How I Fell in Love with My Passion
A Script Reader Walks Into a Bar: The Beginning of Everything
When people hear I grew up in Beverly Hills with parents in the entertainment industry, they assume my childhood was some glossy montage of private jets and red carpets. And sure, there were premieres where I saw my mom stressing over seating charts more than I’d ever stress over any boyfriend. There were charity auctions where my dad hosted film executives like they were extended family. But there was also the very real experience of being twelve years old, huddled over my desk in a sea of Lisa Frank stickers, writing painfully awkward Friendster blogs because I just needed to tell the world about my crush on a boy in algebra. Spoiler alert: He liked someone else.
Fast-forward a few years, and I wasn’t just blogging about crushes anymore. I fell in love—with words. But also, storytelling. It’s the quiet, compulsive act of untangling the messy, complicated knot of human emotion that hooked me.
Of course, this sounds epically romantic, but the truth? My affair with storytelling started more with caffeine jitters than movie magic. Picture me, nineteen years old, interning at a film agency in Manhattan, where my job was essentially to drown in scripts from overly caffeinated writers who thought everything needed explosions (spoiler: it doesn’t). I read stories about star-crossed lovers battling space zombies or small-town teens finding themselves in jazzercise cults. By the end of that summer, I woke up to a fact that genuinely floored me: love stories—and love itself—are everywhere.
The question for me wasn’t just about falling in love with the stories. It was about exploring why we keep writing them—and how they make us who we are.
Plot Twists and Shabbat Candlelight Dinners
You could say my casual romance with storytelling “got serious” sometime during Shabbat dinner. It was years after my New York summer, and I was back in Beverly Hills, gathered around the table with three generations of my family, just like we’d done every Friday night for as long as I could remember.
I looked around: Grandma breaking into her usual monologue about why James Dean is the only man who ever mattered, my little cousin texting under the table (subtle, Shayna, really). Everything about that scene screamed ordinary. But isn’t it funny how ordinary moments can hit you with the emotional weight of a Spielberg finale?
That night, as the candles flickered, I realized these dinners were keeping our story alive. Every laugh, every roast of someone’s bad fashion choices, every retelling of how my uncle met my aunt in a 1970s disco—they connected us. They reminded us who we are. And that’s when it hit me: storytelling isn’t just about the stories you consume. It’s about the ones you live.
Even now, as a writer who spends most of her days at a desk in yoga pants, chasing deadlines and to-go lattes, I try to carry that lesson with me: the stories that linger are the ones that feel like home.
How Love and Writing Embarrassed Me Enough to Keep Going
Here’s the thing no one tells you about passion: it’s not always love at first sight. Sometimes it’s messy, complicated, and makes you cringe half the time. Case in point: my first screenplay.
Don’t ask me why nineteen-year-old me thought the world needed a rom-com about a yoga teacher with telepathic cats. (Maybe too much time in coffee shops with “creative visions” and no editor?) But, wow, if I could eBay one of my old drafts, the description would read, “lightly humiliated, borderline pretentious, definitely haunted.” I still can’t say the words “yogalates love triangle” without flinching.
The funny part? That screenplay didn’t derail me. In fact, it saved me. Because if writing makes you feel something—whether it’s pride, laughter, or a forehead-shaking cringe—that means it matters. You ever fall for someone, completely mortify yourself on a date, but then can’t stop texting them anyway? Writing is like that. You feel exposed, embarrassed, even borderline defeated. But then you pick up your pen and text them write the next chapter.
So for all the cringe moments, like workshopping truly terrible dialogue in front of a UCLA screenwriting professor who referred to me as “optimistically unpolished,” I kept going. Because no matter how frustrated I felt, the writing always brought me back to the big-picture idea of why I was doing this.
From Awkward Improv to Meaningful Connections
You’d think my passion for storytelling—and love in general—prepared me for dating. But oh no, dear reader, my early twenties were an anthology series of awkward encounters.
Take one particular “meet-cute.” I was at a bookstore flipping through essays by Nora Ephron (naturally, a rite of passage for anyone who dreams of witty repartee), and I caught the eye of a guy in the poetry section. He had stubble in the way only New Yorkers and guys in indie bands can pull off. We bonded over being Ephron fans—which probably nudged me into romanticizing him—and ended up exchanging numbers.
Two dates later, I realized we were essentially a screenplay with no third act. (How do I explain we spent an entire dinner arguing about abstract art and Wheat Thins?) Honestly, no regrets; at least I got an essay draft out of the chaos. Besides, the failures served a purpose: they reminded me what I actually value—not just in love, but in every story I care to tell.
Five Lessons I’ve Written Into My Life
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Passion isn’t destiny—it’s practice.
Too often, people think passion strikes like Cupid’s arrow. In reality, it’s something that grows over time. You don’t have to be perfect to love it. (Or start telepathic cat screenplays...) -
Be curious, not self-critical.
Whether it’s writing a scene that doesn’t quite land or dating someone whose sense of humor rivals a wet sock, every “failure” teaches you what matters. -
Know your narrative, but embrace the edits.
Life—and love—rarely follow the perfect script. So rewrite. Rewrite often. Rewrite messily. Just keep going. -
The best connections start over dinner.
Every story I tell, even now, circles back to those Shabbat tables: candlelight, laughter, and the way tradition connects us. (Guaranteed, no meeting app beats my grandma setting you up with a third cousin’s friend’s nephew.) -
Share your story—it’s what pulls others in.
Whether you’re writing, dating, or just trying to convince your Tiktok audience you really do understand cooking trends, the best way to connect is to get a little vulnerable.
The Takeaway: From Flirtation to Endgame
So, how did I fall in love with my passion? By letting it blindside me, embarrass me, and push me harder than I thought possible. If love—whether it’s romantic or creative—isn’t a little messy, a little chaotic, and a little too real...are you even doing it right?
Now, the next time you’re fumbling through a first date or staring at a blank Word doc wondering what comes next, ask yourself this: How can I turn this moment into a story worth telling? Keep writing it—yourself, your relationships, your dreams—until it feels like something bigger.
As Ephron would say, “Everything is copy.” So go out there and live it.
