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I gotta be honest. I saw it going differently in my mind.
I was kind of a big deal in Hollywood once.
Okay, I wasn’t a big deal, but I had an agent and a manager and a lawyer. I’d optioned a couple of screenplays not including, LAND, a film that I wrote and that Robyn Wright directed and starred in. It was released at the Sundance Film Festival in 2021 during the height of COVID so there was no traditional premiere. But it did pretty well with audiences and was an NYT Critics Choice selection. I kind of thought it was all blue skies and mezcal margaritas from there on out. I figured steady work would come and my optioned films would be produced like LAND had.
But I was wrong.
In 2022, I parted ways with my manager and agent. My screenplay at Village Roadshow failed to launch and was stuck in development hell. The producers of another film I wrote have been seeking funds for more than two years. And then there was the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023. That brought Hollywood to a grinding halt and though necessary, the industry has yet to recover. Now it’s 2024 and yours truly has decided to bootstrap a copywriting, content dev, and SEO consultancy into existence after more than 10 years away from the game.
I’m not giving up on screenwriting, but I am rediscovering my passion for on page SEO, keyword research, competitor analysis, link building, and copywriting. I forgot how much I actually enjoy this stuff.
JUMO Creative (and SEO Wedding Pros) are my latest creations. I’ll still be writing screenplays and hoping that Hollywood smiles on me again. But in the meantime, I’ll be spending a lot more time writing impactful copy for clients and managing SEO campaigns for businesses seeking high organic rankings on the search engines.
I have a degree in English Literature from the University of Colorado at Boulder and possess SEO certifications from Hubspot and SEMRush.
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Jesse / Founder & CEO of JUMO Creative