I'm looking for a word that takes "irony" to 11. This isn't necessarily a complaint per se, but a few weeks back I decided that I would stop pursuing new writing work as my efforts were being met with silence of all my ears could bear. I am not saying I am stopping writing or that I won't yet again attempt to get paid for my efforts but for now the brick wall wins; I'll clean up the small bloody/hairy patch and move on to something satisfying, like bartending.

So, amusingly enough I go see "Hugo" and get slapped across the face with a lesson and in 3D no less.

A few days later I am in my favorite LES beer bar for "one." That one turns to another as it turns out the bartender is also a writer; there's a surprise, right? The next guy who comes in - the beer salesman and his ringing cellphone and electronic cigarette - and he's a writer, too. As a matter of fact, he's just published his first novel; he retrieves a copy of it for the bartender. He wants me to read the first chapter right there in the bar, but I tell him I don't want to give it short shrift; I can't really concentrate with the bartender's 50's rock n' roll and the beer salesman's phone calls.

After the third or fourth, he and I wander up to another bar where for $10 one can get "a book and a beer." I take his novel hone with me and perhaps the gig of adapting it to the screen. Just finished the book and liked it a whole lot more than I'd hoped for and feel a lot of places where it really speaks to me; places where I feel that I would indeed be the right screenwriter for this. Small ol' world; the people who sit down next to you in bars.

A few days later I get a response from a CL ad I had responded to prior to commencing my hiatus from such things. Guy requests a writing sample, gets right back to me, wants to meet in LA. We schedule a video call for early the next week. He has me google him; I tell him that he's indeed rather google-able (even more so than I in some regard) as he's the bf of a pretty famous pop diva.

Now, he's got no money and he made that clear eventually, but I will speak with him anyway as the world is not beating a path to my door currently. Perhaps he does have some connections and those are worth $omething. My pile of scripts do me little good sitting in the proverbial drawer.

Now, I have to review my first bartending lesson.

Cheers,
Brian