Lynn Messina

Bleak Lynn Messina

Lights! Cameras! Inaction! New York writer Ricki Carstone knows it?s extremely unlikely a movie of her debut novel, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, will actually get made?the odds are like one in a hundred or something?but Moxie Bernard (hello! most famous teen on the planet!) has signed on to star. Plus, the producer is throwing her a super fabulous party in Hollywood (with Moxie!) to celebrate the relaunch of her book with a younger, sexier cover. Clearly, this is one movie option that?s going to make it all the way to the movie theater. Ricky is so confident, she quits her dead-end paralegaling job and moves out to Los Angeles to keep an eye on the project. There, with the encouragement of Harry Skimpole, a handsome out-of-work actor who knows all the ins, outs, overs and arounds of moviemaking, she decides to try her hand at screenwriting. Churning out a script seems so much easier than a full-length novel. Thankfully, experienced screenwriter John Vholes is willing to teach her the ropes?for a small fee, of course. (Well, the fee starts small.) A fish out of water, Ricki quickly adapts to the strange and puzzling ways of the entertainment industry. Or does she? Her cute neighbor Simon seems to think her new friends are taking advantage of her. But what does he know? He?s a bitter ex-screenwriter who never got a single movie produced, and she?s about to see her name in lights any day now. Or month. Or year. Bleak?a smart and funny update of Charles Dickens?s classic Bleak House?is for anyone who?s ever held on to a dream just a little too long.