"The moon is like a toenail, floating in a murky glass of wine"

I was stumbled into a meeting of a group which had "ambitions" to
represent all British screenwriters. It was a glum experience. I had
wandered along with a friend, a producer who had been asked to give an
"update and download" from the Cannes festival, which had finished only
a few days earlier.

It was a glum experience - The venue was a basement, lined many year
before with offcuts of lino and carpet, and furnished with donated
sofas. The audience stayed in their coats (it was cold down there) and
listened politely as the producer described the state of the market,
then, just as politely disagreed with everything he said.

In vain he explained that he wasn't in fact proscribing what writers
should or shouldn't write - he was only describing which scripts - of
all kinds - were making it into production, and how.

I think I understood what was happening. Would be writers spend time in
their heads creating a singular reality. It makes perfect sense to me
that they would continue to do so when they emerged back into the real
world. Sensitive dramas about Polytechnic lecturers facing the mid-life
crisis still not outselling lo-budget horror? La-la-la, fingers in
ears, it's not true.

Then we broke for refreshments. I queued at a trestle table to buy wine
drawn by a volunteer from a wine box. It cost £2.00. I looked down.
There, in my glass, floated the toe nail clipping, a chunky crescent of
keratin that seemed to sum up the evening.

I was invited back a year or so later, by the same friend, who had been
asked by the group's committee to help them increase membership and
income. He wanted them to hear input from a screenwriter who had chosen
not to become a member.

I didn't mention the toenail.

Instead, I told them that I read their e-letter every month in the hope
of finding something relevant, but they only offered the same handful of
classes, recycled endlessly, and which all seemed to be addressed to
small scared animals living in holes under the pavement:

"Want to be a screenwriter? Get over your fears in this friendly
workshop, where we will explore ways of getting your ideas onto the page
- by the end of the afternoon you'll be writing! - £5.00 plus small
charge for tea and coffee"

I suggested that once this might hook beginners, they should attract
working writers to offer master-classes for those were trying to improve
their skills - like impro to improve dialogue writing, or ways to
tighten scene structure, or tips on improving packaging for pitching.
It would cost more - but I, and people I knew, would certainly pay for
the extra value they would offer.

"Oh, no" they replied "writers are poor. And shy. Very shy. Oh no -
we'd never get writers along to classes like that!"

"Most the emerging writers I know are holding down some kind of job, and
are motivated to learn. You can offer concessions if you need to - but
there are also those who can and will pay!"

No - there aren't any writers like that"

"I've met them in screenwriting groups - and at Cannes"

"Writers don't go to Cannes. If they went to Cannes they'd be producers"

"I went to Cannes"

"Writers don't go to Cannes"

It will come as no surprise to you that this organisation, which defined
its membership solely as writers without money who were too shy to
actually, well, write, folded without trace a few months later.