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 is really like behind the curtain.

In TODAY’S ISSUE, we do our taxes and get an IV of f*ck it Nick Cage energy.

Friday, May 22, 2026: I am adulting, doing my bookkeeping in preparation for doing my taxes exactly 37 days late.

I got an extension, but still, I am a responsible, adult-functioning business owner and must make sure the debits and credits line up and the IRS is fed.

I have a problem. Last year, a zealous if not corrupt debt collector kept hitting my business checking account with withdrawals. I had to close the account and open a new checking account.

I only do my bookkeeping once a year. A debit on adulting. I blow it off and bear the pain every late Spring and early summer.

Since I had two 2025 business checking accounts and only one currently functioning, I had downloaded two sets of transactions. I classify each expense. For example, I count my Criterion Channel streaming subscription as a research expense.

Sorry IRS!

With two different sets of data, I have duplicate expenses, making it hard to reconcile or match the money in and out of my account with my bank statements.

It’s a nightmare. I pay for QuickBook expert help. I spend what seems like hours reviewing the reconciliation with a bookkeeping expert to get just one month to balance.

I remember when I was at film school at USC doing sound. In post-production (editing the film after production), you had to sync the production audio with your rough picture cut. When you had sync harmony, you had a mellifluous, near-humming sound.

Back to the adulting and accounting. I am not getting the honey. No sync. No harmonious balance of debits and credits.

Stacking accounting on top of my day job, this newsletter and writing a new script, my time-balance algorithm is not optimizing.

I stop balancing cash in, cash out. I am worn down. Tomorrow I’ll get back to pushing Conan’s wheel.

ACCOUNTING ≠ NICK CAGE ENERGY

Saturday, May 23, 2026: I wake up early. Gonna get my books to balance and harmonize. Have a few cups of coffee as I doomscroll.

I come across a New York Times story celebrating (bemoaning?) the actor Nick Cage’s burden of his mythic being.

Some highlights from the article. Nick Cage, as a kid, used to set up beer kegs on a ramp to jump his Huffy bike over to entertain the neighborhood. He got an idea of setting them on fire and jumping over them because he was an ardent Evel Knievel fan.

This is when he got in trouble, and his parents took the bike away.

Nick Cage got rich and famous as an actor. Went broke buying all kinds of weird stuff and did artistically questionable movies for a paycheck. We all know that.

Not too long ago, his accountant called him up and told him he’d have to do a movie or he’d go belly up. It was a Western movie in which he modeled the character’s voice after a raspy Miles Davis rattlesnake bite.

He found something artistic in stacking debits and credits in his bank account.

I put my phone down, energized.

I want to jump a bike over flaming beer kegs. I want to let growth rip beyond pushing debits and credits into a tedious balance. I want fun, push-the-boundary Nick Cage energy.

I decide to forget the adulting and accounting for the Memorial Day weekend.

I take my daughter to the pool, launch her off my shoulders into the turquoise water, come home sunburned and work on story beats for a new action/thriller script.

Life?

It ain’t accounting.

THIS WEEK IN DIE TRYING

• List of Entertainment Executives Assembled to Query: 8
  

• Time Spent Writing New Script: 4.5 hours
  

• Blacklist Evaluation Received for Current Script: 1

• Mood: “But to answer your question, I was channeling what I remembered that I loved about Miles’s voice. Plus I wanted to wear a green bowler hat. I thought: If I can do a Miles Davis sound and a green bowler hat, I’m happy. So let’s make the movie.”—Nicolas Cage

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

Do you approach your job methodically like an accountant or let it rip with Nick Cage energy?

Clue me in.

—Michael