Writing About Writing

Years ago while living in Salt Lake City, my pastor interrupted his own sermon to say, "You know, if you find yourself thinking that SOMEBODY needs to do SOMETHING about a particular thing...THAT SOMEBODY IS YOU!" I don't know if that is something he uses in his day to day activities or if that was hot off the presses of Heaven, but it resonated with me.

Why else go to church, really, unless you are going to hear from God? Those words were tailor-made word for my life, and I believe Pastor Craig McCune said them just for me. They work whether it is "Somebody should help that lady in the door. Why isn't anyone helping her?" (why don't YOU help her?) to "Somebody should make a suitcase with wheels on it" (YOU could have, and been millions richer as a result).

Dapo and I were married in 2005 and made our first home in a student apartment I not-so-lovingly referred to as Cellblock 642. I called it such, because it was as though we lived in prison, with strict regulations on how many holes in the CINDER BLOCK walls we could make without being docked rent when we moved out. Honest, I am not making this up. The only consolation of living in CB 642 was that it was dirt cheap and included cable and utilities.

Shortly after we married, I sat at our built-in formica computer desk and surfed the web. I ran across a very intriguing story on a news site. As I read the story, I thought, "SOMEBODY should make a movie about this." You know what this means!

After we moved to Huntsville, Alabama, we found a church we absolutely adore. Pastor Mark Garver attended the same Bible school as our pastor in SLC, but that is the only thing about them that they have in common. Wouldn't you know it, one day Pastor Mark interrupted his own sermon and said, "Somebody's going to do it, it might as well be you." I had to laugh.

Not because it is funny, really; but because of how my father God taught me a lesson. I learned in SLC that if somebody SHOULD do it, it SHOULD be me. I learned that I'm the somebody, the noun in the sentence. But now, I have learned that somebody IS GOING to do it. It is no longer IF, it is WHEN. And since somebody is GOING to do it, I might as well be that somebody. Especially when that SOMETHING is a million (or multi-million) dollar idea. Think about it...someone is going to do it, so it might as well be you.

I had only the introduction plus an outline of the story written when I began to work on the screenplay again in late 2007. I sporadically worked on it throughout 2008. I was praying one day in June of this year about miracles, which is defined as "an EXTRAORDINARY event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs". I determined to finish this long project at that time, knowing that I had divine intervention at my disposal. When I wrote the conclusion to my story yesterday, I think I had already done all of my rejoicing and shouting, as I was just relieved to be done.

I am so thankful that God enabled me to write, and to finish the screenplay. I'd like to thank Him for the idea, inspiration and grace to do it. I'd like to thank my husband, Dapo, for being so supportive of me; giving up time on the weekends and weeknights to watch the kids while I wrote and finally, my kids for taking long naps and being my driving force.

Wait a minute, this sounds like an acceptance speech. I'm not at the Acadamy Awards...yet.