Felicia Day

I’ve decided to turn the phrase “stressed beyond belief” to “coping with a wealth of opportunities”.  That sounds so much more positive and lovely!   I haven’t had time to blog in a few weeks, time has passed so fast it’s unimaginable that I just took that trip to New Media Expo and now I’m packing my bags for PAX in Seattle!  So crazy! Seeing a Twitter by Jenwriter tonight about how she was looking forward to a blog entry by me was what spurred me to write, so thanks Jen!  I can’t guarantee quality, but I can deliver quantity ONE BLOG ENTRY!

I have been totally overwhelmed this past week.  So overwhelmed I haven’t even had a chance to TOUCH a video game, gasp!  Not only did I have to juggle an unexpected commercial job (shooting from 7pm to 7am for two days in a row!) but I’ve been scrambling  to get Guild Season 2 jump started.  It was an executive decision by me and my producer Kim Evey to start planning to shoot at least a few episodes by end of September.  I looked at the calendar a few weeks ago and was like, “It’s been WAY too long, I’m not waiting anymore. We have to shoot!”  And with that, we started getting ready for pre-production.  We have been waiting all summer to meet the right funding partner to enable us to shoot and pay people.  Unfortunately, people are slow to let go of their money, haha.  Not to say we haven’t gotten offers, but none of them has felt right to me yet.  The New Media landscape is so crazy right now, and every deal is different and has it’s advantages and disadvantages.  Kim and I decided a while ago to try and retain the rights to our show, and that has definitely ruled out some avenues of funding, but we know the right opportunity will present itself in time, we just have to keep plugging away.  We still have a few interesting possibilities looming on the horizon, but now we’re working with a set goal to shoot in September no matter what and it makes me feel so empowered to have that line drawn in the sand.   The lesson I’ve learning the last year or so is that waiting on other people to solve my problems is never going to accomplish anything and I just had to remind myself of that to get the ball rolling.

Not having the script totally done has been the main stress because it takes me long uninterrupted blocks of time to write.  I’m also developing a script with Machinima.com at the same time that is also fun, but another time-block-requirerer.  The challenge for me is somehow letting emails and other correspondence  go rather than automatically responding and spending 3-4 hours a day on messaging, which has been the case the past 3 weeks or so.   Video Game Addict => Email addict anyone?

I saw an interesting article on Tim Street’s Blog the other day about Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV.  He has a clever way of dealing with emails:  He send people a link to this video:

I love it because he’s so polite and he obviously cares that people take time out to contact him but he simply can’t respond very quickly and he wants people to know that.  I don’t get nearly as much mail as him, but to make time to finish this script AND get everything else done in my life, ruthless triage must be done, at least for the next 4 weeks.  I missed a dear friend’s baby shower due to Comicon and utter chaos, and it was kind of a wake-up call.  I think I may be copying Senor Vaynerchuk!

I’m proud to say that the effort to delegate is now a goal of mine for the next month.  We put a post on the Guild website last week asking for volunteers for the show and had to take it down again the next day due to the overwhelming response!  All THOSE emails have ironically taken a lot of hours to deal with and respond to, haha, but now we have a great group of people we know we can call on to help us, and as for set PA’s:  We could staff a Michael Bay film with the # of volunteers on the list!!!  Thank you all who offered their time and services, it means so much to us.

Anyway, enough whining about how hard my life is!  I’m leaving tomorrow for Seattle, and if you’re at Penny Arcade Expo please stop by and meet me and Zaboo and Kim Evey my producing partner!  We’ll be selling and signing DVDs and screening the first season of The Guild on the big screen, yay!!  Check out The Guild site for details on signings and the Friday night screening!

I leave you with an interview I did with Pop17.  It was quite fun and was done at New Media Expo!

List #28 – Cancel extra s.n.s. (social networking sites)

After I created The Guild, I put my toe into the waters of web as a PERSON. Before that, I’d remained mostly anonymous and private. I’m really glad I decided to be more social with the internet, because it has created this blog, as well as connected me with old friends and new. BUT when you say “yes” to everything, you become a slave to maintaining all those connections. I’ve felt overwhelmed a lot, scattered, and this is partially because I have a lot of “internet homework” to do. Things slip through the cracks, and I feel guilty when I neglect things, like the forums for the Flog, or stray email that accidentally gets archived.

Also, I realized my problem with social networking sites. Early on, I decided to accept whatever friend request came through, because I could use the service to message/bulletin about The Guild or other acting things. I don’t use it as a social resource, which prevents me from checking out other people’s pages, as I would if I only had 25 close friends.

With #28 I put my foot down! Arg! I canceled the following services today:

• Friendster (Pics of my friend with her ex-husband indicate NO ONE is still on this service)
• Pownce (Twitter won because of blog plug-in and sheer # of contacts)
• Hi5 (What?! When did I join this?!)
• NetLog (Best place to get hit on by skeevy italian teens)

The company who makes it possible to consolidate all the services into one place will win my heart. For now, I just bookmarked all the sites I need to check in one folder, and twice a week I will make the rounds, hopefully having time to check out a few friends’ pages on the way.

Then, I was on a roll. Oh boy. I went through my email trash and unsubscribed to every catalogue and newsletter that I auto delete upon sight. I will make this a habit to nip wanton emails like this in the bud. Bottom line, my time is valuable, and I’d rather spend it doing a point and click game than wasting it on things that make me go “Ugh, THAT?!” when they land with a dirty thud in my inbox. I have all but my yahoo mail being filtered to my gmail account, so I have maximum efficiency on the email front.

I guess you could say that this list item morphed into:

• #28 – Internet Manifesto: I will rule my net life, not let it rule me.

Good things happened because of this mission as well! Stumbling around, I happened to find the perfect resource that, just a month ago, I said to myself, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could…” Well, wish fulfilled! Thanks to Google Alerts I set up a search on “The Guild” and now can have an email delivered daily on people’s links, mentions etc. about my show to my inbox. No more hand-Google once a week and searching through already clicked links to read about press, thank people in blog mentions etc…it’s great!

If anyone has any other efficiency tips about consolidating services, streamlining and centralizing, post them here! For now, strikeout item #28!  (edit because that was confusing before, lolz)

So, I did my list.  I can’t be as amazingly organized as my brother (His whole blog is dedicated to his 101 things, and if you’ll see he has a progress timer) but I think most things are doable.  And if a few are pie in the sky, maybe I’ll make them happen by thinking it (dig at The Secret, LOL).

As you can see, the list is on the sidebar, and I’ll strikeout things I’ve actually done so it will feel satisfying.   A few items I have ready to strike out as a feel-good motivational tool to start the year off right.

So, list made.  Key question:  How am I going to MAINTAIN my progress?  Well, my problem is that, as a freelancer so to speak, I need to create structure in my days.  So, I’m using the recurring reminders in “Remember The Milk” and the text notification in GCal.  Every day I’ll wake up to my To-Do list on my iGoogle page, and I’ll simply check off the items through the day.   Theoretically.  I think the biggest key will be actually forcing myself to DO these daily reminders as they pop up, and then reminding myself to check  in with the one-off tasks, like trapeze class etc.  Which is why I also put as a weekly reminder,  “Check in with list.”  OWN’D.

If anyone else did a 101 list, post them here!

So, the end of the year is looming large, and I’ve decided I need to come up with an organized goals list for this year.  Last year was really good for me because I was part of a little support group of women, from which good things sprung, like The Guild!   For the last few months however, my organization and discipline has waned, as has my general contentedness level.  I think the two are very much linked.  When I actually checked off my “Vitamin” and “Exercise” and “10 min of Creative Writing” from my Remember The Milk online to-do list every day, I felt so much better about myself, in control of my life and not under the control of my whims.  Jan 1 is a good day to revisit all that, I think.

I recently stumbled across Day Zero: 101 things to do in 1001 days and I think this might be my template.  A little part of me shudders to think I’m actually thinking of planning 2 1/2 years in advance! :O  But the other part of me feels like the whole drifting through life thing is getting old, and a small plan for my life might not be a bad idea.  So, before Jan 1 I will be posting my list on this blog and will be updating on my progress!   If anyone else does this, please link them here and I’ll figure out a way to link them on the blog somewhere.  The more support the better!

But gosh, 101 things is a lot.  Guess that’s #1 on my interum list!  I know for a fact that writing a fantasy novel will be one of the big items on my list.  I’ve been toying around with trying to substitute an hour of video gaming with an hour of bad novel writing on the weekends, so I’ve been doing some brainstorming and referencing books I like to try to turn the process into a relaxing hobby rather than a “make the best novel ever written!” ultimatum:  How I usually approach stuff.   I just started this musing on Saturday, and then JenWriter, writer of a blog I love to read, just sent me a link to this fab list of writing/creative inspiration links yesterday – 101 OF THEM!  OMG CAN THE COINCIDENCES BE ANY STRONGER IN FAVOR OF THE LIST!?!?!
JenWriter: Writing, Reading and Blogging » 101 Resources on the Web for Writers and Bloggers

Also, her latest entry is on how you can help the WGA strike, a fantastic post with many actionable things to do to support the writers.  Check it out.