It’s amazing to me how much can change in a few short months. And really, nothing on the outside has changed, it’s just my mindset. Let me explain.

1) I finished production of the film I wrote with my partner and we are now in the editing process. The four days of filming were so long and hard – but also so rewarding. Our DP was awesome, our actors were phenomenal, and everything went according to schedule. Simply amazing. But, when you put a bunch of high achievers together for four 12 hour days, a lot of egos come into play and some of them get bruised. Without going into too much detail of who did what, let’s just say that there were some disagreements on set. Some were about how things should be done and some were simply because we were all cranky after working all day. But you know what – I kept it together. I did my best to ensure that people felt treated well, that their contributions were important to us, and that their opinions were heard. The more that I focused on other people, the less I focused on myself, and thus the happier I actually felt. It is so good to be in my 30’s and have a little perspective. And yes, an actress admits to being over 30 years old!! You may now call me Zen Master Elaine.

2) I booked a commercial job that should begin airing nationally any day now. I expected it to be a super easy day on set. There was only a little dialogue, I was the star of the spot, and the director seemed to really like me at the audition. OH BOY, NO. Nothing I did was right or good enough. We went about an hour over at our location because they didn’t think I was doing a good job. In all honesty, if they had more money and time to reshoot, I think they would have fired me. So, there was some crying, some griping, some trying to figure out how it all went wrong, and definitely some thoughts of quitting acting all together. But then the sadness passed. And I’m still here to fight it out in this crazy industry we call “entertainment”. Zen Master Elaine says, “It doesn’t really matter why it happened. It just did. And now it’s over. Move on.” Yup. And be grateful that it didn’t happen on a bigger set, on a bigger job, with bigger stars… because then I might have cried in front of everyone and that’s way worse than crying in my car on the drive home. Why do I share this? Because too often I think we only see the posts that emphasize the spectacular things in our lives. Bad things happen too. So, honesty.

3) I booked a guest star on the Dreamworks series “Richie Rich”. I couldn’t do it because I was shooting my movie. Again, bad and good.

4) I booked a co-star on the new show starring Kate Walsh, “Bad Judge”. I shoot tomorrow!! Some of my lines have been cut since the audition. Good then bad. But mostly good (see blog post title).