In my early twenties, I had a gut-wrenching day when I realized my chosen career was not feeding my soul.  I was two weeks into a job I had just spent four years trying to get.  Shit.  It was also the fourth discipline I had explored since high school.  Double shit.  I needed to take a step back and press the pause button.  If I didn’t need to make money, what would I want to do ?  I decided I would want to make a movie.  I had no idea what that meant, but it was the start of my journey.

One day I was banging away at the keyboard, when my then boyfriend opened the door to the office and asked me what I was doing.  “Writing a movie,” I replied.  “That’s stupid,” he said and closed the door.  I guess I must have believed him because I don’t remember working on that script again.  Six months after we broke up, I finally leaped at an entry level job at a film and television production company.  Everyone thought I was crazy to take a 60% pay cut but I was so happy answering phones and washing dishes, my soul didn’t care that I could not pay my bills without going into debt. 

And I started to write again in my spare time – spec tv series scripts, and book adaptations.  At work, we were struggling to find a writer for a certain book property and I could just see it so clearly, I wrote a treatment for the adaptation and gave it to my boss to consider.  I had hoped she could see the merit in it and this would be my shot.  I do not know if she ever read it.  She didn’t need me to write, she needed me to do the job she expected of me.  Another tentative step towards something, and another retreat.

After several years, I finally began to creatively oversee television projects, which I loved, but I always yearned to be the one creating the stories, and writing the scripts.  It’s tough to gain the trust of writers but I had some proud moments, when the writing room would call me to settle a dispute they had about how a story should go, or a writer would admit my pesky thoughts/questions were helpful. 

Finally I decided to take the leap and write as my day job.  I’ve been taking classes, reading material, and writing.  

Themes started emerging in my original work.  Guardian angels, time travel, parallel universes.  All of it with an aim to help anyone keep their head above water in this wonderful, messy world.  

I’d give anything to know what I know now in my twenties, and my story telling is about just that – here’s what I’ve learned.  Use it if you can!

Laura Harbin