Joey (Crispin Glover) thinks he's a writer, even though he's never written (or published) anything. He has advertised this "fact" to everyone he knows, but particularly to himself. He has an acquaintance, Marty (Matthew Hutton), who is mute but who writes like a dream. Of course, people try to ignore him the way they do every other "handicapped" person, and his writings go unnoticed. One day, Joey runs into a literary agent and hands him some of Marty's poetry. When the agent assumes that the work is Joey's, he allows him to believe that. Incredibly, (since poetry is not a big publishing moneymaker), the agent hands Joey some money as an advance on a book. Unable and unwilling to end his deception, Joey accepts the cash. Sooner or later, Joey is going to have to get hold of some more poems, though, and he may even have to face the truth about what he has done.