A Career in Daydreaming

How a theater major became a mime, a clown, and finally a screenwriter.

When I was in grade school, I spent a lot of time daydreaming and looking out the window. My teachers didn’t love that, that’s for sure.

Needless to say, I wasn’t a particularly good student—at least when it came to academics. Math and I have never been friends. In fact, I try to live a math-free life. The calculator on my phone gets quite a workout.

The funny thing is, what I used to get in trouble for in school is now my job.

I took an unusual road to becoming a screenwriter. I was a theater major in college. My goal was to be an actress. I studied abroad at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, where I studied plays and Shakespeare — not movies and screenwriting.

But acting didn’t fulfill my creative soul. I was saying someone else’s words, fulfilling someone else’s vision. Where was my voice?

Then I took a mime class, and it changed my life.

My son Daniel said after his first fencing lesson that he knew he’d found his sport. That’s how I felt after my first mime class. I had found my passion.

My career goals changed, and I became a professional mime. What I loved most was that I got to create my own routines and express myself through movement. It was mine. It was my voice.

One thing led to another, and eventually I became a clown with the Big Apple Circus. I married a magician. My kids had a pretty unusual upbringing!

So how did I go from writing routines with no words to writing scripts with thousands of them?

I had children, and I loved being home with them. But I still had that creative part of me that needed somewhere to go. So while they napped, I started writing stories.

As time went on, those stories became screenplays. And those screenplays began finding their way onto screens.

Somehow, the kid who got in trouble for staring out the window grew up and made a life out of imagining what might be out there.

My daydreams became my reality.

So if your kids daydream in school, let them.

If they color outside the lines, let them.

If they discover something that makes them light up—even if it isn’t the thing you imagined for them—let them follow it.

You never know where an unconventional path might lead.

Maybe someday they’ll even become a screenwriting circus clown.

I happen to think it’s the best job on earth.