Connection and support from the voiceover community is a welcome part of my workday
As someone who has been a part of the voiceover community for a good number of years now, I never cease to be amazed by how supportive and generous everyone is. 'Newbies' quickly find out that there is no shortage of people who will cheer you on, offer support, share names of resources, and will check out and like pretty much anything that you care to share on social media. Even though as voice actors we spend the majority of our time alone, either in our booths or at our workstations, we are very aware that we are part of a larger team.
Information and inspiration
I currently am part of four voiceover related online support groups. Three of them are accountability groups that I started last year. These are very small and have a set number of members, ranging in size from three, to five, to six. The other group is much larger and usually meets twice a month. There is no set topic, although a subject or beginning thought or question is often introduced. From there anyone is welcome to share their thoughts. I have yet to leave any of these groups without having some little nugget of wisdom, information or inspiration to take with me into my day, which quite often stays with me throughout the week.
Care and kindness
While each of these groups has a very different 'feel', what is common to all of them and to the voiceover community at large, is the feeling of being part of a group that really does care about each other and is very kind. I know as I'm going through my day working on my business, if I come upon a stumbling block where a piece of equipment just isn't working right or a social networking platform has changed in look and feel and what was accessible to me yesterday is now in a different place or appears to have completely disappeared, or I just need some encouragement to keep moving forward because I've hit a dry spell in auditioning and/or booking, I know that someone with a listening ear or strong shoulder is just an email, text, phone call or click on the computer away.
If there is one thing that I learned from going through the pandemic, it's how much I need and value my connections with others. Even before we all had to quarantine, my experience with voice acting was almost 100% virtual. Out of the over seven years that I have been actively pursuing voice acting, I have spent less than ten days in a room with other voice actors. So having that feeling of support and camaraderie from this community has come out loud and strong for me, even over the internet.
That's how strong it is!