MR. MURPHY´S UGLY FACE AGAIN

It´s been a productive year. I have written 2 short horror stories. One of them is already in the process of pre-production. Through several Facebook movie communities plus others, I have met people very much interested in working together to create a project. From producers to actors, actresses, directors, camera people etc. All of them with a positive and healthy attitude towards this industry. A bunch of cool dreamers eager to participate and to share their skills.

Now, it is true also that to bring together a group of people, with one mindset, one objective, there has to be someone who can inspire them to believe that a specific project is worth all the effort. So, I´ve been waiting for that person to appear. There have been hints, but nothing really solid yet. Therefore, if I want this short horror story to happen, to be filmed, then it´s gonna have to be up to me. I better put that producer, director hat and make it happen. I have already started to reach out to several of my colleagues, and straight out ask them if they would like to work together. I will keep you posted on how this is going.

When I get into my producer, director mood.

So yes, 2 short stories written, plus a completed treatment for a feature horror film. Yeap! That horror genre got into me. I guess being in Japan inspired me. And finally, I´ve had this small, literary novella about a mom and a son´s life story. It´s a very moving, thoughtful contemporary story that I started writing while I was still living in NY, and that I partially finished in Colombia. It´s always been there in the back of my mind, waiting patiently for me to find it again. Well, 2024 came, I started writing furiously and 10 days ago I decided it was time to sit down, check all my notes, some feedback I had received from a good friend who is really good at commenting about the pace, the characters, the critical moments of the story, and I went for it. I worked on it for about a week, several hours per day, and suddenly I was done. Wow, that felt good.

That was a marathon of a re-write that left me feeling really good at the final result. I have always thought that this story was powerful enough to compete. Today, I am sure I will start to send it to festivals, competitions and publishers. I want to see what that baby can do. That´s how optimistic I felt about it. I was flying high.

MR. MURPHY SUDDENLY ARRIVED

Yesterday, I woke up early, woke up the kids, kissed my wife and said good morning, prepared coffee for her, then breakfast for the kids and walked my daughter to school. Everyday common stuff. Once I returned home, I warmed up my already cold cup of coffee in the microwave, and sat down in front of my computer to work on a new idea. But as soon as I clicked the Drive icon I got a message, a horrible message, one that I never expected to receive.

Yes, I know the message is in Spanish. It said; ¨your Google account has been disabled because the date of birth you entered indicates that you are not old enough to have a Google account.¨

WHAT?! WTF!!! I tried to enter again, same message. What´s going on? I had no idea. But then I read something else that almost made me throw up right there on the spot. The heartless, unfeeling, cold, ruthless and inhuman message didn´t take into account that they were playing with my life.

The message said that if I didn´t provide proof of my age by the end of the day, I would lose everything I had in my drive. Can you imagine? All the writing that I have done for the last 3 years is in there, in one shape or another. This can´t be happening! It took me about 5 minutes to calm down. Once I did, I just followed the steps they provided for me to send a picture of my passport showing my date of birth. Can you imagine? Losing all those stories, all that hard work, all my creative life disappearing with one click?

Once I sent the picture I got the message that it would take 24 hours to verify that I was who I was. So, all I could do then was cross my fingers and wait.

In the meantime, I wanted to know what had gotten Google so upset? Well, it had something to do with the family group that I had created at the beginning of the year. Somehow, Google thought that my kid was watching some unacceptable content, and although they had sent me - the parent - a message explaining this situation, the truth is I never read it. I never thought something like this could happen.

The end of the story is, the next day Google did send me a new message, ´Your family group has been reactivated. Now you can continue using Google service.´ That´s it? No, I´m sorry for almost destroying your life and ripping your soul into a thousand little pieces? No, no apologies, nothing.

At once I went to click on drive, and this time it worked. All my hard work was there. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Immediately I started saving my most important writings on a different location.

So yes, now I can finish with how I started; it has been a very productive year, and I hope it will continue to be this creative for a long while. Let´s just hope no other unexpected surprises appear out of nowhere.

Thanks for reading and happy writings to all in this 2024. Abrazos.

Diego Rojas