I've always liked to write. Handwritten books my family struggled to get through, journaling, and overtexting everyone I know are only a few exhibits supporting this statement.
Then I went to film school because movies seemed fun — and my grades were too low for me to seriously consider any "real career" — and I discovered screenwriting. I'm not going to pretend I wasn't one of my professors' favorites. I don't like lying. I was kinda good.
I know how people talk and behave, and I've put myself in just about every situation there is, which turns out to be pretty useful when you're making people up for a living. So I started writing scripts for fun, almost like another form of journaling and clearing my head. Then, naturally, I spent a couple of years barely writing anything.
Earlier this year, I quit my job, started traveling, and remembered that I actually really love doing this.
All Included
All Included is a feature comedy I wrote while traveling through Asia and Australia. I started it mostly because I wanted to prove to myself that I could sit down and finish a full screenplay again. Turns out, I could.
The premise is pretty simple: maybe not all trip ideas should make it out of the group chat.
When a last-minute opportunity sends a group of friends on an impulsive trip to Mexico, they finally get to take the vacation they've been talking about for years. Unfortunately, actually traveling together turns out to be very different from talking about traveling together. Everyone has a different idea of what a vacation should look like, and putting a bunch of different people (that you think you know from your day-to-day) under one roof for a week turns out to be a questionable decision.
I wrote it in less than two months while traveling , and it was later selected for the Broad Humor Film Festival in Los Angeles. Which is pretty cool for something that started with me thinking: what if the group trip actually left the group chat?
Resort
Right now, I'm working on Resort, a half-hour workplace comedy set at a luxury resort in the Hamptons.
It follows the employees responsible for giving guests the perfect summer vacation while their own lives behind the scenes are extremely chaotic. There's hospitality drama, friendships, ridiculous guests, questionable management decisions and a queer romance at the center of it. I've worked in hospitality for years and recently found myself back in restaurant management, so I'm currently collecting material faster than I can write it down.
Some things obviously get exaggerated. Some things, unfortunately, don't need to be.
Three Words, No Stopping
I also have a lot of ideas. Finishing them is a different story.
At any given moment, I have approximately a million ideas for feature comedies, TV shows and random scenes that are definitely going to be huge hits — until they end up as disorganized notes scattered across my iPhone, laptop and one of the MANY notebooks I apparently need to own.
Sometimes when I get stuck on a bigger project, it's not even writer's block. I just start overthinking everything until writing one scene suddenly feels like I'm being asked to solve world hunger.
So I started doing this. I ask a friend for three completely random words. Then I open my laptop and start writing.
Scripts
No outline. No prep. No thinking about whether the idea is good. Once I start typing, I'm not allowed to stop until I've used all three words and written at least a page.
It usually takes me less than five minutes. Sometimes it's a complete little script. Sometimes it's just a scene. Sometimes it's stupid, sometimes it's funny, and every once in a while I accidentally write something that makes me think: Wait. I could make an entire movie out of this.
The whole point is to get out of my head and remind myself that I can just write without knowing where something is going. Usually, once I get my brain moving again, going back to whatever bigger project I've been avoiding feels a lot easier. Also, it's a great excuse to text someone I haven't talked to in a while and demand three random words with absolutely no explanation.
Here are some of the latest ones: