Introduce Yourself : Can you be too young to write? by Safa Ahmed

I’ll start off gently, my name is Safa, as of now I’m 15. I grew up in a community that made me feel safe despite our differences as they stuck to their cultural traditions. To be realistic, I will never be able to become an actress, no matter how much I dream of it. Growing up in a Muslim home has not forbidden me physically, but it would be viewed as inappropriate and somewhat “shameful” especially for a girl, like me in other peoples’ eyes. My parents always wanted me to be a doctor but as a kid I would dance in the living room recklessly knocking down every glass on the table because I wanted to be in performing arts. My passion died down tremendously until I started daydreaming since the age of 12 about different movies I would direct and envisioning the scenes in my head. You ever heard of maladaptive daydreaming? Hours on edge constantly thinking of scenes, writing out the dialect of the characters on my notes app, deciding what music would fit the scene and play it in my head while imagining it. Today I joined stage32 in hopes for someone to reach out and say “Yes, you’re 15 and young but you could write my film and we could daze off into the sunset with people wanting more.” I don’t see the film industry as just a way for people to make you famous, I don’t see it as art either, but I see it as freedom. I cannot express my own teenage dream in the every day world, so envisioning it hours everyday is my idea of youth alone. Though you may stay in your room, even if it’s all day, your life is still a movie and you have written it subconsciously, just like how screen writing is, without realising you are creating and writing life. I don’t know if this will tell you enough about me as an introduction, but I have so many ideas, stories for the young and the old, take it as a teenager of age, and take the risk of listening to someone with no experience. I’d like to say I get good grades in school, but people will always criticise your level of intelligence but never question your creativity. I’m always open to advice from other writers, whether screenwriting gives me fame or not, I don’t care, I just want others to watch my envisions with me without the guilt of keeping my creativity just to myself. To be honest I’m young and I don’t know what I want to do in the future, I want a taster of everything and if I enjoy it, then I’ve made my own direction.