In A World...

I've had a crazy last ten days or so. Let me go ahead and reiterate why Kristen and I are out here. As I've repeated ad nauseam, we came out here for a do over. Not content with the daily grind and forced into jobs that make us miserable, we pledged that once we got out here, we would both find something that we enjoy. She's at an incredible veterinary hospital right now with bosses and a support staff that is more than she could have asked for. Kristen and job satisfaction/happiness: Check

The pebble in the pond for me so to speak started last week which I wrote about. I emailed Wright Thompson of ESPN and he responded and I was ultimately led to the Post and Courier. I have a foot in the door and now I help out with the sports page for the oldest newspaper in the south. This will hopefully lead towards a writing career for me. Chris on the way to job satisfaction/happiness: Check

As a small aside, I'd like to brag right here that I sent Wright Thompson a thank you email and that son of a bitch gmail chatted me. Yeah he's on my friends list. Eat it.

Most people who know me recognize that I have a fairly deep, articulate voice. When I meet people, I'm often told that I should try and do something with my voice. When we were in Shreveport, I tried and tried to get in touch with people regarding advice and possible ways to break into voice overs. NOBODY returned emails or phone calls. I got out here and made up my mind that I wasn't going to stop trying to make this happen until I exhausted every outlet I could find. I found different voice over artists and sent out email after email. Last week a guy promised me he'd call me and we could talk about it once he was finished with a huge project. I haven't heard from him yet but I'm looking forward to speaking with him.

I randomly sent an email to a man who goes by Zeus (no shit) and ten minutes later I had a reply asking me to call him. He included part of his demo reel and when I listened to it, my jaw hit the floor. He's one of the movie trailer guys, one of the IN A WORLD...guys. He does voice overs for the major networks too. I knew this dude's voice and he was willingto talk to me. I had an errand to run so I grabbed the number and planned on stopping in a parking lot to call (my phone doesn't work for crap here at the house). As I'm about to dial, this guy calls me. Unbelievable. To be frank, he told me the voice over world was almost impossible to break into. Vocally I had the type of voice that could be successful. Professionally, I do not have the background though. He told me that I should try to find some sort of position at a radio station just to get familiar with the environment. That's what I'm trying to do now. Ultimately I have to have a demo tape produced. Zeus told me that he would coach me for free and give me scripts to read and he'd help me make my demo. How awesome is this?

In my email I mentioned that he probably got this type of solicitation quite often. He told me he does but he called me because I mentioned we'd just relocated to Charleston and he lived nearby so he felt compelled to call this time. I explained to him that I'm not scared of the hurdles I've got to cross to get involved in this business. We just uprooted our family and moved out here on a whim. That took guts so I'm not afraid of a challenge. Things really are looking up here. I'm not naive enough to think that I'm going to automatically succeed in a career in voice over but man, this is a fun ride. I've always wanted to write and I've always wanted to talk and I have a foot in the door to both. I'm doing my best to kick that damn door down. Rock on.