I Am a Writer.

Hello, my name is Damali and I'm a writer. That may seem like a small statement but it's huge to me. To believe and know that about myself has taken many many years. People would say "you're a writer" and i'd dispute it because i am not published...because no one has ever paid me to do it. But i understand now that it doesn't matter. I write. I create. therefore, i AM a writer. and i do want to be published. scratch that, i WILL be published someday.



this writing thing has come along so late in my life though...it's strange what we discover about ourselves the older we get. As a teenager, i HATED writing. It was my least favorite subject in school and i'm pretty sure i wasn't very good at it. i would tell people that i was a singer. that i was gonna do that for a living one day...i was gonna be famous and have an album and make videos like Janet Jackson. that's all i would think about. i entered any talent show i could and performed alot at school and in front of my family and in front of my mirror.



then somewhere in my early 20s, i'd decided that i was an actor (not an actress; i hate that word). i moved to the New York area in hopes of being in movies or on Broadway. i still enjoyed singing but i was all about going on auditions for plays and films. and i did get some small work...some paid even. i did extra work in feature and low budget films, got parts in musical theater shows, did a local commercial for Mercy College. It was just all so expensive though. And unless you had a good agent, you do not get much of a return on your considerable investment.



In my early 30's, i became a filmmaker. i worked as a Production Assistant on a few film sets. I agonizingly wrote (that pesky writing again!) a screenplay and tried to direct it. i produced a short film with my friend Guy that went to some festivals...i saw myself as having the potential to be this great filmmaker one day. perhaps that could still be true. i don't know. i loved filmmaking more than singing and acting...it just felt way more creative to me.

so then now here we are. ladies a gentlemen, a dream we all dreamed of. i write. i think this is the scariest one of all.