Back to the Day Job
Now I know I cant live the hermit life in the booth forever (yet). I came out of a career that I had been pretty high up on the totem pole and I know some people would kill for the job I had. Unfortunately, it wasn't the dream job for me and it took a pandemic for me to wake up to that fact. Now I'm back at the family trade of construction. I'm not complaining I enjoy it a lot more than managing a kitchen and I have more free time but my body is less than pleased with me.
Even with the devastation 2020 caused I found the silver lining of being able to get back into the arts. At 25 I stopped 3 classes away from having a music associates and ended up making Japanese food until I turned 35. I thought "Great, I know I don't want to be a chef anymore but what the hell do I want to be?"
I still play music but not like I used to and honestly its my vent not really a creative outlet. Now I was thinking, song editing, but the patience required for dialing in all those tracks and mixing is not in my skill set (Nor do I have enough passion to learn it). That's when "the shinning beam of light through the rain" moment happened. An ad for Steve Blum's voice courses magically popped up on Facebook (okay not magic... Creepy algorithms and technomancy). Now those classes really don't dive deep into any specific topic, it is more of an overview but the simple idea that I could do this for a living blew my mind.
During the whole pandemic I have taken class after class and work with three wonderful coaches. I have managed to build a Tiktok, Instagram and LinkedIn from zero to 700+ followers each. I finally got a serious gig/credit from a big company (Still NDA so I can't use it on a resume yet...sad face). Built my website, fleshed out some demos, upgrading them with two professional demos on the way. Built a booth, learned audacity then upgraded to Reaper and learned that program. What I'm trying to say is I'm proud and happy with how I used mine time during the pandemic but... now I've lost 30-40 hours a week to work.
It's fine, it's reality, it's... frustrating. I don't know how to keep my focus straight and manage my time. My attention span is aggressively short. I am happy that I figured out calendars and I put in date reminders plus some scheduling, but It's a far cry from where I need to be. I'm starting to feel overwhelmed; Trying to balance a paying job, a dream job and a lovely wife. I know it's a problem most of us deal with and I wish I had the solution but I am currently in the "figuring it out" stage. I'm happy for any impute from the veterans. Thank you guys for reading this and being such a great community!
-Shiloh McGillicuddy
https://www.blumvoxstudios.com/ - Reference for anyone else who wants a great introduction into the world of voice acting!