Barb Lyon
Voice Artist

After taking Labor Day weekend off it was a little hard to get back in the groove. Tuesday morning came, I sat in my booth and felt thoroughly unmotivated. So I did what I sometimes do before I hit record: I went surfing around, listening to other people's demos looking for a little inspiration. I pulled up Talent A first. Big name. Touted as a high-booking pro. An expert people turn to. I listened through a few clips and thought, huh. I wasn't feeling it. Not bad, just...

Mid-August handed me a two-for-one on rejection. I lost a booking to another voice talent that week that sounded really promising, and a few days later I took Friday — my dog, not the day off — to a rally obedience trial hoping to knock out two more legs toward her Rally Master title. Normally, failing either one of those would've been enough to wreck my mood for a day. Somehow, together, they didn't. Bouncing back from rejection was something I did without thinking.

I have two loves. My mic. And dog training. One requires focus, concentration and energy. And the other? Well. Same. Turns out, voice acting and dog training have more in common than you'd think. Voice over can actually make this weird slide into the Obedience and Rally rings.

Some days inspiration shows up like a polite houseguest. It knocks. You open the door. It sits down at the table and gets right to work. The words flow. The ideas line up. And for a brief moment you wonder why anyone ever complains about the creative process. Those days are wonderful. They are also…not most days. Most days inspiration is nowhere to be found. Not late. Not stuck in traffic. Just gone.