For as long as I can remember, climbing into bed, closing my eyes, and watching stories play out in my head has been a major part of my sleep routine. When I was a kid, my parents rented a VHS of "Jurassic Park" for our weekly movie night. Little did they know they had awakened something in me. From then on, every day I would amble around the house, the sidewalk, the park, with just me and my imagination, and together we would go over that day's story. 

In a lot of ways, that kid is still a  part of me.

Over the last couple of years, I have focused that innate energy on screenwriting - plotting out and writing features and pilots with hopes of making it onto the Black List: an exclusive list of unproduced screenplays that can sometimes make it into the lap of an executive producer. This has long been the dream.

Before that, I spent more than five years consulting other people's scripts, as I wrote and edited subtitles for TV and film. Some of these were Emmy-winning programs; others were guilty pleasure reality slop; some were game show classics sent over to me to be syndicated; and others were highly confidential corporate seminars that I could tell you more about, but the powers that be might come after me.

These days I have been thinking a lot about work and dreams and how both headspaces can shape us. I had always bristled at the notion that work is just something you do, because no one can compartmentalize themselves that much to not let work inform who they are to some degree, and vice versa. So I took an online course in technical writing (and got certified), because I realized that dreams can only get you so far. It was shortly after my certification that I discovered copywriting, and it was like a lifeboat had come to rescue me, even if I had convinced myself that the water was just fine.

I still take a dip every now and then, dreaming of my stories making it to the screen. But with copywriting, I now know I can tell stories in a way that actually sustains me, and I intend to pursue that career, where the work can both be something I do while embodying everything I am, in honor of that kid.