Musings – Connie Terwilliger

Curiosity Creates Opportunity

(This post was published 10 years ago. It still holds true today.)

I was thinking about the phrase “curiosity killed the cat” today as one of my cats climbed up on a pile of empty cardboard boxes that were piled high on a work table to see what was going on and everything came down in a huge, yet rather quiet crash – except for the startled yelp of the cat as he was propelled into the air.

Most of us know what curiosity killed the cat “means.” Poking around can have dire consequences. But I was curious as to it’s origin, so I did some Googling and found this info on Wikipedia. It started out as “care killed the cat.”

Ben Johnson, an English playwright in 1598 used something like it one […]

Connie Terwilliger2025-01-23T18:07:33+00:00January 23rd, 2025|Categories: Auditioning, Business, Musings|Tags: curiosity, Wikipedia|

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|

Human Error? Who Pays?

So, what were you doing during the great Facebook outage of March 2019? Did you have withdrawals? Think about the paying advertisers! They lost their access to their targets for more than 20 hours.

So, who should pay for the lost opportunities. Facebook says it was human error – a line of stray code perhaps. S*#t happens. But any web developer worth their salt does upgrades/fixes/changes on off hours. Hard to find an off hour when you have global reach.

Here’s an opinion piece on the subject – that feels that Facebook must be accountable for the blackout.

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/333237/facebook-must-be-accountable-to-regulators-for-out.html

Connie Terwilliger2019-03-22T19:07:14+00:00March 22nd, 2019|Categories: Advertising, Announcements, Business, Musings|

Interactive Programming Is Here To Stay?

Did you get into the interactive film “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch?”

I didn’t, but I guess it is another technological wave that will wash over us and become part of our every day experience.

Today’s writers and producers have to stay ahead of things and see around the corner. A lot of them are creating the corners. They are just wired that way.

As an early adapter of technology (my first computer was a Kaypro), I can speak first hand about the importance of staying at least abreast of current trends. Using common sense to see what is going to stick and what is just a passing fad.

We are used to interactive gaming, so why not interactive programming. Here’s an article from MediaPost about Netflix’s latest venture – https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/333406/netflix-leans-into-interactive-programming-with-y.html?

My personal video watching is pretty passive though, so for me, I don’t know that I’ll be pressing for […]

Connie Terwilliger2019-03-20T16:03:37+00:00March 20th, 2019|Categories: Musings, Technology|

Once in a Blue Moon On-camera Project

My local San Diego agent sent me an audition for an on-camera project that sort of threw me for a loop. It had been a long time since I had an on-camera opportunity and this one was to be done at home – a self-recorded audition. WHAT!? No director or casting director there to feed you lines? No sign-in sheet? How much? For a whole day? I had a million excuses as to why I didn’t think I was going to audition for it. I would have to put on makeup, fix my hair, find good light, memorize some lines. No! Just no.

I was gently convinced to give it a try. […]

Connie Terwilliger2019-01-30T01:34:09+00:00January 30th, 2019|Categories: Acting, Announcements, Business, Musings, Recent Work|

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|

Professional Voiceover Development Fun at FaffCon 8

Zoom in for a peek at about 120 of my closest voiceover friends at a wild and wonderful voiceover conference called FaffCon – this was FaffCon 8 (out of 10) held just outside of Minneapolis.

After regular strictly organized voiceover conferences started to feel top heavy in trying to sell newbies on coaching, the concept of voiceover pros imparting knowledge and energy to other voiceover pros in a decidedly unstructured, yet remarkably organized way was born in the fertile, funny and creative mind of Amy Snively.

I’m a Founding Faffer and after the first remarkable event in Portland OR, have been involved in the planning, organizing, assisting and even sponsoring all the FaffCons that have followed.

Why? Because it works. Despite not having any featured speakers or a set schedule of sessions planned in advance – somehow we come up with […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:03+00:00September 9th, 2016|Categories: Acting, Musings|

You’ll be hearing from me…sometime…I promise!

The quest for a workable Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software continues. I don’t know about you, but I am having a heck of time finding one that is simple and integrates easily with my workflow.

Remember FilemakerPro? I used that for a while back in the day. Spent hours creating custom forms and fields to manage my free lance producing / writing / talent business. It was complicated and pretty much stand alone. But then I took a full-time job and the free lance gigs were sidelined for about 9 years. When I got back into the free lance side of things, the world had changed and new easier (?) and free CRM options were dangled in front of me.

I tried Outlook Business Contacts for a while, but during a software update, the functionality disappeared, so I muddled along sorting email into folders […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:03+00:00May 8th, 2016|Categories: Business, Marketing, Musings|Tags: client care, CRM, customer service, top of mind, voice talent|