Life – Connie Terwilliger

Do You Choose Life or Beauty? ( Repost )

With another election coming up, I thought I would boost this post I wrote back in 2017. It still applies.

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The silkworm makes an interesting allegory about choice. In order to get the beautiful silk from the cocoons, you have to kill the silkworm pupae before it transitions into – what is today – a captive commercially bred and not particularly beautiful moth.

Of course, you have to save some of the silkworms so that they can become moths to lay eggs to become silkworms to start the cycle again. Without some balance, we end up with nothing but moths. With no beauty or wealth to feed the moths, we ultimately end up with nothing.

Do you choose beauty (and the wealth that can come from selling the silk) – or do you choose life? Do you chose a little of both?

Most of my […]

Connie Terwilliger2024-05-27T20:11:25+00:00May 27th, 2024|Categories: Life, Musings|

Dog Days of Summer

So, what are the dog days of summer? Per Wikipedia…

The dog days or dog days of summer are the hot, sultry days of summer. They were historically the period following the heliacal rising of the star system Sirius, which Hellenistic astrology connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck.

Heat for sure. Hopefully we’ll get some thunderstorms here in southern CA. Ideally, we can stay away from fever and bad luck. Lethargy? No time for lethargy.

For many of us who have been working remotely for years, this global quarantine has not really affected our business. I’m as busy as ever – with one significant difference. My status as a seasoned (read mature) voiceover professional with lots of repeat business, referrals, direct hits to my website (24 years young) means that my days of daily marketing are over.

I’m not retiring – why on […]

Connie Terwilliger2020-10-12T23:28:24+00:00October 12th, 2020|Categories: Announcements, Life, Musings|

Staged reading of “Silkworms”

I started writing as self-imposed therapy about 20 years ago and it blossomed into a stage play. I worked on it off and on over the years – mostly off and eventually put it away in a folder on my computer. At some point in the past year or so, I revisited it and decided that it had some merit.

After a polishing I sent it to a director friend who liked it well enough to want to produce it as a staged reading. He just wanted it beefed up a bit in the second act. With a possible performance date in December of 2017, I set to work to see if I could find the right place to add a scene or two.

The pressure of a possible performance date did the trick and my play “Silkworms” was performed for two nights in […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-17T03:33:40+00:00February 17th, 2018|Categories: Life, Writing|Tags: John Tessmer, La Jolla Theater Ensemble|

Are You Hitting the Mark?

No matter what we do in life we need to know if what we are doing is hitting the mark. This takes the ability to know what DOES hit the mark and then comparing it to what we are doing.

Self-Evaluation techniques are something that I have been teaching to introductory voiceover students in the class I have been teaching at San Diego City College since 1999. Prior to that I did a private seminar with the same focus. I also share the self-evaluation mantra with my peers at conferences and in social media.

As voice talent, much of what we do these days is in a vacuum and we need to apply these skills to not only our auditions in order land work, but in many cases to the job itself as so much of it is self-directed.

This takes knowing when something is […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:02+00:00April 20th, 2017|Categories: Acting, Communication, Life, Musings, Techniques, Tips & Tricks, Writing|

Do You Choose Life or Beauty?

The silkworm makes an interesting allegory about choice. In order to get the beautiful silk from the cocoons, you have to kill the silkworm pupae before it transitions into – what is today – a captive commercially bred and not particularly beautiful moth.

Of course, you have to save some of the silkworms so that they can become moths to lay eggs to become silkworms to start the cycle again. Without some balance, we end up with nothing but moths. With no beauty or wealth to feed the moths, we ultimately end up with nothing.

Do you choose beauty (and the wealth that can come from selling the silk) – or do you choose life? Do you chose a little of both?

Most of my choices are not life or death decisions. Do I get a new microphone just because I want one? Do […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:02+00:00March 4th, 2017|Categories: Life, Musings|

Smart Phones Mean Business

I love my smart phone. A Samsung Galaxy 5. It does everything – except FaceTime – but there’s Skype, Facebook’s talk feature, Google Hangouts and other alternatives if I need to spend some face time with someone across town or in another time zone.

My smart phone gets me out of my studio and I can stay connected with my business. You never know when an emergency voiceover will pop up. And if you are not in the media production business you might not realize just how often there actually is a voiceover emergency. Had one on Monday. The call came in at 2 for a 3 o’clock session with a client on the East Coast.

The flip side of having a smart phone is that it keeps me connected with my business. There are times when it is good to […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:04+00:00March 19th, 2016|Categories: Business, Communication, Life, Musings, Technology|Tags: eLearning, narration, online purchase, smart phone, voiceover|

Do You Have a Digital Media Production Tribe?

Many years ago when ITVA changed their name to MCA-I – people just didn’t know what to do. The new name was hard to say for one thing. And the change happened at a time when technology was evolving and the business climate was changing. It created sort of a perfect storm that sent the association into turmoil. Something not unique to MCA-I – many associations have been feeling the effects.

While MCA-I is still alive (www.mca-i.org), and remains strong in scattered chapters around the US, it is in regrowth mode.

The name MCA-I is still a mouthful to this day. Back then we tried to find a way to make it easier to say – so a few of us dubbed ourselves the “McEye” Tribe. That was the phonetic pronunciation. While it never really caught on, it worked […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:04+00:00February 25th, 2016|Categories: Announcements, Business, Life, Marketing|Tags: mca-i, professional association, SD MediaPros, video production|

Simply Simplify

Most of my adult life has been spent accumulating stuff – tangible and intangible. Lots of stuff. Cluttering up my physical, mental and emotional space. Most of us have stuff – lots of stuff. (I feel like George Carlin! If you have never heard this bit from him, check it out below. A little bit ‘o swearing, but pretty tame compared to most modern comics.)

Anyway, we all have a lot of stuff. We go through our stuff at times, weeding through our stuff and donating it to our favorite thrift store. Sorting through data stuff – deleting or archiving. All of this activity opens up space for more new stuff to gather.

Sometimes we don’t have a chance to decide which stuff to get rid of. Like when your external hard drive crashes and all the stuff on it is gone for good.

Yeah, that […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:04+00:00January 12th, 2016|Categories: Business, Life, Musings, Technology|Tags: accumulation, George Carlin, hard drive crash, Stuff|

A little (on purpose) down time

Many people have written about the importance of taking time off. It’s good for you according to an article in the Huffington Post – “Taking Time Off Can Improve Health and Productivity.”

A lot of people agree with this – an article in US News and World Report said – “45 percent of Americans agreed that “they come back to work feeling rested, rejuvenated, and reconnected to their personal life” after vacation…”

Some people swear by taking lots of mini-vacations. I’ve talked about that before. My current “job” as a voice talent allows me to take time off pretty much whenever I want – a couple of hours at a time. I do this on a regular basis. Take off on a hike up Cowles Mountain, or down to the Grinding Rocks in Mission Trails. Head out to the beach (when the water is warm enough) to catch some waves on […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:05+00:00October 17th, 2015|Categories: Life, Musings|Tags: Bali, vacation, Water from the Moon Travel|

Smarty or Arty?

It’s nice to be smart – even a little smart. Because, as it turns out – “intelligence only gets you so far when it comes to creativity.”

Intelligence is focused on the details – add a little experience – and creativity leaps off from there.

Add a touch of luck (preparation meets opportunity) and the level of success can be unbounded.

How did I get here?
Sometimes, I feel a little guilty about the fact that without a lot of effort I have made myself a fine little creative life – one I never really planned to have.

Oh, I know I did a little planning as I started to see opportunities, but it seems as though it was just one foot in front of the other following my instincts and ending up here. My experiences along the way influenced which of the […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:05+00:00September 7th, 2015|Categories: Business, Life, Musings|