Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
Fact: I write about my life. I’m not an open book. But I’m definitely a mildly opaque one. And sometimes, mining my life for content, actually works out pretty damn well for me.
At least it did last week.
On Thursday, I got some really big, totally huge news. The screenplay I wrote while in Italy last summer was selected as a finalist for Seattle International Film Festival’s first Catalyst Screenwriting Competition. It’s exciting for a number of rather huge reasons: first, it was an artistic validation unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Second, it feels like the crazy chance I took diving into writing for a few weeks and stepping away from my business was actually worth it.
When you run a small business, even a creative one, taking a vacation can seem like an absurd luxury. And while I want to go into the reasons why it’s imperative that even new #girlbosses step away from their work and relax once in a while, I’ll save that for another day. Instead, I want to focus on that bit about validation.
The script, Private Parts, is about modern dating in the age of sharing digital nudes before we even know someone’s middle name. It’s a portrait of contemporary intimacy, if you will. And inside that script are about four different men that I dated in the last year before meeting my current beau, R. Of course their names were all changed, but their role in my life and the way that I saw them as people is all there. And while I could feel guilty about including their stories and their qualities with the world, I don’t. And to be honest, I refuse to. Because here’s the thing: I don’t hide what I do. And what I do, is create.
Recently, I asked R: “How would you feel if I wrote about you?” His answer was simple: “Just don’t do it on the blog.” Who knows what is in our future, but already I know where our story begins. And that’s what I love most about my life right now. For the first time, I feel like I understand why we keep doing this even when we don’t get validation from the powers that be. It’s because I don’t know how to live my life any other way. I don’t even know how to date without knowing that I will probably need to write about it later.
The big heartbreaks? Catalogued in history in ways that are implicit and subtle. The strange sexual interactions? Remembered forever through various characters whose names all start with the letter E. The bizarre encounters between humans just trying to figure it out? Still being worked out privately in Final Draft. One particular ex is everywhere. He’s in Private Parts. He’s in my upcoming short film, Victoriana. And I could feel bad, but that’s what you get for cheating.
But here’s what is so surprising: the artistic validation feels so much more powerul than the closure I received from processing that experience through my writing. I never want to be cheated on again, but I’ll tell you this: I am weirdly delighted that it happened. The source material has provided immeasurable motivation. Just ask Beyonce.
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