Introduce Yourself : Hello! by Jaclyn Natoli

Hello!

Hello, my name is Jaclyn Natoli. I am so glad to be apart of Stage 32 so we can all educate, learn, and grow together in our creative endeavors. My story is, I used to write, direct, act, and edit home videos with my best friend from elementary school. But once we got to middle school it was considered "uncool" to write home movies so we stopped creating them. However, I didn't stop instead I began to secretly write on the side - I guess you can call me a closet writer. I wrote down my stories, and ideas without showing them to anyone else. While I was sitting in my chair at graduation waiting for my name to be called out I realized that I was getting my teaching degree but I wasn't happy in this profession. I realized after months of meditating that I lived up to my parent's aspirations while ignoring my own dreams. Once I graduated from college I realized that I needed to make myself happy because no one else was going to do it. So I went against my family, friends, and society's expectations of who I should be and I started following my fear trying to attend screenwriting classes, read scripts, get a job, hire script consultants, and write everyday. Even though I'm a beginning writer like the words of a famous poet would say, "I took the [road] less traveled by, and [I hope it makes] all the difference".