Nicholas Rombes, who was Writer in Residence over at Necessary Fiction in December 2013 and January 2014, invited Tobias Carroll, Cari Luna, Lincoln Michel, Masha Tupitsyn, Karolina Waklawiak, Joanna Walsh, and myself to contribute fiction and non-fiction pieces on the theme of movie writing. You will find Nicholas Rombes’s own fine offering here.

And here’s a short extract from my essay, “The World Without Me“:

Soon Benjamin will need to escape, choose some course of action. He is on a collision course with Elaine, the accident that has already happened. In the meantime, he is a castaway adrift upon shimmering amniotic fluid. A young man without qualities, in trunks and sunglasses, cradling a can of beer on his belly — Bartleby Californian-stylee. I like him best when he just goes with the flow; that is, when he goes nowhere. The camera lingers longingly on the texture of the ripples. Sunny constellations twinkle on the celestial water’s surface. Benjamin, recumbent on his lilo, fades out as the ever-morphing abstract of light reflections fades in.