Unemployed Boyfriend Pivots From Not Writing Novels to Not Writing Screenplays

LOS ANGELES — Perpetually unemployed boyfriend Liam Womack announced yesterday that he will cease failing to author novels to pursue procrastinating on writing screenplays, apprehensive friends and family confirmed.

“I spent a few years on my novel. You know — getting some ideas together, scribbling out some notes… thinking about maybe starting an outline, that kind of thing. But then I thought, screenplays are the way to go,” said the 29-year-old Womack, who has never read a movie script, let alone begun the process of writing one. “There’s just a lot more money in Hollywood. With all the ideas kicking around my head, this will be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

While Womack’s girlfriend Jackie Tribble was surprised by his sudden shift in priorities, she has remained supportive.

“Yeah, Liam’s writing process can be a little mysterious, but that’s just how artists are,” said Tribble, also 29, a junior attorney at a small law firm. “He’s so secretive about his work. He’ll spend hours in his ‘home office’ — which is just our bedroom — writing on his laptop. Someday, I hope he’ll let me read something he wrote. I bet it’s great.”

Local artists have praised the change as an important step in Womack’s growth.

“Every artist needs room to try new things,” said Teresa Abney, a 35-year-old self-identified poet, playwright, and author who lives with her boyfriend, a night shift security guard at a local office park. “I changed it up plenty of times before I reached the success I enjoy today. Just last September, one of my poems appeared in a chapbook, and the Kickstarter to produce my one-act play got almost a quarter of the way to its goal. Two days ago, I found $4 in an old notebook I had under my bed. So things are looking up.”

Taking a break last night from developing his various screen plays, Womack “cleared his head” with a few hours of video games.

“I’ve always wondered who writes the dialogue in these Assassin’s Creed games,” Womack said. “I could see myself doing that on the side.”

Photo by Anya Volz @AnyaVolz.