Tell us the story of your greatest accomplishment to date.
What is my greatest accomplishment to date? I wish I could say my kids or my marriage, but a miscarriage cost me both of those. Career? While I’ve stayed in some jobs longer than the average for my generation, I’m not taking promotions.
No, my greatest accomplishment to date is still being here. Specifically, surviving in Hollywood. Now, I know that sounds like a lot of people’s stories, and a few elements are similar, but my specific story has some solid twists.
When I climbed into the moving truck for California, I thought I had a good plan. I had some money saved, I knew a few people, and I had a skill set that was in high demand – an AVID editor – and professional references. Little did I know.
The people I thought I knew? None of them called me back. A couple of guys connected with me long enough to pray with me and take me to dinner, but they had no room – not even a couch to crash on.
The worst was one of my best friends from high school who’d been pestering me to come out to LA for years. He wasn’t returning my messages, but I persisted. When I did finally contact him, he’d been in a coma for 3 months and lost a huge chunk of his memory. We were able to connect again for dinner, right before I drove him to the airport. He’d been working as an AD for 10 years, but as soon as he got sick, everyone disappeared. And *he* felt bad he couldn’t offer me a couch.
My resume wasn’t getting me jobs. Hell, I couldn’t even get an interview – even with the producer who told me to look him up when I got out here. I didn’t want to run out of money before I got work, so I lived in my car. For 21 months.
Now, mind you, I was no spring chicken as my grandmother likes to say. I was 42 years old, living in my car, a houseful of clothes, books, DVD’s and assorted detritus from living a life and starting a family tucked away in storage.
I had left behind a job, a house, my parents and sisters, friends, church, to start my life over and follow my dreams, 3000 miles away. And I wasn’t going to give up. Even before one of my industry mentors told me, in my heart I knew, the biggest factor in my success would be my ‘failure’ to give up.
My greatest accomplishment is I’m still here. I’ve got an apartment, I’ve found new friends. I wrote and shot a music video while I was still living in my car. I was asked to adapt a novel for the screen.
I haven’t succeeded yet, but in a way I have. I know what it takes, I’ll pay the price, and I won’t leave until I’ve stormed the gates and gotten inside. I’m not leaving; I’ve got stories to tell.