Man in the Woods

Washed up and flailing, the once notable author, Wheaton Tuttle, leaves his pathetic LA city life behind after he utterly embarrasses himself at the company holiday party and goes viral on socials. He plans to spend the next 12 months off the grid in a cabin in the Bitterroot Mountains. But when he arrives in snowy Montana, he doesn’t have the balls to hike into the cold, desolate wilderness. He shacks up in a bed and breakfast for three days, where he meets the proprietor, Octavia, a pragmatic, kind, independent woman. The two hit it off despite their differences. New Year’s morning, she drops him off at the trailhead to carry through with his plan and spend 2020 completely devoid of outside contact and write his next novel. After three long days and nights fighting the elements and himself, Wheaton manages to hike to the cabin in one piece. Wheaton discovers he’s in over his head after he nearly freezes to death, sets himself on fire, and gives himself a concussion. Plus, there’s no indoor plumbing and not a single word of his novel written. Wheaton finally stops fighting against nature and finds success – he figures out how to keep warm overnight, he builds a sled to haul firewood. He even has a respectful run in with wolves and a moose carcass. Until he catches giardia. Violently ill and alone, Wheaton is on death’s door hallucinating, mixing fiction and reality. Worried about Wheaton, COVID, and wildfire season, Octavia shows up just in time to nurse him back to health. Octavia is Wheaton’s muse as he crafts his masterpiece. Wildfires raging, Wheaton coughs nonstop. The pair complete a final hike to the high peak, then retreat to civilization, leaving behind his manuscript. Back at Octavia’s B&B, he writes the final chapter to his novel. Worried, Octavia brings him to the hospital where he learns he has lung cancer from years of chain smoking. With COVID rampant and Octavia not allowed to visit, he dies a lonely death in a hospital room. Months later, Wheaton’s former colleagues find his manuscript at the cabin and Octavia gives them the last chapter. Dedicated to Octavia, they hand Octavia the manuscript which she publishes and brings forth to the world.