Although Nelson found transitory employment as a copy editor at The Jewish Week, attempted to write two major pieces on Cohen and Lucinda Williams for LA Weekly in 1993, and continued to sporadically contribute reviews to Musician and People until 1996, he largely recused himself from professional writing following his resignation from Rolling Stone, devoting most of his literary energies to an unfinished screenplay partially set during World War II. A devoted lifelong cinephile with predilections for John Ford's oeuvre and film noir, he was an early adoptee of the videocassette recorder and enjoyed taping obscure exemplars of classic Hollywood cinema. Throughout much of this period, Nelson was employed as a clerk at Evergreen Video, a now-defunct specialty shop in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan.
