The Merch Girl and other projects

I’ve jumpstarted work on The Merch Girl – I designed a logo, prepared some draft content for the website, and even got some MOO cards printed (both for Merch Girl and TS.com) – they look awesome! There’s been opportunities popping up, such as roving at Woodford and I’d like to get my website up and running – MySpace doesn’t really do all that I want it to do.

The main things stalling this are:

• Waiting on people to reply to my requests for edits – there’s a few people who have promised to look over and fix my writing, but I haven’t heard anything from anybody since I moved the content to Google Sites. I’m wondering if I should just have my current content up anyway, then tweak it as time goes by. An acquaintance did say that I could barter some PR skills in return for her designing the website, but she’s been busy and I don’t want to pester her.

• A lack of site design – my design skills are stuck in 2001 and I don’t want to suffer The Merch Girl with something really awful. However, due to my current inability to find a job (rejections everywhere!), most of the money going towards living expenses and permanent residency, I don’t really have enough to pay designers what they’re truly worth. I just learnt that even saying “I don’t have a budget for this” is offensive to some designers – I don’t mean to hurt! I’m waiting for my Ruddbucks to show up so that I can use the money towards TMG.

• No idea how to price myself – the people I’m targeted would generally be hard up for money. Not so hard that they can’t even get food or anything; they’ll generally be able to pay a fee, but not a great deal. I don’t want to price myself out of anyone’s budget (especially if I’m gunning for community, emerging, and small/medium-scale productions) but I do have to at least cover the costs of training, equipment, travel, and so on. I’ll like to hire the services of BAKERY – who consult on creative businesses – but again, I’m waiting on stimulus money to do this.

Should I just pop something up anyway? Even if it looks 10 years out of date? Could I hire people for services and then say “payment coming after 16th May” (last day of stimulus payment)? There’s the risk that I might not be qualified for the stimulus money because of some condition or other. What do I do?

**************

Aside from merch girling, I’ve been back into performance. Our circus classes have ended for the term – they start up again in mid May but I’ll be back in Malaysia by then. I will be participating in a community workshop in a week so I’ll still be involved somehow. It’s really weird going from 2 nights of 2-3 hours intense training to not much though; I really miss it!

I’ve also started burlesque classes again. Lene’s a star, she doesn’t mind me freeloading!! (I think I owe them over $500 or something now.) We start off with a routine based on Cell Block Tango (from Chicago) and it is AWESOMESAUCE. It’s strong and assertive and powerful and WOW. My classmate/dear friend Adam just had a bad few weeks and he’s channelling his rage into this dance…it’s a bit scary to see him actually!! But I LOVE LOVE LOVE this routine, it’s my favourite out of the ones we’ve learnt; it’s great for silly drama queens (like myself) and we can ham it up or play it down as we wish. So much theatre.

I’ve been doing a lot of improv too – I don’t give this as much credit as I should given that I perform this more regularly than the others sometimes! I took a class with EDGE Improv and anyone who’s done at least one class can jump in to their regular shows at Kitty o’Sheas in Caxton St. I’ve mainly been doing short-form – their current series is based on TV shows so I and some others have been doing “ad breaks”. It’s really silly, we work off a random item and sing or be surreal or do interviews. I’ll be doing my first longform tomorrow, as one of the housemates in a Friends-like short. It’s a bit scary, as I’ve never done longform before (never trained for it even) but our group is so supportive and helpful and it’s gonna be a good try at least.

I love performing. I wish I had other things to do besides waiting for chances to perform and being rejected for jobs. Hmm.