Summer Daze

I remember how much easier it is to cope with the pains of unemployment during the summer months. A hot day could mean a trip to the park, or simply lying out on the communal patch of grass behind the flat in which I used to live which stood in for a garden.

The approach of August is probably one of the times of the year when I worry least about the prospect of having no work. If the sun is streaming through the window, and the humidity is making me just a little bit moist, then the idea of a lazy chair and a good book is probably all the fulfilment I need.

 Which means  that it is the most difficult time to be a working actor. To self motivate, to do one thing every day that might need to work, but it's also the time of year when doing one thing every morning, can leave you a day free to enjoy the benefits of the climate and give you the inner peace you have done something that might move things onwards on the work front.

Several young actors have said to be during the last couple of weeks that, although they're not working, they feel as though they're on holiday. In a couple of weeks time their bank balance may well look as though they have been on holiday. Hard to motivate yourself when soaked in a Mediterranean climate,  and yet of course it means that one is just storing up problems for the onset of the autumn in September.

I had prepared myself for a lazy August and was taken by surprise in July when having been for three suited and sweat -soaked interviews in a week, I was told the following Wednesday that I had got all three jobs. It's worked out that I can do two of them and consequently my August has become much busier than I had anticipated.  What is key though is planning for the projects I have coming up in September.

 So you may be spending a little more time horizontally in the sun or languishing in one of London's fabulous parks and, as well-being goes, that's fine. Just try to make sure that you are storing up things to hit the ground running at the beginning of September. Some plans in action. A new class at the Actors Guild or the Actors Centre. Learning a new skill. Twice I have enrolled in night classes for the autumn only having had to cancel them as work has arisen. A bit like lighting up a cigarette to make the bus come.

So laze and tan and relax and prepare. Enjoy the summer knowing that your autumn will be a richer one for having prepared for it.