DIE TRYING 025

Publish, Project or Perish

Author

Michael Barnes
April 02, 2026

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

Hey! I’m that guy trying to sell my latest screenplay, publish it as a novel or die trying.

In DIE TRYING, you will get an unvarnished look at a bitterly honest writer struggling to make it. No name-dropping or Hollywood phoniness. Just the facts ma’am on what the media landscape really is like behind the curtain.

In TODAY’S ISSUE, we look at the profundity or lack thereof of the current squishy dumpling fad.

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RIPPED FROM THE FADS

As I understand it, you open mystery box after box, trying to find the squishy glitter dumpling.

It is all the rage. An effervescent fad for young and old.

My wife told me people are lining up at stores overnight trying to get the first boxful from the night delivery trucks.

The Five Below store where I live is sold out and the clerk haughtily told me wife they may or may not be getting more, indirectly signalling that us rabble just have to wait.

Gas is over $4 a gallon and people are spending their disposable income on toy dumpling bao buns.

Isn’t life amazing?

Below, I examine this fad from the perspective of a young man, middle-aged man and an old man.

LIKE, WHO IS WARREN ZEVON?

Look gang, I got a pink!

OMG another!!!!

The comments are rolling in over the stream. Someone calls me an excitable boy from a Warren…who?

Like, gang, who is Warren Zevon?

You old trolls out there are at it again. Trying to steal my glitter with some rando.

Warren whoever is evidently from the 1970s and, like, I’m telling you, all I know from that Before Jesus Time is Joni Mitchell and Laurel Canyon.

And, of course, Ziggy Stardust himself/herself/themself.

Let’s open another, fam!

PINK…AGAIN!

I’m making Barbie proud and Ken sooooo bitter…

A non-troll is on the comments telling me this Warren whoever has a song called Excitable Boy about some degenerate that digs up graves and attacks people.

Definitely NOT me, fam!!!

I’m here for the glitter squishy. Let’s open more! Maybe I’ll get a purple :)

GLITTERY RECTUMS, ANYONE?

Bob Rot, p.g.a.: So pitch me your ideas on this squishy dumpling flashbang that we’re gonna turn into a movie. You gotta find the glitter, right? Glitter…I chased that smokin’ poontang for years and all I got was a lousy divorce, no t-shirt, ‘cause I was too damn dumb to make her sign a pre-nup. So whadya’ think, kid, is it glitter or not?

James the Starving Screenwriter: Well Bob, I like the idea of a mystery boxes. It’s kind of meta, thinking of screenplay structure. Kind of like the mysterious briefcase in Pulp Fiction-

Bob Rot, p.g.a.: Kid, stop intellectualizing! We’re making a movie about a fucking toy. It’s a step above AI slop to serve to the masses on cereal boxes with hopefully a shitton of sequels. It’s a money-maker. I could give two fucks about screenplay structure. Kid, let me ask you this, if a stallion with a glitter dick shot a load in Harry Styles’ ass, would he clean his rectum with a wipe or a rag?

James the Starving Screenwriter: Well, Bob, I didn’t attend the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop to slum it in Hollywood and debate the vicissitudes of Harry Style’s glittery rectum. I do think we could make this a role for Harry who at the beginning of our story is washed up and hoping if he finds the glitter squishy, he’ll turn around his career and be on top again-

Bob Rot, p.g.a.: Kid, Harry isn’t washed up! That shit is depressing! No one remembers Logan. People want fucking Wolverine! We’ll make it a love story. Harry wants the glitter squishy that metamorphizes into Margot Robbie in the flesh. Now that’s a piece of ass worth chasing!

EPHEMERAL LIFE LESSON

I haven’t bathed in days because I am a decrepit old soul in a threadbare robe. Like old Anthony Hopkins in that superhero movie, searching the forest floor for sweet berries.

May I find the glitter squishy dumpling in the bao bun box. May I triumph and scoop up the ephemera.

That’s all I’ve learned. I have climbed mountains, made fortunes, survived the plagues and burned through all my money to only wish that my heart pumped neon.

All that really counts is the search for the glitter. The crack in the pavement where the flower grows. The tiny moment where life flashes instead of the perpetual disappointment of paying the mortgage on not living.

That’s all we really have.

THIS WEEK IN DIE TRYING

  • # of Consecutive NCAA Tourney Games Where the Michigan Wolverines Have Scored 90 or More Points: 4

  • Time Spent Dreaming of a Hoops College Championship Instead of Writing: Infinite

  • # of Former Michigan Basketball Players I have Obliquely Sneaked Into My Current Script: 1 (Vlad Goldin)

  • Mood: “He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.”—Jean-Luc Godard

SATIRE CAN’T COMPETE

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

Is a squishy dumpling movie satire or an eventual sad reality?

Hit reply. I read every response.

—Michael