It felt 'almost literally unbelievable' when Massachusetts teacher Joe Cote published in high school students on Friday in high school students and won well -known Hallen … while his name from Hollywood heads was shocked in addition to heavyweights such as Sydney Sweeney.
News had broken the day before that the short story of Cote Girl style, written in his kitchen during the pandemic and casually was posted on Reddit, was not only discovered by Tinseltown, but would now also be made in a Warner Bros function.
SEENEY is connected to produce and to stars in the project through her fifty-five films, with an Oscar-winning screenwriter reportedly on board for the script adjustment.
“It's surreal, and it's so funny – just the night I had, the day I had yesterday, and then waking up this morning and just waking up:” Okay, now I have to go inside and write bathroom passes and these children bring their study guides to do their study guides, “” Cote, 34, said Dailymail.com on Friday evening on Friday evening.
“My phone didn't stop. It is probably overheated. I can't keep track of all the support that comes in, “he said. “It was incredible. People with whom I have not spoken since high school, people with whom I have hardly spoken in high school have been super supportive and nice – and my head is still running. '
The teacher had been more than a bit skeptical when he saw a Reddit message of an alleged LA talent manager about a short story that he had posted four years earlier last spring.
He ignored that first question about 'I pretended to be a missing girl', which he had written in the apartment he shared in November 2020 with his cousin outside of Boston. But the manager succeeded.
“I remember that I had checked with my girlfriend:” Okay, well, I think that as long as I don't give him too much personal information or give him my credit card information, I think I might be able to answer, “Cote said.
Massachuetts teacher Joe Cote, 34, posted a short story that he wrote on Reddit in 2020 -and four years later received a message on the platform of a LA manager who wanted to represent him. Cote initially ignored the message and then refused the offer
This week it was announced that Hollywood -star Sydney Sweeney would produce and shine a function of Warner Brothers
He told Folbe that he was a teacher at the public school and was not interested in representation. But the manager continued to exist and Cote verified that Folbe and his company existed.
“But that does not prove that it is legitimate,” Cote said, and he still thought, “There is no way.”
But the teacher finally agreed with a zoom meeting.
“It was almost exactly a year ago from now on,” Cote said on Friday. “We were on the phone for a few hours and I don't think I breathed. I think I got the phone call and I was breath, such as: “Holy Crap. What happens?” '
What happened was the start of a real fairy tale for the writer and teacher.
It is almost difficult for him to reconcile the journey he has had since he would write a story about a protagonist in Covid in that kitchen, his Shiba Inu, who was missing a teenager to rob the real 18-year-old family.
Cote always wanted to tell stories, performing as a child for his little sister and trying with friends in high school to write their own fifth Harry Potter book before a new one actually came out in the series.
After he became a teacher in 2019, his employer in high school Cote offered an elective 'fun' class to teach and design during learning remotely. He opted for creative writing.
Cote sat down to write in November 2020 in the kitchen of the apartment he shared with his cousin, the Shiba Inu of the teacher, Leo, at his feet while he wrote 'I pretended to be a missing girl'
Cote always had to say and tell stories and decided to try his hand to the mystery/thriller -genre after devouring works by authors such as Gillian Flynn, so he 'blows away … and I just wanted to feel other people I felt'
“I would read and act my stories for them, and it was a kind of hit,” he told Dailymail.com. “And when the school got normal again, they just kept the class.”
However, the audience for his breakout short story would not be a classroom; It would be the Wild West Online Forum of Reddit.
And his inspiration for the plot came after devout thrillers and mysteries of authors such as Gillian Flynn and Anthony Horowitz.
“I was blown away,” he said about their work. “And I just wanted to make other people feel the way I felt.”
When he wrote 'I pretended to be a missing girl' for several intense days that from the morning to darkness in 2020, Cote did not feel the same doubt or 'imposter syndrome' that he often did after writing.
“I remember that I was just, okay, this is good,” he said. “I think I feel really good about this.”
He had never posted his work online before, but he felt, was reddit-worthy.
“The comments came in, the likes came in, and even from now on it is still at the top of that short recovery dit,” he says. “It's one of the top messages of all time. If you had told me, it would have been somewhere in the neighborhood where we are now, I would just never have believed it. '
Cote had rarely posted his writing online before the decision to post the 2020 story on Reddit – where it started. But he said this week: “If you would have told me, it would have been somewhere in the neighborhood where we are now, I would have just never believed it”
He continued to write and post, but it was only in the spring of last year that Folbe saw Cote's mysterious masterpiece.
“I don't know how I came across it, but the title was so hyper -specific, so on the nose … that I thought, I should read this,” Folbe told DailyMail.com.
“I pretended to be a missing girl:” That's crazy. And then I read it … and writing was very sharp and real, you can see how great a writer he was immediately. “
Moreover, Folbe says: 'It is very rare that you find a short story that is so simple, but then there is a turn in the middle that completely flipped … when you think you are trying to walk for the plot, you can't.
'I had something like' Holy S ***. I think I just found gold. '
He was right; There was great appetite for the story in Hollywood.
'It became really exciting when there is there [were] Important attachments that had been abandoned about this thing that we knew to a certain extent, with those people involved, and with those people who are creatively passionate about it, this would probably do well on the market, “Folbe said.
Warner Brothers “won the rights … in a competitive situation,” said the Hollywood Reporter.
However, because all this was brewing, Cote hardly told someone in his life.
“It was so hard to talk about because it is so special and incredible – I mean almost quite literally incredible,” says Cote. “Because if someone had told me, you know, even I would say,” I don't know … “
“To be honest, I kept it to myself for the most part – because it is so difficult,” he says. “How do you even mention that organically?”
Now that the cat from the bag is, with large Hollywood players, Cote is looking forward to more projects.
“He has a great career for him, beyond this short story,” Folbe said.
“We are not ready yet,” the teacher added. “There are more stories to tell … where I will let people feel that tension time and time again.”
