Letters to the Editor
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If you keep working at your writing, you will get good.
Somebody told me that when I was young and it gave me false hope. I ended up wasting my whole life trying to be a writer.
It sounds glamourous, but it's not. It's hard work. It's lonely work. People look at you funny. Your dog doesn't know you. Critics shit on you. Look at Stephen King. The artsy types shit on him, didn't they? I've done some of it myself.
I wanted to do real art but the best I could get was these lousy screenplays. You have no idea how agonizing it can be to write for Adam Sandler. Well, maybe you do. I learned one thing from it, though. God hates me. He practically said so.
Hey, I'll drink with ya, if you're buying. Hey, thanks.
One job I got was writing the screenplay for The Godfather, but I ended up getting only five words in the final script: 'of', 'the', two 'ands', and 'dog'. And all of those are in dispute. I didn't fight it. They patted me on the head and gave me $200,000 to shut up about it. But at least I know I almost made it to the big time. At least I got that.
That's all it was, year after year. Bought myself a house on the beach like everybody else. Drank too much, did starlets three times a week. It was horrible. Empty. You had to be there to know.
Should've drowned myself in the Mersey when I was in the mood. With my luck, they would've fished me out.
All this time, the years drifting away, I could have been happy at my true calling, hanging drywall. I still dream about it sometimes. The dust, the paste, the tape - who could forget it? But the damage is done. Now I'm old, now I'm cynical, way too late for apologies now. It's okay. I don't blame anybody.
Tell the kid to go ahead and write for me, wouldja? Just do that for me. If the kid makes it, that'll make me happy. You write, you're a writer. That's all it takes. I know about these things.