Blog

“You have to have a talent for your talent.”

I have often pondered this sage advice from my last acting coach, Larry Moss.

Larry is one of the preeminant acting coaches of modern day. There were legends before, Stella Adler, Lee Strasburg, Sanford Meisner, Uta Hagen.

There will be more in the future but in my mind Larry Moss is the current one. He teaches intensives a few times a year and coaches privately.

He also directs.

I can only imagine the glory of being directed by him.

I studied with him for 4 years and that is when I really learned my craft.

I finally had technique to count on, but my life was changing and motherhood, family and writing became my focus.

He used to ask us questions at the beginning of class.

”Why do you act?”

“What is the most important question you can ask?”

And also gave us guidance with sentences like

“You have to have a talent for your talent.”

To me this means you must have the discipline/devotion to pursue your talent and you must also have some business smarts.

It is not enough to be talented you must know how to get it out there and make it happen. You have to put your talent on display, by writing your own pieces if necessary, and not be one who waits for discovery.

Discover yourself.

This is what indie authors are doing now—publishing themselves and getting out there ahead of life and releasing their art to the people.

You can be a fantastic writer, director, actor, singer, musician but if you don’t know how to work the system you won’t get anywhere. More importantly if you don’t know how to perfect your craft through constant writing, searching out solid inspiring teachers and finding opportunities to write for others you won’t learn and you won’t grow.

Beginning journalists begin at papers writing obits. It is a talent to put someone’s life and love into a paragraph. In doing so though, they write every day.

Secret One—You have to have a talent for your talent

Secret two —you can’t sit around saying I am a writer, actress, musician, artist you have to actually DO it.

Secret three—if you want to write put yourself in the chair every morning and write.

It is blue collar work

It is a job.

Treat it as such.