hurry at all…If you have another exciting, challenging project to work on, being stuck on one is just an opportunity to do something else.
3. Joanna Gaines, TV star of home improvement shows, wrote in her and her husband Chip’s book The Magnolia Story that you must thrive BEFORE you can get to the next career rung which garners more attention and increased influence.
  
  Most people think that you start off not thriving. Then you get a TV show or some other amazing opportunity, you get fame, you get fortune, and then you thrive. That’s certainly what I thought earlier in my own life. But what’s interesting to me is that Chip and I got to a place where we were thriving — as a couple, as a family, as business partners — before any of this new success unfolded.
4. When I catch myself making those unproductive and soul-stealing comparisons, I start thinking about this quote from Joel Osteen:
  
  I read where an elephant is pregnant for two years. Because the animal is so big, it takes more time for that baby elephant to grow and develop…People around you may be giving birth. They’re seeing their dreams come to pass. Be happy for them. But the reason it’s taking longer for you is because, like that elephant, what you’re carrying is not ordinary. It’s not average. What you’re going to give birth to is going to be bigger, more rewarding, more fulfilling than you’ve ever dreamed. Don’t get discouraged by the process.

Do you have a favorite quote to help you stay inspired and motivated? I’d love for you to share it in the comments!

Analyzing the Audiobook Narrator Self-Assessment Quiz Part 4

12 December 2018

It’s finally here! Settle in for the 4th and final article about analyzing the questions on my Audiobook Narrator Self-Assessment Quiz. If you’ve missed the previous posts in this series, check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

This time, we’ll talk about the Financial Considerations section of the Quiz. I was taught to never discuss money in a job interview until you know you are a good fit for the position. I saved this section until the end for the same reason.

Analyzing the Audiobook Narrator Self-Assessment Quiz Part 3

5 December 2018

We’re halfway through with the questions on my Audiobook Narrator Self-Assessment Quiz! To catch up, start with Analyzing the Audiobook Narrator Self-Assessment Quiz Part 1.

Continuing where I left off in part 2, we’ll discuss the last 7 of the 15 questions in the Personality/Work Habits section.

Resolutions and Intentions

3 January 2018

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us

are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

— Henry Stanley Hoskins (not Emerson as I originally believed)

It’s day 3 in a new year. Have you already broken your New Year’s Resolutions?

At the end of 2016, I took Michael Hyatt’s 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever course. (This book is based on that course.) On day 3 of the course, he wrote about New Year’s Resolutions:

The average person makes the same New Year’s resolutions ten separate times without success.

After going through all of the exercises in Hyatt’s course, I confidently started 2017 with several specific goals in the areas of health, career, and avocation. I was making progress on all of them until mid-May.

Drew’s parents, who were 93 and 92 at the time, had been in good health for their age. They both were able to walk and care for themselves, and they were still living independently in their house of 54 years. He still drove, they did their own shopping, and they did all of the personal care activities that we take for granted. We enjoyed lunch with them at a restaurant on 12 May. In a blink of an eye, life changed.

Drew and his parents in June 2017. They were at rehab, and we were hoping for better days to come.

Antidote For A Dry Spell

20 December 2017

As I wrote over 10 years ago, in order for your ship containing job contracts to come sailing in to your harbor, you have to keep sending out promotional and prospecting ships into the world. But what happens when you don’t see any results from your efforts? It’s so easy to fall into a negative mindset, especially when it seems that every narrator you know is announcing on social media that they had scheduled work through the next 6 months even before they were just hired for a 10-book series.

I still am not at the level of success that I envision, and some days, the critical voice in my mind starts in on me about what I haven’t accomplished. I notice that mean girl never gives me credit for all of the things I HAVE done! No matter how circumstances may appear in the moment, the key is to push the doubts away and keep marching toward your dream.

In 2012, Dave Courvoisier wrote candidly on his blog about a dry spell he was experiencing in gaining work. In this article, I’m including and expanding on my response to him.

First, it’s possible to want something so badly that your desperation to have it can actually push it away from you. I wrote about this phenomenon in the article Voiceover and the Law of Paradoxical Intent.

I can tell you honestly that it was only after I truly ACCEPTED my life as it was that things really started to move forward for me.

Second, the number of jobs booked in a time period is only one small way of measuring success. I wrote about 3 techniques for maintaining a feel-good mentality about your career in the post The feel-good voiceover blog post of the summer!. I write my articles for myself as much as for my audience, and this is one post that I often re-read to maintain balance and objectivity during slow times.

I cannot overemphasize the 3rd technique too much — STOP THE COMPARISONS TO OTHER PEOPLE! It is the single greatest act of self-negation that keeps us from our good.

In fact, when I listened to Rob Lowe’s most excellent narration of his autobiographical audiobook Stories I Only Tell My Friends, I heard a compelling reason to keep going forward with your dream. When Lowe talked about meeting an unknown LeVar Burton about a week before ROOTS was aired on TV, he said:

“It showed me how quickly the rocket fuel of stardom can ignite, how unimaginably GIANT the g-forces can be as you are propelled into fame’s orbit.

Looking back, I also wonder at the mystery of destiny and fate. I marvel at the mercurial forces of fortune and am reminded that one must be ever vigilant to stay on one’s own path, without envy of others.”

When I don’t know what the next step is, I just take one. It doesn’t matter what it is. It doesn’t matter if it’s the best thing I could do at the time. It doesn’t matter if other people agree with me, cheer me on, throw spitballs my way, or totally ignore me.

It’s not about them. It’s about me. It’s about “staying vigilant on my path, without envy of others.”

All that matters is that I take that step…..because that step gets me one step closer to the life I’m meant to lead.

Law of Attraction

Shortly after I responded on Dave’s blog, I wrote the article Power of “I Am” In Maintaining a Positive Attitude. Whatever you put after those 2 words becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A passage in the 12/15/17 Science of Mind magazine daily guide really brings home this point.

“Whenever a negative, demeaning thought is believed and allowed to repeat, it is a prayer. “I am [blank] is a prayer. This thought repeatedly spoken becomes a belief. A belief becomes a reality, a prayer answered. By repeating the thoughts, “I am not good enough”…or “Life has always been a struggle”, I am actually creating that reality.

One of our greatest tools is practicing discipline with what we allow ourselves to think. The reality is that you must first believe your affirmation to be true of you.

…See and know your good, then praise and embrace it.”

We need to keep thinking and believing that the success we seek is coming to us. What we think about expands. If we focus on what we think we lack, we will continue to experience more of the same lack.

Just because things don’t happen on our timetable or in the way that we would expect them to show up doesn’t mean they aren’t going to happen. They probably will happen and be even greater than we could imagine!

Just keep smiling, taking steps, and sending out those ships!

Is This Coach Right For Me?

13 December 2017

When people ask my advice about getting training, I refer them to my article 10 questions to ask coaches and demo producers and the vetted coaches and consultants linked in the Connections section of my NarratorsRoadmap.com home page.

Recently, someone told me she wanted to develop confidence and wondered whether I thought a particular coach was sincere. I recognized that she really wanted to know if the coach was right for her before she committed to spend the money for the course.

I decided other people may find my answer with 4 additional questions to be useful, so I’m posting the modified version of my reply here.

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™