A Quote by Terry McDonell

The more new thinking I did, the more successful it seemed to me that I could become. When magazines are really working, and when websites are really working, they're doing new things all the time, and discovering new writers to do stories, different ways to package stories. I was always very aware that I was very lucky to be doing what I was doing, because I would get up in the morning, and go to work, and the days would fly by.
I don't just act to pay my rent. I really like doing it, so I get frustrated when I don't get to do it all the time, so short films are a really great way to be doing it and working with your friends, working on smaller, more specific things without limiting yourself in other ways.
I don't just act to pay my rent. I really like doing it, so I get frustrated when I don't get to do it all the time, so short films are a really great way to be doing it and working with your friends, working on smaller, more specific things without limiting yourself in other ways.
I'm not the "not-working" type. I derive pleasure from my work. Work gives me relaxation too. Every moment I am thinking of something new: making a new plan, new ways to work. In the same way that a scientist draws pleasure from long hours in the laboratory, I draw pleasure in governance, in doing new things and bringing people together. That pleasure is sufficient for me.
One of the things I really like about doing work online, and the thing I like about the work I'm doing now, is that I get to meet feminists all the time and I get to read new feminists every day on the blogosphere. And it's really that kind of diversity of thought that informs me more than anything else these days. It's just kind of learning something new all the time. And I kind of love that there's not really a feminist canon; or maybe there is, but it's being changed, that it's a constantly moving canon in the feminist blogosphere. I love that.
I'm very aware of the influence I've had, and I'm very pleased with that, because it proves that my work was necessary, that people liked it, and that it was right for its time which is a big compliment. But of course, this means I now have to move on. If more people are doing what I'm doing, I have to evolve. I'm pushed toward a new direction, and I have to let myself be tempted, find out where I can go.
Growing up, I didn't have television. My dad would make up stories and tell me stories, so my imagination ran wild. When I did see films, which was very few and far between, that was such an interesting medium that was so new to me. It wasn't something that was just part of my life, so it was really appealing and so different that I enjoyed that.
What's neat about TV is you get really rich, an opportunity to tell really rich stories over the course of 20 hours. Film is cool because it's an hour and a half to two hours. You go on an adventure and by the end it's all cleaned up. Maybe in a franchise you have three chapters of a great story but in TV you can really get deep. You have more time to tell stories so I would definitely not rule out doing television in the future because I think it's a great medium for telling stories.
Working with different people and do things that normally I would not do makes the music interesting for me to continue. It keeps me alive. When I'm doing something alone, that is mine, I know how it is. But when I'm working with someone else, I also see the view from the other, and usually learn something new, try something different. This is very important to my happiness.
Models can be people, too. But the only way to do that is to kind of step up and keep doing new things that no one has thought of, from new websites to new blogs, a newscast, doing speeches, talking to kids. It kind of opens a new headline every time: 'Oh, a model hasn't done this before; a model hasn't done that before.'
Live your passion. What does that mean, anyway? It means that when you get up for work every morning, every single morning, you are pumped because you get to talk about or work with or do the thing that interests you the most in the world. You don’t live for vacations because you don’t need a break from what you’re doing—working, playing, and relaxing are one and the same. You don’t even pay attention to how many hours you’re working because to you, it’s not really work. You’re making money, but you’d do whatever it is you’re doing for free.
By doing, you become employable. It doesn't matter what the job is; by working, you learn new things, meet new people and are exposed to new ideas.
I'm not a person that really deal in color. I recognize the inequities that certain cultures have to go through. I understand the history of slavery and all those things. But I'm not a victim. I can vote, I can participant. I can invest my money. I can invest my time. And that's what I'm doing. I'm not working for anybody. I'm not making any money doing what I'm doing. I'm doing it because someone did it for me.
It's been a very strange trajectory because I struggled for so many years. I mean, I was doing these videos, I was doing these live shows, I had a lot of fans in New York, the press would write about me, but I couldn't get a paying job, and so my father and I were really like a team.
I am not really thinking, I am just, working with the music. And people have asked me, why don't you say more, or why do you not have singers, or why don't you sing? I think it's because, if I would have words for what I am doing, I I could write. But I really don't. It's a whole different thing. And I think it's one of the beauty of instrumental music is that it can be background. It can be what people call "easy listening." But it's really one of those things where it's as much as you are willing to give it.
Improv definitely made me a better auditioner, without a doubt. We did do an audition semester in grad school, and that was helpful for those times that you have a script and you have a few days to prepare it, to really work on sides. But the auditions I was doing in New York, if you got it the night before, you were very lucky.
Sometimes I would go home from work and just stare at the wall for a couple of hours. But, I can't complain. Whatever knocks you out working is the kind of work that I want to be doing because it's always those challenges that are the most exciting, and the things I hope to get to keep doing in my work.
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