Plot: Published novelist Bill Borgens has a modicum of fame, especially within literary circles. He has fostered in his two offspring, nineteen year old college student Samantha Borgens, and sixteen year old high schooler Rusty Borgens, a love of writing in he making them keep journals since they were young to express whatever was on their mind, he never reading them unless asked. Bill himself has stopped writing in obsessing over his ex-wife, the children's mother, Erica, who left him for a younger man, Martin. While he does have a steady f*** buddy in married Tricia Walcott - sex with him which Bill believes is solely to fill her time - Bill doesn't date in having every expectation that Erica will return, he even setting a place for her at the Thanksgiving dinner table every year. Sam hasn't spoke to her mother in over a year in her hatred for her in blaming her for their parents' split. That split has resulted in Sam being a cynical young woman, who protects herself from being hurt by embarking on promiscuous sex with no strings. That cynicism is reflected in the novel she started writing after her parents' break-up, that novel which has just been published, her first published work. Louis, one of Sam's classmates who is unlike anyone she's ever slept with, tries to change Sam's perception of relationships between people as he pursues her romantically. Conversely, Bill doesn't feel that Rusty, who wants to be the next Stephen King, has yet exposed himself enough to life to be a successful writer. As such, Rusty opens himself up in his pursuit of classmate Kate, part of the popular crowd and who has a boyfriend within that crowd, but she being a young woman with troubles of her own.
Alternative Plot: A successful writer (Greg Kinnear) tries to reconnect with his two children (Lily Collins, Nat Wolff) after his divorce.
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