Introduce Yourself : Fresh start! by Michael DeLorta

Hello everyone! I'm a screenwriter based in Plainfield, Illinois, about a good hour southwest of Chicago. I started writing in high school. As a kid who was bullied through most of his teen years, writing was an escape, a journey to places I could go on that were only for me and nobody else. I never really considered writing as a career until I ventured to my first horror convention in 2010. It was there, among the actors and fans of the genre, that writing horror was something I wanted to do professionally. The question was, "Where do I start?" It was easy; I just started writing. I wrote like a mad scientist for months, short stories mostly. Then, like an omen from the Heavens, in 2010 I joined Twitter. It was there that I came into contact with Shriekfest, a horror film and screenplay festival led by actress Denise Gossett. I had never written a screenplay before but it was a challenge I convinced myself I could do and was the perfect opportunity to showcase my writing to genre professionals in the industry. I re-read, rewrote, edited, re-read and rewrote over and over until I felt satisfied with the final product. However, at the last minute, I almost didn't send it in. It wasn't that I thought my script was bad, my worry was, "What if they read it and laugh at it?" Lots of thoughts raced through my head, from anxiety to panic to being confident in myself that, no matter what, I had completed something I was proud of. I sent in the script, along with the teaser posters created by two artists that I know. For weeks I waited and then, I got a call from Denise stating, "Congratulations, you have made it to the semi-finals." Semi-finals? I'll take that. I couldn't believe my first time out writing a full screenplay and it made it to the semi-finals. Thinking that that was as far as I was going to go with my script, I continued with writing short scripts, feature length, short stories. Then, a couple weeks later, another call from Denise: "Congratulations, you have made it to the finals!" Wow, the finals! I was beyond ecstatic and grateful. Even though I didn't win, I was more humbled that for a first-timer I made it as far as I did. For me it wasn't about winning. Even though that would have been nice! :) In the process, I have come into contact with some really fantastic people in the industry and remain friends to this day. After months and months of pitching and rejection, even writing for an online publication called DarkMedia, I felt things were finally aligning themselves when I came into contact with an actor and a producer to write a vampire horror/action film. I already had the storyline for the script so I just began writing. After months of writing, blood, sweat and tears and revolving door story lines, many drafts and concepts (changes made by the actor and producer), they had unceremoniously dropped me from the project for no particular reason other than "That's just how it is." Did that stop me from continuing to pursue my dream? Absolutely not! In fact, it gave me the fuel to add to the fire and continue. I am currently in development on a script to submit to Shriekfest next year. A fresh start!