My name is Marissa Lane and I plan to go to college for screenwriting. I mainly want to become a screenwriter because I want to write the stories that are not told often. Growing up as a queer woman with mental struggles, I rarely related to characters I saw in television shows and movies that I'd watch. Over the years, I've realized that I'm not alone. Although today, the film industry is improving, there is still more to be done, and I want to be that change. Unfortunately, going to college for screenwriting is not simple. Just like any other college kid, college will be a huge financial burden on me and my family, especially because I have three other siblings who will all be in college at the same time as me very soon. Because I plan to go for screenwriting, my parents have tried to shift me towards other majors because of the financial burden of college. In the past couple of years, I have been involved in many different parts of my community. I have volunteered in the Just 4 Kixs program (a special needs soccer-based program) and the Special Olympics. I have also taken the initiative and organized an arts and crafts program for the kids in my neighborhood. For the past two years, I'd have two sessions every week for eight weeks over the summer. A lot of the kids who participated in this program are also a part of the swim team in my neighborhood that I help out with. Being the oldest on the team, I spent many meet days running around try to round up all the young ones to get them to their races. I plan on continuing with volunteering for the Special Olympics as well as continuing to organize the arts and crafts program. It's no secret that bullying is a huge problem in the world. With many people able to cover their identities behind a screen, it's even easier to do it without consequences. With just being a kid, there isn't a miraculous solution that will solve in-person bullying and online cyberbullying. The only thing that I can do is continue to advocate and stand up to the bullying I see around me and the bullying that I have experienced. For example, my friends and I have been kicked off the field by a bunch of the boys from the neighborhood because we were having our dance competition and they felt that playing whiffle ball was more important. Although my friends gave up, I stayed in the middle of their game, even when they threatened to hit the ball at me. I did that because at the end of the day, what they did was wrong, and I ultimately got my friends and me back on that field.

I always felt atypical growing up watching different television shows and films because I rarely ever saw a story or character that I related to. Over time, I made the realization that many characters and stories have always been repetitive and would barely scratch the surface of the number of experiences that people endure in their everyday lives, including my own. A few years ago, I would’ve said that my dream was to see a movie trailer on TV, knowing I wrote the movie. Today, my dream is to have the privilege to share so many stories through movies, television shows, and short films until everyone can see a reflection of themselves in the entertainment industry. I discovered my love for writing and storytelling when I wrote my first narrative in third grade. However, the idea of turning this passion into a career didn’t start until a narrative assignment in eighth grade. Although I don’t remember the prompts given, I do remember that we were only required to write a narrative with a minimum of 750 words. As I’ve done with all narrative assignments, I took the assignment to the next level. I overdid it with the planning and pushed the actual writing until last minute. Submitting the piece a few minutes before the deadline, I ended up turning in a 5,500-word narrative about the catastrophic mission of a supernatural law enforcement agency. I knew after writing it, I wanted to turn it into a television show. When I got a new computer the next summer, almost a year later, I began writing my first piece for the screen. Now, I have more than 20 works in various stages of the writing process that include movies, television shows, short films, plays and novels. In every piece, I get to tell the different experiences of characters that actually reflect our current world, including mine. For example, last year, I finished my first short film titled, The Mask. The film is based on the quote by André Berthiaume, “We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin.” I was able to express this quote in the main character, Brooke, who suffers from anxiety and other mental health struggles. Brooke attempts to hide her struggles by compromising herself to appease others and avoid torment but only hurts herself in the process. Not many people know this, but I wrote Brooke as a reflection of my own experiences. Writing her story meant a lot to me as it was one of the first times I got to see a story like that. Although the entertainment industry has gotten better in diverse representation, there is still much room for improvement. Creating media with queer, mental health, and medical representation (and other representations that don’t apply to me) has allowed me to heal a part of myself that I rarely saw when I was younger. My goal is to be a writer who not only excites young viewers but also empowers them, gives them a voice, and helps them feel seen in a world that often overlooks and suppresses them.