Mid February 2026: 3 Goals Accomplished

As you can see from the image-- and the title-- I notched my 3rd writing goal for the year of 2026. Late January saw a funny day where I happened to accomplish 2 goals on the same day. It was one goal that I could control, and one that I couldn't... hence them happening on the same day. Midway through February, another one of my goals that I didn't have complete control over was accomplished!

To rewind a bit-- quite a bit-- I've always been someone who scares, I don't want to say easily, but easily-enough. You ever see those surveys where they give you 5 options and it might ask, "How likely are you to do this thing? 5 being very likely, 4 being likely, 3 being moderate, 2 being unlikely, and 1 being very unlikely." I wouldn't say I am a 5... the person who is so easily scared. I'm not your friend or relative that everyone know they can scare with ease. I am for sure no 1 or 2. I'd like to say I am closer to a 3, but in reality, it's probably that I'm closer to 4.

I've always been claustrophobic, probably thanks in part to that time I was locked in a suitcase for several seconds... or that time I was locked in the trunk of a car for several minutes. I've also always been scared of heights. I have no anecdotal story for that, it's just that being high up feels dangerous, no? When I was a kid, I was also SO scared of the dark. I think I've battled enough of that away. At 38, I don't need a nightlight to sleep, so that's good. I've traveled on planes plenty of times-- both high up and a fairly tight space-- but I do have to psyche myself up before I get on them. And to top it all off, I have always believed that ghosts, aliens, other paranormal beings could exist.

And I've had enough situations that couldn't be explained happen to cement that idea for me.

All that being said, I wouldn't have thought that a genre of writing that I'd be good at would be horror writing. But then I found out, if I'm brave enough to write it (sorry, so cheesy), I actually can be. I'm not sure how other horror writers feel. I don't know if they're not scared of anything and that's why they can write all of this stuff. That's what I used to think. But then I remember thinking, "That sort of makes no sense. If they can't possibly get scared themselves, then how would they know what scares other people?"

When I write stories and scripts, I immerse myself into them as best I can, so I feel like I'm there. That way I can express the feelings and details as much as possible. So yeah, if I am writing a horror, I get scared. I realized that with the first couple horror stories that I was writing... I was imagining these things as real, and I was getting scared. I did write one story based on true events, so that was a little different. But with one horror story that I wrote, it did extremely well in a competition. It received a lot of praise. So, I realized, I must have at least a little knack for horror writing. And if I'm scaring myself while writing it, then that must be a good sign.

We did a rewind to start this off, then I progressed at a normal pace, but now I must rewind again. Before having written that story, I came up with an idea for a script. A horror/thriller script. And it all started with a moment where I scared myself... stupidly. I walked up to the second floor of my apartment building one night, walked down to my apartment, was about to head inside and looked down the long hallway to the window on the opposite side of the floor, and on the other side... I SAW A FACE!

It was a woman's face! Her face was thin, ghostly, her hair was wavy and almost flowing as if underwater. Yes, there was the splittest of split seconds that I was like, there's a mermaid outside the window!

On the second floor.

Hm.

Yeah, it was just a strange reflection of some objects and a strange glare from the light that combined to look like a face. No actual face. No actual mermaid. But my heart was pounding. And then the initial spark of an idea was had. So, I started developing, outlining, and writing, "The Mermaid Outside the Window."

Funny enough, I got about halfway through and then paused because I had a lot of short story endeavors that I was beginning to take on. That was when the short story writing really took off for me... and the script stayed on pause... for a long time. Eventually, I wanted to get back to my screenwriting and realized I had left this script in a state of flux. I reread it and realized there was a lot of good there... so I reread all my notes and outlines and finished the draft. I later came back and revised it and polished it... and then it was ready to be sent off into the world. And then some nice news in Mid-February of 2026, "The Mermaid Outside the Window" moved on to the Quarter-Finalist round!

I'd sent it in to a couple screenplay contests, and using ISA I have also found many producers looking for particular projects and some of them lined up with this script... so I have pitched it to them through their site. So, I've been sending the script out to a few places and hadn't heard anything back yet. I was proud of the script but didn't quite have that sense of how it was... of how others perceived it. Until this.

So, OK! At the Filmmatic Horror Screenplay Awards... they liked it! When you enter contests you always want to win. Of course. It's always a long shot, but it's always the main goal. But it has to always not be the ONLY goal. That's why my list of goals included, moving on to a second round of a competition, moving on to a third round of a competition, and winning a competition. Because they're all excellent goals to have, and they're all accomplishments in their own rights.

A lot of times with these competitions, just moving on to another round, or moving on a couple rounds, even if you don't win, it can garner you the attention you want. Managers, producers, agents, whoever... they see that a script did well in a competition, they read it and enjoy it, you get that exposure... and who knows? You might get a meeting.

Maybe you've heard those stories and always wondered if they were true. They are. I got one though that exact way once. Of course, it didn't lead to representation... but that was the whole point of the meeting. The point was, "Hey... maybe representation?" And that's what I want. So, I know this is a route to take that may lead me there. And I know achieving goals such as this only gets me closer to it. I don't know if anything will come of this one, if it will happen immediately, or if it will be part of a slow burn. Or maybe nothing happens, but it doesn't hurt.

In fact, it feels great to be a Quarter-Finalist! It's an accomplishment that I earned, one that I didn't have total control over. It's an accomplishment that makes Mid-February feel a little warmer. A while back I told myself I would enter contests. I wasn't "trying" to win. I wasn't "trying" anything. Yes, it was out of my control. But what's not out of my control is to write... to enter... to do.

Like Yoda once said, "Do or do not. There is no try."