Showing posts with label staged reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label staged reading. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

5 Reasons Why You Should NEVER Begin Something New

Beginnings are hard, right?

1. They suck the life out of you. Day and night, you worry and stress and plot.

2. They're slow. (Enough said.)

3. They leave you teetering, questioning your choices. There's no balance to beginning something.

4. They take SO MUCH WORK!


5. You MIGHT succeed, and succeeding can be a lot scarier than failure.

Once you get moving, momentum grows.

“The hardest part is always the beginning, when you feel uncomfortable. Know that this is normal, and all you need to do is go against your emotions. ...face your fears, be uncomfortable, and experiment with different strategies until you find something that works.”

― Jamie Cooper, Albert Einstein: Extraordinary Life Lessons That Will Change Your Life Forever

In the last four years, I feel like I've started again about fifty times. But like Wright Brothers (who failed more times than I want to count, going through 200 different wing shapes for planes and risking everything while unemployed), we keep trying.


Because beginning something is easy. Seeing it through takes dedication, fortitude, and the willingness to start and start again.

This week, we are starting something NEW.

We're publishing the entire STAGED READING of our musical in 1 minutes episodes over the coming weeks. Subscribe so you don't miss out!



Our awesome co-hosts are Shannon Lawrence, Diedre Knight, Liza, and Pat Garcia!

Today's question: As a writer/author what is something you regret? Or something that you wish you'd done differently in your writing process?

I'm skipping this one, but I look forward to reading everyone's responses!


How do you feel about beginning something new? Are you in the midst of a new project? Do you like musical theatre?

Wednesday, September 4, 2024

3 Responses to Insanity: Which Are You?

What do you do when the world explodes? 


Do you hunker down and hope the storm passes?

Do you strap on your survival gear and explore the changes?

Do you hide behind your window and ignore the pretty, pretty disasters?


Me? I disappear and take up a new hobby. 😆 Apparently. With cheese. 



I don't know if anyone even comes here anymore because I've been so stinkin’ absent. So...
Things I've been up to:

• Teaching. Like literally, in a school setting. (Creating curriculum from scratch.) I taught several writing classes, a music writing class, geography, even preschool. *gasp* (Not full time. Nope. Too busy teaching my own kids the rest of the week.)
• Producing Musicals (and a play). That's right. 4 under my belt, two of which I cast and directed (and designed lights/projection, and so, so much more!). Tuck a talent show in there too (including all production aspects—finding a venue, tech design, all the way down to rehearsals with the talent) and we tally 5 separate shows. In two years.
  
• Running writing contests and playing editor for a couple anthologies.
• Had a son get married.

• Sent a daughter to the other side of the world serving a church mission.

• Graduated a third child.

• Reestablished a Drama Program: from fundraising to tracking down venues to building teams to casting... I've done it all AND wrote the manual for my successors. (Seriously though, 45 pages of best practices.)

Revised and workshopped MY musical. (Two years and counting, baby!) (“My" is a loose term referring to the Collier team, hubby and myself.)


• Held 2 low-key readings of my musical. (I say low-key, but that included creating rehearsal video for ALL music parts for ALL characters for a TWO HOUR SHOW. 1 to 12 vocal parts per song – let that sink in — and holding rehearsals/coaching sessions for performers. Whew!)

• Mixed 2 hours worth of orchestrations for a live performance. 😶

• Begun casting for a professional staged reading for IMMORTAL THE MUSICAL.
Those are just some of the highlights. 

What have you been up to?

Shameless plug: We’re looking for talent local to the Orlando area (singers/actors/sight readers). Know of someone? Send them my way!




Are you hunkering down? Taking the world by storm? Kicking the trash out of your goals? Hanging on by your nails?