One crafty writer’s never-say-die quest to tell a story for the page or screen.

DIE TRYING is a work in progress.

Watch me tickle, in real time, the fat bottom of a garish rooster that never crows.

I’m attempting to sell a screenplay. If that fails, I’ll publish it as a novel. If that fails, I’ll document why.

And it will soar. No grim failure porn here.

This isn’t motivation, “branding” advice or Hollywood mythmaking. It’s a candid record of submissions, silence, false momentum, real momentum and the head toll of trying to make something exist in a market designed to ignore you.

If you write, read scripts professionally or are trying to understand how stories actually move through the system, this is for you.

If not, it probably isn’t.

Everyone wants a piece of the action when it comes to Hollywood.

I live in Southwest Florida, far from the bright klieg lights of the entertainment-industry epicenter.

But my neighbor, Florida Man, had an idea for a TV show. He had heard I was a screenwriter and was brandishing his pitching skills.

I was weeding the front flower bed. He was washing his F-150 truck, the bed pristine because Florida Man never hauled anything.

He was a sales guy at a nearby builder’s model home. Selling new houses to the hordes of freezing northerners and displaced Miamians lusting for affordable real estate — the engine of the Sunshine State economy.

I usually talk to Florida Man about working out. He is very knowledgeable about the amount of protein you need in your diet and can recommend Creatine that is not bullshit and actually works.

Florida Man almost never misses a workout. His fitness zeal is almost matched by my unbounded inertia of never picking up a dumbbell or measuring any of my steps.

The dude was chatty while my Dad Bod huddled in the dirt, pulling out things that looked like weeds but could be flowers.

I was Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon from Hollywood. Florida Man had an idea.

 HEATED RIVALRY WITH LIPSTICK LESBIANS

Florida Man’s wife wanted him to watch Heated Rivalry, the gay hockey love story and current pop culture sensation.

His wife also had concerns about what was going down in Minnesota (RIP Alex Pretti. RIP Renee Good.) She wanted to change the station from Fox News to CNN.

Florida Man told his wife he would watch Heated Rivalry if they kept the TV on Fox, even though they got rid of Tucker years ago.

I told Florida Man that I hadn’t seen Heated Rivalry but heard the sex scenes were pretty spicy.

Florida Man shifted uncomfortably.

He then launched into his idea. Smoking hot female figure skaters who are rivals but turn up the heat off the ice.

Florida Man was savvy enough about Hollywood to know what an intimacy coordinator was. In a stroke of genius, he volunteered to serve as the intimacy coordinator for the new show.

He just needed me to write it.

Florida Man had casting ideas. Sydney Sweeney would be one of the leads. The girl who is Demi Moore’s daughter in that weird movie that his wife also wanted him to watch, but he had successfully avoided.

The Substance?

Yeah, Florida Man thought that was the name of it. Demi Moore’s daughter looked good in spandex in that thing.

I explained that Margaret Qualley was Demi Moore’s alter ego in the satirical film.

Whatev’s — Florida Man didn’t want to get political and kept going with his idea.

Sydney Sweeney would be the fetching American figure skater. She would do her routines, waving a giant American flag. 

Demi Moore’s daughter would be a hot but sexually frigid figure skater from recently liberated Venezuela. 

Florida Man was getting worked up. He rushed into the twist at the end of Season 1.

The Demi Moore daughter character decides to skate too with a giant American flag in the championship after Sydney’s character gives her a pulse-pounding orgasm the night before.

I was skeptical that people in Venezuela knew how to figure skate.

Florida Man brushed me off. It’s Hollywood. Suspension of disbelief and all that stuff…

I asked Florida Man what we would call his show.

His working title was Ice Ladies Get Lucky.

I pulled some clumps of grass blades from under a bush. I told Florida Man I would mull over his idea.

The brutal reality?

The germ of Ice Ladies Get Lucky has more of a chance of getting picked up than any of my lame ideas.

THIS WEEK IN DIE TRYING

• New Script Ideas Dreamed Up: 1
  

• Current Scripts Abandoned: 1
  

• Blacklist Evals on Current Script: 1

• Mood: “‘I’m know I’m delusional, but you kind of have to be to chase your dreams,’ she said in the video.”

If you’re reading this because you write, read, develop or sell scripts:

Is living in Florida a liability for those who want to break into screenwriting?

Go ham on the reply button. I read every response.

—Michael