The phone rang. I recognized the number and I don’t want to answer. The only number that can possibly call me from Florida is Full Sail University. After a few deep breath I answer. This very sweet lady from Full Sail wants to talk to me about my achievements since graduation, in 2019.
As she proceeds to question me about the ability of finding a job in Creative Writing, I have to be very careful in what I tell her. It’s not her fault what the school engulf of into thinking about our career prospects, she is just a messenger. I felt comfortable with her and I told her exactly how I feel about it.
Moving on the conversation, she gives me a few options about what could I do with my degree. I told her I tried everything I could, and did the best of my ability to find a job within a writing position, but all available placements in my area requires at least 5 years of experience, a portfolio, and a fresh angel’s wing feather. 
I also told her some freelance job offers on Fiverr and Upwork requires a person to be born and raised American. Which means that a person born on the crusts of Tennessee, who barely can write or read, has more chance to get a job in my field, than me, born in Brazil, and soon to be naturalized American, who went to college here.
She sympathized with me, and at this point, she had stopped giving me ideas, like a therapist, the girl let me talk myself into my own ideas. We talked for almost an hour.
Moving on with the conversation, she went deeper and asked my Why.
Why I wanted to write in the first place? What were my interests and my goals? Again, the phone call was cheaper than therapy. Sometimes you need strangers or people who don’t know you in personally, to ask you why did you do certain things and hear yourself talking about your purposes out loud. It works for me, when I talk to my family about my goals, sometimes it backlashes, but most of the time I get something out of it, sometimes is tears, sometimes are ideas.
So me being me, I did I quick recap of the past 3 years. (pandemic included)
When I graduated I fully intend in working on movie productions. Pre-production, meaning, I would work with story development, research and scriptwriting. Before the pandemic, we flew to LA so I could see if I would like to take a film workshop for a few weeks. I visited NEW YORK FILM ACADEMY and talked with the Creative director about coming back for classes as soon as I could. Within 2 months the world shut down for 2 years and counting.
1 – I kept this blog up and running.
I can’t put as much content out as I would like to. during the pandemic, I had 7 posts in a month. They were all over the place, in many different aspects, but it kept the blog up and running. I wrote about tv shows, I wrote about success and failure, about immigration, about my future plans and the ongoing pandemic.
2- Participating in Nickelodeon TV Writing contest
The craziest and more neurotic writing I have ever done so far. I had 30 days to write 2 scripts and submit to the Nickelodeon tv writing contest. The requirements were: 1 original tv pilot and on spec script from the list. The Spec script was the most endearing one, because I wrote a spec of Hulu’s Pen15 and it had to take a lot of my own ideas of how was to be a teenage in the early 2000’s and squeeze from the first season. The original pilot took me two days to finish. I didn’t place it, but I felt accomplished.
3- Created/ in the works the concept of the “Shrubbery show”
If you ever watched Monty Python, you remember the Shrubbery scene. It’s genius. The Shrubbery Show would be a morning show, with different segments, full with the absurdities that only a morning show can provide. I watched those for many years as I always wanted to add a comedic side to it. I wrote the segments as Health ( a dad body trying to teach jazzersize classes), culinary, with a chef that is just pretty and rich, but cooks terrible food, finances, with a person addicted to shopping, among others (I’m always open to suggestions on the comments)
4- Launch my Youtube Travel Channel – TRVLS & Comida
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqGLGlPYM5ve0X5hADwvbSw
I always loved traveling and why not film it, edit it, work on the audio, put subtitles, music, graphics and upload on youtube, do the marketing, while having a full time job in a hotel? Easy. Excuse me, while I go scream in my pillow. I enjoy it so much, it has been giving me a purpose. I’ve been learning about film, edit, all that chaos of Adobe Creative platform. All those memes make sense now.
A short video from my channel. I have long format too.
To summarize my conversation with the lady from Full Sail is: I’m working, slowly but surely, and not yet getting paid for it. Eventually I will. I haven’t failed with my career choice, I was derailed by a two year pandemic. Me and the entire planet. I’m getting back on track now.
I guess we all are.
I refuse to let anyone butcher my dreams and you shouldn’t either! So, if your advisor or therapist for what it matters, call you today and asked you: are you doing what you want to do, or are you just getting by? Let me know in the comments!
And pls subscribe to my channel, if you want to 😊 It would be a great help!
XXX
JSnelly
