"Writers who judge their own work by how much money they make are generally miserable."

-Stephen Elliot, editor of the fantastic online lit journal The Rumpus

Talking About A Revolution, Giant Coors Lights, and Rapturous Woman Screams. A piece for Los Angeles Magazine.

Click here:
http://www.losangelesmagazine.com/do/blog.aspx?id=19340&blogid=1592

DFW

"The old tricks have been exploded, and I think the language needs to find new ways to pull the reader. And my personal belief is a lot of it has to do with voice, and a feeling of intimacy between the writer and the reader. That sorta, given the atomization and loneliness of contemporary life that’s our opening, and that’s our gift."

— David Foster Wallace

Brian Geraghty

I interviewed actor Brian Geraghty back in 2006. I remember him mentioning the upcoming project he was working on. It was a war film but it didn't yet have a title. I remember the director was a woman and I remember he said she was incredible. Turns out that director was Kathryn Bigelow and that film was The Hurt Locker. He was one of the three stars. One of those three giddy guys on stage last Sunday standing behind Kathryn as she accepted (both) her Oscars. Congrats on the Oscar to you all of you. I guess I should have mentioned that yet-to-be-titled film in my piece after all...
Click here to read the article:

http://www.lilibetsnellings.com/onpaper/anthem1.pdf

Golf On The Edge

My latest article for Ralph Lauren Magazine about the SPEC-tacular golf courses Cape Kidnappers and Kauri Cliffs in New Zealand.

Click here to read:

http://entertainment.ralphlauren.com/magazine/editorial/sp10/golf.asp

The editor wanted to title it "Golfing On The Edge" and I told her of a conversation I once had with my brother, an avid golfer, many years ago. It ended something like:

"Lilibet, you don't go tennising."

"I’m thin­king about the young wri­ter who has to wait tables to pay the bills, in spite of her wri­ting appea­ring in all the cool and hip maga­zi­nes.… who dreams of one day of not having her life divi­ded so harshly." -- Hugh Macleod in Ingnore Everbody

This, I Appreciate

At least at McSweeney's, which is just about the best online publication around, they are honest.

This is from their Guidelines For Submission:

PAYMENT
There will likely be none. If there is any, it may come very late or in unusual currency.

"I'm a writer. And a dog walker. Aaaaaaaand I work part-time at an Applebee's."

- Jim in Lonesome Jim, dir by Steve Buscemi

Just Another L.A. Day

At the cafe table across from me a group of older, gray-haired ladies sit down and one of them says, "Hi, you're back! We've missed you!" to their Mexican waiter who says he just returned from thirty days in Oaxaca. "Oh I love Oaxaca, it's so beautiful there! Did you hear that Deb," she says to her friend who is finishing something on her phone, "He's from Oaxaca!"

At the table next to me, a director, or producer, is talking to a young girl, early twenties, maybe younger -- wearing one of those headbands over her bangs, which I used to like a few years ago but not so much anymore -- about a film he is making that he wants her to be in. He brings up theater and she says she hasn't done any in L.A. but back in Ottawa there was something called the Fringe Festival and she was in that once.

It is sunny and still, cloudless, but hazy at the edges. There are no waves and no wind. The palm trees are limp and sort of crispy looking. Early this morning it was cold enough for a scarf -- and a coat -- but once the sun came all the way up I had to take off all outer layers and put on my sunglasses so the white magazine pages I was reading wouldn't blind me.

Across the boardwalk, a man plays guitar on a bench. He is old and black and wearing sunglasses and I think for a second he sort of looks blind, and then I think, now Lilibet just because he is black and wearing sunglasses and playing music does not mean he's blind.

Very fit and very tan joggers run past, many with dogs, one lady with three on one of those three pronged leashes.

A woman in a long tattered coat, and no shoes, stomps past screaming an animal-like "Rarrrrrrr!" and then screams, toward an imaginary enemy, "I'm gonna find you and kill you! Who leaves a baby! A baby! Rarrrrrrr!" We all look up and shake our heads and a man at another table says, "Welcome to Venice!" and we all give a sort of half-laugh.

I finish my coffee and my New Yorker article about Levi Johnston winning some porn award for his forthcoming appearance in Playgirl and ask for the bill from the Oaxacan waiter. When it arrives I am excited to see it's only $3.51 since I made it in before 9 am, when everything on the menu is fifty percent off. I have to get home to get my laundry out of the dryer before one of my neighbors takes it out and puts it on top of the counter so they can put their laundry in, which always completely creeps me out, the thought of someone else handling my underwear. Fortunately/unfortunately when I get to the laundry room I realize the dryer cycle never started because one of the quarters I inserted was actually from the Republica De Costa Rica and I wonder why in the hell I have a coin from the Repulica De Costa Rica but I don't have time to think about that because I have to get back to my computer to write, then run, then shower, then go on an audition for a Newcastle commercial at 1, for the role of "Female Newcastle Patron" who, according to the casting breakdown, is supposed to be:

"Attractive. Cute. Sophisticated. Confident, individualistic, laid-back and interesting. She's the type of person you'd like to hang out with, interesting/unique enough that you're drawn to her, but at the same time approachable. Tats okay. Urban sophistication as well. MUST BE 25 OR OLDER."

This all before cocktail waitressing at 5.

Just another day as the ultimate L.A. hyphenate: writer/actress/waitress/sometimes fitness model/sometimes box girl/ and hopefully soon-to-be grad student.

As a guy in a recent writing class said, "Are you like Jamaican or something? Cause you got alotta jobs."

No I am not Jamaican, but yes I do got alotta jobs, yes indeed I do.

After reading Joan Didion's "On Keeping A Notebook" I had two thoughts: why have I never read this, and my God I do the same thing. Unlike Joan D though, my million little thoughts – bits of dialogue I overheard, observations, advice, notes to self, funny Southern expressions my parents say, lists of books I should have read by now, lists of films I should have seen by now, lists of words I should use but never do, all of these things – are written, scribbled, really – on hundreds (well maybe not hundreds but lots and lots) of little pieces of paper – on pulled-out pieces of notebook paper with the perforated edges still attached, on Post-It notes, yellow ones, green ones, pink ones, some faded, some still bright, on cocktail napkins, on the back of flight itineraries, on brown Starbucks napkins, on the back of a Pink Dot coupon, on ripped-out blank pages from the back of books, and a countless number of them are on the ripped-out pages of my cocktail server pad, things I scribble down while at work, story ideas, characters, notes on what people are wearing, saying. One of them (for instance) reads: German man, bad breath, wind pants, windbreaker, drinking half ice-tea, half-Diet Coke. Others are scribbled on the same side of the sheet as food orders. One reads: Spicy tuna roll, extra sesame, shrimp tempura, no mayo, salmon sushi, and below that: If you say “Don’t Touch My Mustache” really fast it sounds like “You’re Welcome” in Japanese.

(What Not) To Do List

As if the endless wonders of the world wide web aren't distraction enough, when your office is your house, or, in my case, my apartment, the everyday distractions are endless. It's amazing all the things you suddenly realize you need to do when you're supposed to be doing something else.

Maybe I should pluck my eyebrows?
Maybe I should check the mail, again.
Maybe I should water that plant, it looks a little dry, no?
Maybe I should go through the closet and see what old jeans would make good cut-offs?
Maybe I should bleach the bathtub? It's been a while, right?

Yes, that’s what I’ll do! I'll bleach the bathtub! Then, I'll have to open every window and door after bleaching the entire bathroom, determine the apartment a bio hazard, leave immediately, and seek shelter at the bar down the street, where the air is much safer and where there happens to be a very reasonable Happy Hour going on.

Genius.

Double Bounce

My next door neighbors got a trampoline today (how they fit that thing in their "yard" I do not know) and I don't think I will ever get any work done from home again. At least not until school starts. After three straight hours of bouncing -- and screaming -- these little hellions (and what sounds like the rest of the neighborhood under the age of 11) are still going strong. The trampoline is directly below my window. I really wish I had some water balloons. Or a BB gun.

Slave Labor

I recently got an assignment from a small, but reputable, "hip-and-cool" arts magazine to write a 500-word piece about a "hip-and-cool" director. I emailed the editor to ask what the editorial rate would be, which means, how much are you going to pay me.

He responded, "$50"

So I wrote back, "Fifty dollars, how about a hundred?"

He replied, almost immediately, "No!!"

There really were two exclamation points.

Why This Stool Is (Was) Wearing Socks

That stool is wearing socks, see, because my downstairs neighbors (and I am referring to the definition of "neighbor" as in "a person who lives near another," not as in "a person who shows kindliness or helpfulness toward his or her fellow humans") banged a broom (I am assuming it was a broom?) on their ceiling (my floor) the other night, which is, of course, the universal apartment building sign for "Shut up." I believe, in this case, the bang-bang-bang of my neighbors' broom meant, "Shut up already with that horrible screeching noise," the screeching noise being the squeaking and scratching (it's almost a honk, really) of my four-legged painted-red wooden stool against the black-and-white checkered tile floor in my kitchen (sometimes at night, because there's better light, I like to write in my kitchen). It's a pretty offensive noise I have to admit. It surprises even me sometimes. So I can't really blame them, as it was after 11, and I assume they have normal jobs, and regular working hours (again, I do not know for sure because they are not particularly "neighborly" in the second definition sense of the word). So I suppose they were sleeping and did not appreciate me scooting the stool back and forth every time I wanted to get up and do something other than finish the assignment I was working on, which, incidentally, was about every six to ten minutes. See while I am "writing from home" and most especially while I am "on a deadline," I will find any excuse at all to do absolutely anything but write. So, showing "kindliness or helpfulness towards his or her fellow human," I put two pair of tall tube socks on the legs of my stool so as to silence the screeching and help them sleep.

Where The Magic Happens. And By Magic I Mean a Whole Lot of Procrastination