Fastlife is Live on Amazon!!!

Sometimes when you work really long and hard on something, it's hard to believe when it actually is done. Ultimately, I'm not done. It's just he beginning because I am a filmmaker, it's in my blood, it's what I do. I love to tell stories. I'm wired to do it and I've been doing it my whole life. A friend said to me the other day, "This is just one project for you. I can tell you'll be on to the next thing." I'm not sure about that. At times, and this is one of them, I'm totally overwhelmed! Team of one here doing everything-not sure there will ever be time to do anything else! I'm currently shouting about our release and managing press, setting up for creating Season 2, and getting a strong feeling that there may be a demand for more than just two seasons, which means I need to stay on top of filming now. When I began Fastlife, a tv show about our family following dreams (streaming on Amazon Prime Video), I was so focused on completing it and accomplishing my goal, I didn't plan on all the feelings I would have when it finally went live. I certainly didn't think about it going past two seasons.

So here we are. The show is live and I'm freaking out! Well, yesterday I was freaking out. Today is a little better. With Amazon I've learned that the process is such that you line everthing up and the distributor does the job of placing the show and getting an aggregator-I think that's what it's called...still learning...and then the show just goes live one day. So this week, on a Thursday, in the middle of the day I get a text from my husband Derek, "Congrats Babe! Here's your live Amazon link..." My stomach immediteley went to butterflies, my heart skipped a few beats, this was it! This was the moment I/we had been working so hard for. As I was going through all the emotions of total excitement and then total panic for being so exposed, I began to send texts to my closest friends sharing that it was up on Amazon. In the middle of my own little celebration amidst the daily mom duties-picking up kids, running errands, etc. my daughter Paige calls and says, "Mom, have you watched them yet? There is something wrong with episode 2 at 15:07." I figured, oh it's just a little techinical thing, something is wrong with our internet (ranch internet is never that good). I immediately emailed my distributor and he said he emailed the aggregator. Soon we got a couple more emails saying that there was indeed a problem with episode 2.

Later that night Derek and I sat down on our publicity strategy and went on to see if anyone had reviewed the show. Sure enough there was a 3 star review on there (gasp!!!) that said positive things but noted an "editing error" on episode 2 at the time code my daughter pointed out. Ugh, I emailed the distributor and let him know. The next morning as I was running around, I opened my emails and there it was. An email form the distributor saying the master is faulty, can you mail a new one to New York once you've repaired it. Talk about the world's worst feeling! We had already pushed out the announcement about the show on social media and to all of our friends and family. People were excited to watch and we had a problem. I was told that they would pull it down until they got a new master. The show would then relaunch. Needless to say my excitement was quickly interrupted.

As I have done and will continue to do, once I've expressed my anger, dissapointment, etc., luckily I was alone in my car, I move quickly to solutions. In fact, it was the only thing I could do. I had no choice. I sprung into action and left my daughter at an appointment for way too long while I ran home and reprinted a master. Of course the drive I had to put it on was not formatted properly so I had to do that too. Then I went to transfer the episode to the drive and it took way longer than I thought. I made it to the post office with just a few minutes to spare before UPS picked up the overnight packages. The package was to be delivered at 8am the next day in New York. Later that night the subject of the Bomb Cyclone hitting the East Coast came up. I didn't connect it, but Derek turned to me and said, "Do you think the drive will make it with the storm?" I said, "Oh no, I didn't even think about that." Ahhhhhh! Sure enough I checked the next day and the drive made it out of Kentucky but was stuck between there and New York. I had to let it go. The distributor was on it, the aggregator was waiting and could get the episode back up quickly as soon as they had the drive. The decision was made to put it all back up and leave one partial episode until they could replace it. Within a very short period of time the show was live again. Just a a bump in the road, as if we haven't had enough of those already. What I've learned is, you will always have them here and there. These are not only the growing times, they are also the times when your story gets a lot more interesting and relatable. Everyone has challenges and obstacles to their dreams. If we didn't the celebration would not be nearly as sweet! I guess I can be grateful for the material!

As for Fastlife, the plan with the distributor is for two full seasons of ten episodes. I have filmed hundreds of hours of footage and believe that we have material to go on for many more seasons if it is received well. Derek and I are currently in the mopey phase as the ROAR for the Daytona 24 race is happening now and we've decided not to be there this year as we are still seeking support and sponsorship for his racing program. It's a bittersweet time as we watch many colleagues fulfill their racing dreams and we are on hold yet our show is being launched. One wise young friend, Brady Breeze, said to us recently, "Trust the process." He was referring to his college football career but it applies to all things. After all the excitement and all the work and pushing, at some point I always come back to taking a deep breath and asking God to show me the way.