Meet Susan Phelan

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Susan Phelan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Susan, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

Finding my purpose came to me in bits and pieces. Sometimes I wish I had a fantastic vision of my purpose at a young age. Perhaps then I would have twenty or more published books, or starred in a television series or a movie opposite whatever heartthrob was big at the time.

But instead, I had time to learn about life and about myself to give me the grounding I needed for a fuller life and more meaningful work.

I read greedily from a young age, encouraged by my mother. I remember sitting on her lap in a rocking chair reading from my sister’s schoolbooks. The warmth and love of my mother transferred to a feeling of warmth and love as I read by myself later. But somehow it didn’t translate into a desire to write.

Early on I did have a desire to act and began acting in school plays and community theatre by Junior High. I even had an audition for a commercial in New York City as a teen. The acting continued through college but petered out as I became a mom. Theatre consumes three months of your life, and with five children, a husband, and various pets, my life was already consumed.

As my kids grew and some of them became interested in acting, I got a chance to dip my toe back into that world, eventually getting an agent and staying mostly in the film world, with the occasional foray into theatre.

By this time, I was getting an inkling of my purpose.

A few years earlier, I had something stuck in my head. Everyone has had a song stuck in their head before and the best way to get it our seems to be to sing it all the way through. But this wasn’t a song. In fact, I didn’t quite know what it was.

But I knew it was words mixed with thoughts. So, I wrote it down. It was a picture book.

I was now a writer.

Ideas and characters filled my mind constantly and I had to write them down to get them out of my head, only to be replaced by more ideas and characters. I kept writing.

But I still didn’t quite know my purpose. Was I writing and acting for a reason, other that enjoyment? Was this the best use of my time? Shouldn’t I be doing the dishes, or vacuuming? Or maybe I should get a real job? The money I was bringing in wasn’t enough to justify it as a real job.

One day while pondering these things, I remembered a story my mother had told me many times, always with a laugh. When my sister was young, Mom would get her to eat by telling her she’d grow big and strong like her Aunt Jeanie if she ate her peas, and the peas would be gobbled up. But that didn’t work for me. Instead, she turned it into a story. “Eat the little green men before they make it to the top of the mashed potato mountain.” I would gobble up the peas and the story.

That was it. I am made for story.

I see the world through story.

I think in story.

And the world needs story. And I hope that my stories, whether acted, told, or read will add both fun and empathy to that world.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m a writer and a film actor and a lover of the arts. A lover of story.

As an actor, I love the chance to step into someone else’s shoes and attempt to understand how they might think, feel, and express themselves. Of course, there is always a piece of me in whatever I do, but finding what makes other people tic is magical. And like many other actors, it is also magical to find how your body, and even you thinking changes when you put on the clothing of your character, especially when it is much different from what you normally wear.

As a writer, I again get to step into the shoes of not just one, but multiple characters, and explore how they would think and react under new circumstances. There’s magic in putting together the bits of story you have in your head and then finding the strands that hold them together. There’s accuracy when a writer says their characters talk to them. I may not hear literal voices in my head, but I often feel a push for them to take the story in a direction I wasn’t counting on.

The magic I find in story is what pushes me to keep creating. And while I enjoy many genres of story, my sweet spot in writing, reading and acting is quirky characters, gently humor, and happy endings.

I love sharing what makes story so special to audiences, and am available for school visits, as well as other events. Coming up, you can find me at the Atlanta Comic Convention July 18, 19, and Salt Lake FanX September 25, 26, 27.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The first skill, both for acting and writing is to read. I could say the second and third are to read and read, it is that important. If you struggle to read for some reason, it will make your journey harder but doable. Listening to audiobooks, watching movies… You need to immerse yourself in story, both to understand structure, to understand people, and to develop empathy for people and cultures you don’t know much about.

Second would be to have faith in yourself. Not faith that doesn’t allow learning and growth, but faith that allows trying, making mistakes and learning from them. Faith that you matter and that you have something to say. You can take up space in this big, diverse world.

Third would be doing. For acting, start with community theatre. Take the part of villager number three. Look for opportunities to be on set. Check film commissions and universities in your area. Don’t start by expecting leads and money. Do it for the love of it. The money may or may not come later. For writing – WRITE. Don’t think you’ll write as soon as you have time. No one has time. Write for the joy. Write for the heartache, write to get the characters out of your head so they can breathe on paper.

It can be very hard to make a living in the arts, so you’d better love it.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I enjoy collaborating and have had some successful ones. One for a television series currently being pitched. It involved a writer’s room of four working on an entire season for a fantasy series. Another was myself and one other writer. We wrote a Redemption Western together and it has won more than one screenplay award at film festivals.

I’ve also had a collaboration that went south. No one needs any details on that one. Suffice it to say, there were creative differences. 🙂

Things I am not looking for: 1) a writer who has never written a word, but has a “great idea.” 2) ghostwriting. 3) a person who struggles with sharing and exchange of ideas, but instead wants everything to be their way.

What I would be open to: 1) someone who writes regularly and works on developing their talent through conferences, critique groups, or something else. 2) Someone who has similar sensibilities as I. Not exact as there would be less synergy if everything was the same. 3) someone open to the exchange of ideas, not just stuck in their own idea of perfection.

You can find my contact information on my website, thesusanphelan.com .
While there, look around and see if you think we may be a fit for collaboration.

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