In high school, I took an English class elective that allowed us to write, shoot and direct a super short film. It was the first time I got a taste for what I’d hoped to do with the rest of my life. The previous assignment taught us how to story board something, so now it was time to take the next step. I hunkered down and wrote a screenplay about a post-apocalyptic world where an evil queen was trying to control her daughter’s fate. I forget how or why, but that was the gist of it.
For the past few days I’ve been desperately trying to find the type-written pages of this masterpiece for the August edition of Cringe NYC (where brave souls get up in front of strangers and read the crap they wrote as kids/teens), but was unsuccessful. Instead, I found folder after folder of drafts of manuscripts that I started and never finished.
Folders full of (potential) literary genius
There’s a lot there, folks. A lot. More than I think I can finish while also holding down a regular job and actively raising two girls and trying not to starve in this ever-more-expensive Brooklyn. But also? There’s A LOT there, folks. A LOT. As in I don’t think I will ever run out of stories to tell, and could possibly have a long career as a writer. So I have to decide if these unfinished manuscripts will be a burden or a gift from Young Raquel, who had the foresight to save everything she’d ever written just in case Old Raquel would want to use it.
I think I’ll choose the latter.
What gems do you have tucked away in an old folder or in the back of your closet?
xoxo
Raquel Ivelisse
P.S. While writing this post, I did one more last-ditch effort to find the screenplay and SCORE! I found it. And it’s just as terrible as I remember it. Cringe, here I come!