I'll admit, I go into lulls where I only focus on what I'm NOT booking. I become consumed with nothing but auditions, and UNbooked work. And I develop the incredible skill set of being able to list any actress's credits as though I am a stockholder in IMDB. This is an awful, and totally counterproductive state of mind.
This is when I have to remember something that always rings true -- when you get busy, you get booking.
By this I mean, you must make your life full with things more than acting.
So I'm not talking acting classes, or workshops, or hanging out with other actors at Coffee Bean. What I mean is finding things that make you happy that are 100% unrelated to our line of work.
Last year (actually, at this time exactly), I started taking tennis lessons, French classes, and gardening. And while my serve never became anything notable (or, even good), and the French was comme ci comme ca, and my little garden only rendered 2 noteworthy tomatoes -- I felt happy. Proud of making things grow (or at least attempting to), and life was full.
And guess what happened in those fateful months? I booked the largest job to date in my career, and spent the summer feeling fancy and working my ass off in another country. (Perhaps, that's why the neglected tomatoes didn't fare so well...)
So get busy. Whatever that means for you (running, writing, volunteering, taking cooking classes, etc), go and do it. As a matter of fact, use this time to make the "special skills" on your resume things that you can actually do :)
(i.e., by saying that you can "ride horses," are you referring to a pony ride when you were 10? it's ok...we all fib a little)
I say this because a friend of mine tested for a show set in Hawaii a few years ago, which required the lead characters to know how to surf. "Oh totally, yeah I can surf," said all the little actresses, with their newly updated "special skills" on the resumes. So what did the producers do? They had them all go down to Malibu and prove it. Only one of them could actually get up on the board. Classic.
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I think you make such a good point...when we are out there, simply living our lives and not defining ourselves by our jobs (even if we really like our jobs!) I think that energy just flows over everything else and sends out good vibes. And I mean that above sentence in the most practical, down-to-earth kind of way, not in a groovy, oooh, feel the vibrations of my magnet bracelets kind of way. Energy gets what energy gives, and I think positivity, enthusiasm, and busy-ness always bring more of it to tag along :)
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