This is the story of how I
got to Los Angeles.
Now, that’s a very bold
claim, for many reasons. The first is
that I’m currently sitting in Shelton, CT with almost no concrete plans or
ideas about how to get to Los Angeles besides, “just get there.” The second is that, like all previous blogs
I’ve attempted to start, this is likely to be four or five entries in a row,
then an entry every four or five months until it eventually just gets abandoned
all together. But then again, I did put
this in my planner to do every day—so maybe.
Here’s the deal. I’ve secretly wanted to move to Los Angeles
since I was about eleven years old. I
never really wanted to be an actor
(the idea of being on screen terrifies me a little), but instead I wanted to
write, or possibly direct. In my mind, it
was the best of both worlds. I was
unlikely to reach any level of insane celebrity which meant that people were
looking at me all the time, but I could still help create the stories that I
hoped someday people would come to love the way I loved my television shows and
movies. I was so into the idea during
middle school that my friends, a group of thirteen year olds, all chipped in
together to buy me a video camera for Christmas, which I literally carried
around with me every day until I finally ran the poor thing into the ground and
it ceased to function.
That dream “died” through
the beginnings of high school, when I wasn’t entirely sure if I ever wanted to
move away from my hometown, and the idea of the probably inevitable failure
loomed over my head. My dream switched
from the world of television and movies, a dream where I would have to move
halfway across the country to fail, to a dream of becoming a novelist, where I
could fail in the privacy of my own home. That was my dream through high school
and was the way I geared myself when I started looking for a university.
So I went to school for
English. I had every intention of
becoming a novelist come hell and high water. And because of some good film
professors, a great English teacher, and a then acquaintance (later to become
an apartment mate)’s casual suggestion that I might looking into screenwriting
instead of novels, I started thinking about film and being that kind of writer
again.
I made my official decision
to change my mind too late in my college career to make film my major. I dropped a psychology minor and tacked the
film minor on instead. I started looking
at grad schools for film, knowing full well I couldn’t afford them, but
daydreamed of just maybe ending up somewhere where I would get my foot in the
door.
Well, for a variety of
reasons, I have decided that if opportunity isn’t going to knock, if that door
isn’t going to open wide enough for me to stick my foot in, then I’m just going
to have to make a door of my own. I hope
that’s what this blog is going to be the story of. It’s going to be random
thoughts from my brain, both relating to and having nothing to do with Los
Angeles. It’s going to be a source of
constant embarrassment for my future self when I read back on some of the
things that I’m going to write. It’s going to be a point of pride when I look
back and find that one line or section that I really wrote well. It’s going to be a little bit random, a lot a
bit crazy, and completely and utterly Rebekah Elizabeth.
So, goals. One: Save enough money to actually be able to
afford moving to California. Two: Apply
for jobs that I am likely wildly unqualified for in a desperate attempt to
justify being out there. Three: Overcome
my lack of self-confidence/ distaste of asking for help and let friends help me
where they can and are willing to. Four:
Write here, frequently. Hold myself accountable for this blog now that I’ve
started it. Five: Stop believing that this all is mostly impossible.
I don’t think these are
particularly far reaching goals. And yet—
Well, I think that’s the end
of that for now. I guess I will just
have to talk to you all later.
Ish.
<3
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