voice over stuff...

Sometime ago, when I was miserably unemployed, I attempted to start a career as a voice-over professional. People always tell me what a great voice I have, so I figured it would be easy.
I was wrong and an impressive failure.
As I failed so completely and massively, I have decided to attempt it again.
I'm hoping I've learned the same lessons I learned after the first time I went on stage to do stand up comedy. People always told me I was funny, so I got on stage with no preparation at all and had to have my ashes swept off the stage. When I attempted it again, I did a vast quantity of pre-work and saw a lot more success.
It's interesting that the last time I did stand up was in the same span of unemployment as the last time I attempted doing voice-over work.
The last time I tried, I put a microphone on a table and talked into it and had no clear objectives or knowledge of where people are who actually need voice over services. I'm not entirely sure what I thought was going to happen, but I was still disappointed when nothing did.
I have put more preparation in this time. I have a good contact list through a verified website and there are leads coming in every day. So the business is out there. I just have to audition.
In order to audition and have any kind of a chance, I needed to build something like a studio. I say something like a studio, because we don't have unlimited space or funds. I needed to work with what I had.
It's a closet. I'm set up in the closet. I like to call it my studio to make me feel less silly, but so far, it hasn't worked. I know I am basically talking to myself, in a closet. I can't make it not silly.
Still, I have some decent hardware, a good microphone and such, and I have soundproofed the closet to a reasonable extent. So even though it's a closet, I'm getting good audio out of it.
However, the awareness of the silliness of standing in a closet keeps creeping in and making my throat tighten up.
Last night was the first night that I had all the components in place to attempt an audition. Jenn was in the living room watching television. So she was maybe 10 feet from where I was, standing in the closet, attempting to talk to myself in my voice-over voice.
Self-consciousness overtook me. I stood there for about ten minutes, unable to say anything at all.
I stepped out of the closet and asked Jenn to please go upstairs. She asked me why and I explained the whole silliness thing.
She said that attempting to do the voice-over stuff in the closet was not silly at all, but standing in the closet and NOT attempting to do voice-over stuff was.
I conceded the point but asked her to please go upstairs anyway.
Later, I was upstairs with her setting up the printer. She had the Tori Spelling reality show on. On the show, Tori's husband was in a closet attempting to do voice-over work.
So at least I am in good company.