The Gift

I’ve been trying to refocus my energy and efforts lately. It has been a little over a year and a half since my move to Los Angeles, and I haven’t spent much time writing but it is something I constantly think about. The more time I spend wondering what is keeping me from moving forward, the more I think about Buffy (as many of life’s lessons were taught to me by that show).

Much like Buffy in the earlier seasons, I feel I have been running from my destiny, trying to be anything else but what I’m meant to be. In her case, it was being the Slayer, in mine, it is being a writer. Writing has always made me the happiest. It is my way of bleeding all my emotions that I bottle up and keep inside.

Back in high school, and for the first few years in Arizona, I wrote at least once a day. A pen and paper were attached to me like lifelines. Somehow I fell away from that. I’ve always been a lonely person and there has always been a void I’ve tried to fill, I’ve tried filling it with different things. Different friends, material things, food, drinks, but I’m only at peace when I’m writing. I’m not lonely when I’m writing as I have my characters and their worlds to keep me company.

As I began to write less and less, I needed more of those things to fill that bigger void, and it never seemed to be enough. And now I wonder, why have I been avoiding writing when it makes me the happiest? Though I switched my major a few times while in university, I’ve known since childhood that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, it was just the medium I was uncertain about.

When I’m honest with myself, fear is what has kept me stagnant. Fear of failure, and oddly enough a fear of success as well. I am working through those fears now as there is no substitution for the way writing makes me feel. The only thing that comes remotely close is music.

I’ve been re-reading my screenwriting books and I am also preparing to re-write some scripts I wrote for school and I’m also working on some new script ideas. When I was 17 years old, I made the decision to move to Arizona on my own with little money, and everyone tried to talk me out of it, but I was fearless and knew it was where I needed to be. I want to be that fearless again when it comes to writing and chasing my dreams. I mean, I did make the bold move to Los Angeles, it would be a shame to come so far and not continue to fight.

Sometimes I wish I’d come to this realization earlier, but I do believe the Universe has a path for us, for whenever we are willing and able to take it. So, this is a way of making an oath to myself to devote to myself and my craft. As death was Buffy’s gift, writing is mine.