System Andromeda is mostly online, though currently based in Western Iowa, near the Omaha Metro area. Andromeda has a Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Arts, a certificate in American Sign Language (ASL) Studies, and a certificate in ESL/EFL (English as a Second/Foreign Language) teaching. She has worked in a variety of industries, including film and theater, publishing, environmental, education, nonprofit, corporate, city planning, mining health & safety, and restaurants. She is a world traveler, film history buff, and linguist.

Currently accepting assignments for proofreading & editing, travel writing & ghostwriting, life coaching, and acting. Click on the ‘SERVICES’ and ‘ORBITS’ tabs above to learn more about these areas, or scroll down to read about how System Andromeda came into being…

In 2008, I had a conundrum. I had just returned from Europe at the end of the previous year, and what I had hoped for - that my magical travels would have spontaneously helped me narrow down my many passions into one sparkling career path like they do in the movies - had utterly failed to manifest. I was disappointed, but determined to move forward.

I had resisted picking just one thing to focus on my entire life, because every time I tried, it failed miserably. Likewise, no matter how hard I tried, I just didn’t understand why anyone would choose to give up one thing they loved in favor of another. How did limiting myself equate to ‘growing up’?

One day, it hit me like that proverbial bolt from the blue: I didn’t have to choose. I could walk multiple paths.

But I couldn’t just jump from one thing to another with no trajectory, because that was what I’d already been doing, and it was an inefficient - and expensive - use of my time. What I really needed was a way to follow my dreams of being a writer, actress, and more, while maintaining an income that didn’t come from such capricious sources as waiting tables or call centers.

What’s more, I needed a counter to the ‘single path’ argument.

I needed a plan.

Luckily, my education and experience gave me the tools I needed. As an autodidact (self-learner), I jumped right in. I did research, looking for others like me throughout history and what to call us, as well as networking to find camaraderie and support. I parlayed skills I learned through my Dramatic Arts degree program into side hustles like a homemade jewelry boutique, and vocal coaching for ESL students. I cultivated multiple side ventures like this, each one an income stream that might not pay all the bills, but enough to afford me time to work on my art.

Along the way, I got better at using more efficient methods for the myriad processes I used on each of my paths. I streamlined a lot of them to work for multiple paths at one time. I was designing a system for a different kind of lifestyle, and I was getting good at it. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was developing ‘System Andromeda’.

There’s a misconception about the type of people who live my lifestyle.

We live in a society that worships specialization. There’s good reason for this: specialization took us from hunter-gatherers to the dominant species on the planet. But there was a downside. As specialization thrived, people who had multiple talents, interests, and paths - the generalists of the world - were pushed aside.

The familiar ‘Jack-of-all-Trades’ is often a derisive moniker, used to belittle those who did not adhere to the typical 40+ hour grind. Society considered us too unreliable or too lazy to stick through something long enough to become experts.

I have found, however, that the reverse is true, and society is slowly catching up.

Polymaths - or Generalists, Renaissance Souls, Multipotentialites (Multipods, for short), multipaths, web-walkers, homo universalis, eclectics, Queens-of-all-Trades (I admit I’m rather partial to that…probably comes from being named after a monarch), or simply “The Jack” - do not tread our paths lightly. We are often passionate learners who dive deep into our interests. Many of us are Neurodivergent (Autistic, ADHD, etc.), including myself, though it is not a requisite, and many more are autodidacts, self-motivated and self-directed to gain new knowledge and skills. We become ‘lay’ specialists who often use our many talents to enhance our performance in everything we do.

Today, System Andromeda has coalesced into a single focus. While each arm may not be the same, each of them has a common base… from the film camera I used to become a photographer to the adventures I experience in my travels; from the movie sets I work on to the movies & series I critique on my blog and podcast; from the lens through which I view the scenes I write to the meticulous aesthetics I use to edit the written word, and the way I encourage others to follow their dreams… these things are all influenced by my favorite medium: film.

And so I continue walking this path, the path of possibility, the path of billions of stars throughout existence…

The path of a System.

~The Galaxy Next Door