Life – Connie Terwilliger

Play writing for fun. Not for profit.

Another activity as I ease into retirement is continuing to write and perform in plays. This past fall, I was invited to join a collective of primarily women over 40. The WhatNext? Collective is a vibrant group of San Diego-based writers, actors and directors committed to amplifying the diverse voices of women through bold storytelling.

We just finished a one night only show consisting of eight 10-minute plays written, performed and directed by members of the collective and special invited guest performers, techs, and directors.

I wrote the play “200 Coffee Filters” about a woman who can’t seem to keep a relationship going longer than the time it takes to go through a pack of coffee filters. She keeps mistaking sex for love. Chemistry for Compatibility. What will it take to break the cycle?

In addition to writing a play for this production, I also acted […]

Connie Terwilliger2026-05-12T22:31:49+00:00May 15th, 2026|Categories: Life|

Easing into Retirement Fun…

Keeping busy in semi-retirement is easy when you have a million irons in the fire. With a few regular clients still sending me work and a handful of agents sending opportunities, I have a lot of extra time to spend on even more fun things than voiceover work.

When some of the women in my book club started taking standup comedy classes, I started a serious case of FOMO, so I signed up too. And after a couple of fun classes learning the basics, and several Open Mics (I stayed away from the mean ones and hit the kinder gentler open mics), I was accepted into the Brassy Broads Troup.

With several shows under my belt now, I can see the improvement and am regularly mining my life and friends for funny bits to add. My significant other is featured prominently in my routine. […]

Connie Terwilliger2026-05-12T22:32:21+00:00May 12th, 2026|Categories: Life|

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|