Starting point...

I need to trim this down and make it more representative of the script. Not for my trip to LA; I've found that sometimes my jokes are so low-key and obscure, people take them seriously. Which goes to show how questionable my ability with humor is.

No, once I have A65 to a point where I feel comfortable with it, I'll begin entering it into competitions, to see how it does. Build up some background before initiating my next step. I've spoken with a publicist and she's open to helping me get some buzz on the script if it does well in a couple screenwriting contests. So we'll see.

But they all want  a synopsis, and I honestly think many of them decide if the script's any good based solely on that and a read of the first 10-15 pages. So this has to be just as tight and just as right.

Any suggestions are welcome --

Books are ADAM VERLAIN’s life, so when his university asked him to hop over to Los Angeles to pick up an extremely rare first edition of “Alice in Wonderland”, he was happy to ferry this precious cargo back to London. Wouldn’t even stay the night.

What he didn’t count on was CASEY BLANCHARD, the top line movie star who inherited the book. She wants Adam to accompany her to a movie premier to show up her ex-boyfriend, LANDO GRISSOM, this year’s big, butch and beautiful action-movie hero. It sounds like she wants to show the guy she's over him, but Adam senses something lurking behind her demand.

Problem is, Adam didn’t bring a change of clothes, so Casey brings in ORISI, a sneering Beverly Hills style-guru who's never heard of "personal space" to do a makeover...which starts with a bubble bath…then a tres-cool haircut…and a boss manicure…and the latest in facials…and a personalized cologne…and sparkly black briefs. “They even gave me a pedicure,” cries Adam. “I’ve never had one of those.” “No need to state the obvious,” Orisi shoots back.

Of course, Casey and Lando see each other at the premier; it’s the last movie they made together before breaking up. And during dueling interviews, each tries to outdiss the other, with Adam caught in the middle. Then at the party, which is at Lando’s Beverly Hills home, Adam is ejected. Worried about Casey, Adam tries to sneak back in. Instead, he almost drowns, does his own verbal sparring with Lando, and nearly becomes dinner for a pet black panther named Gertrude. He also realizes why Casey was really using him – as an insult to Lando.

By this point, Adam fears he’s fallen down his own rabbit hole into Hollywood’s madness, especially when he discovers the book has vanished, that Gertrude escaped and wants to be his girl, and that someone is watching and hoping the book shows up in the right hands, so it can be stolen away. What’s even worse? Despite all the chaos and duplicity, Adam’s falling for Casey.

Will he make it back to London with the “Alice” intact…and his heart unbroken…and his sanity still a part of him? Will his quiet, cloistered life ever be the same? Or could it be he’ll merely awake and find it was all just a dream of wonderland from long ago?