The Secret Life of Jenny Williamson

Back from France last month and I hit the ground running. The short version is that after getting home, I did my taxes (bummer) and just found out I have a $146 rebate coming my way (woot!). I got cast as an extra in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a new movie inspired by the short story of the same name and starring Ben Stiller. I’m basically standing on the sidewalk in the scene where Walter Mitty hallucinates doing skateboard tricks in the street and standing on a bus with a rubber baby growing out of his chest. (Looking forward to seeing this movie.) I didn't actually see Ben Stiller...but the stunt guys all looked like him. I was seeing faux Ben Stillers everywhere I looked.

Then the next day, got cast in a L’Oreal print ad for Healthy Look, their semi-permanent hair color. Basically, they colored my hair and took before and after pics which will be up on their website at some point. My hair is slightly darker and redder now. (Woot!)

I also landed a voiceover gig for an online job site for graphic designers…I spent all morning on Friday recording that at home. I love that I can record things in my “home studio.” Well…I call it a home studio. You might call it a mic that plugs into a laptop. But “home studio” sounds a lot better.  Yup, I’m a copywriter.

Meanwhile, I’ve finished up the first half of the first draft of my latest novel and am preparing to Nano the second half. Preparing…any day now…eventually I’ll make that leap to writing 2,500 words a day again. I’ve been telling myself that all week but have basically just been prodding at it with a stick all week. Oh well. Soon, I swear.

And! New pics, clips, a new IMDB page…things are coming together.

So…more blog posts up in the coming week or two. As the weather warms up and life gets more interesting. 

Confessions of an International Traveler

I saw this post over at Thought Catalog and thought I'd write one of my own. My stories aren't quite as colorful as hers...but they're actually not that far off.

1. I joined a gym in the Hague and took spin classes in Dutch. (I don’t speak Dutch.)
2. I kayaked down canals in Utrecht.
3. I spoke the three words of Greek I knew to everyone I met in Crete. People gave me things. A man at the entrance to Phaistos gave me an orange. A waitress gave me a free shot of ouzo. Everyone asked me who I was and where I was from.
4. I rode a horse at nine in the morning in Ecuador up a volcano after being up all night on a bus the night before. Our horses were followed by a very persistent dog who kept trying to herd my horse off a cliff. There was also a zipline across a raging river and a very tall tree house involved.
5. I rode a camel on a beach in Mombasa.
6. I persuaded a taxi driver in Scotland to give me a three-hour taxi ride for almost free.
7. I danced underwater with sea lions in the Galapagos Islands.
8. I got a lap dance at a strip club in Prague.
9. I tried to flag down an out-of-service bus in London and almost got flattened.
10. I walked up the Appian Way in a violent rainstorm. The water on the road was up to my knees and every time a car drove by it splashed me and I got soaked.
11. I persuaded a guy with a seafood truck in Oban, Scotland to make me and a girl I was with a stack of lobsters for almost free. We bought cheap wine, got fall-down drunk with the Scotsman and his friends, and climbed around in strangers’ boats on the pier.
12. I went scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef.
13. I decided it would be a great idea to drink an entire bottle of champagne in the airport on my last day in Venice. I was rowdy-drunk on the plane and accidentally left my passport at the security line.
14. I hitchhiked in the Netherlands.
15. I ate oysters fresh from the sea in Cancale, in Normandy.
16. I spent this past Easter picnicking with a bottle of cider next to the Eiffel Tower.
17. I saw tadpoles in the fountains at the Taj Mahal.
18. I ate dinner on a rooftop with a view of the Taj Mahal and the setting sun.
19. I was chased by a mob of boys throwing rocks at me at a temple outside Jaipur.
20. I was surrounded by a mob of schoolchildren at the Jantar Mahar in Jaipur. They all wanted to take my picture. Their teacher came up and I thought he would shoo them away with some kind of apology; instead, he asked for my picture too!