Books I'm Currently Reading

Books I've been reading recently:

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

The Power of the Actor by Ivan Chubbuck

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

I'm going for the more well-rounded actor approach in recent weeks, and so that includes reading acting books (I have several more I bought at the same time but haven't started reading yet) and motivational/psychology books. I'll take each one in order and talk about their impact so far.

The Artist's Way

The Artist's Way, from what I understand, was something of a cult phenomenon when it came out. I've learned this at least from two older teachers at the Hebrew school where I work. It sounds like "everyone was doing it." Anyway, the book is about reconnecting with your inner artist, like if you were forced to leave that artist behind to become a lawyer, to become more adult, etc. I honestly never let my artist go, and though my parents thought being a teacher was a better choice, they never outright dissuaded me from being an artist. My dad even said once he thought I missed my calling as a painter, watching me do a portrait once. Not every talent has to be turned into something for money, but at least it was a nice compliment from him.

So I sort of don't think I'm getting everything out of this book that someone else would who really did quash their inner artist, but whatever. I like doing the Morning Pages, which is just writing about whatever stream of consciousness things come to mind for three pages first thing out of bed. I've been doing it for four weeks now, starting the fifth today. It makes a difference in my mood; I overall feel more positive and such about life and my voiceover career. The other thing she wants readers to do, besides questions and tasks, is the Artist Date, which is setting aside time to go do something alone to nurture the inner child/artist. I haven't been doing that so well. I haven't been scheduling them, though I do allow my child what she wants, like chocolate or playing a video game when I should be productive but she really wants to play.

The self-reflective questions and tasks that end each chapter have been helpful. I always enjoy self-reflection. At least it gets me more clear on why am I doing this career and stuff.

The Power of the Actor

This book I like because it's just reading haha. I was going through Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater, and I do want to get back to that, but that one requires time for the breathing and spine exercises. So it's nice to just be able to read and not have to set aside three hours. Ivana Chubbuck outlines her process for getting into character, from setting an overall objective, specific scene objective, ways to substitute your real-life events/people onto things happening for the character so it's more relatable, and so on. For someone like me who still feels at a disadvantage for not having grown up doing theatre, I love it.

I need more acting classes, rather than voiceover specific classes, in general. I've had two I think. Yeah, various video game masterclasses and such focus on acting too, but I definitely need a Meisner or Stanislavsky kind of tutoring. And Ivana combines things like that in her process. I plan to take her classes once I finish the book; to enroll, you have to have finished the first 12 chapters. Sort of culty, but it's definitely been helpful, even in commercial auditions.

Drive

I got this as an audiobook at the public library. Mostly he talks about why intrinsic motivation is better than extrinsic. Intrinsic can be learned. Carrot and stick, if/then rewards were so commonplace for the 20th century, and now that is changing. We can see it with people working from home more without their boss' supervision. The idea is to believe that people want to work (where before the idea was people are naturally lazy). So while this book was more for people in charge of other people, like company CEOs or teachers, I found it useful for me too.

It's important to change my mindset in freelancing. Yes, at the very start, I thought getting into voiceover is a way to get back at people who bullied me (hah! now you wish you were nicer to me back then, huh?). That was one driving factor for wanting fame! So immature, me at 22. Now having a legacy and money is still important to me, extrinsic motivations, but so is doing it because it's fun (intrinsic). It's doing "the story," that my sister and I did every night growing up, in real life, for pay. It's getting to have fun being other characters, learn about random things like oil pipelines and medical drugs because of corporate narration, and experiencing studio life with 11 people on a call/in the room to get one performance right (as happened when I recorded Andrea for The Walking Dead Match 3 Tales). It's good to have a mix of intrinsic and extrinsic.

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So those are three books I'm reading currently (actually, finished with Drive already). Let me know what you think/thought about them, if you've read them!