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Week Seven Homework:

Manuscript Number One: More chapters of Gunjan’s eloquently written memoir, We Are Not Alone. Just like the previous chapters, her story didn’t grip me no matter how well she wrote - although already I could almost hear the rest of the class gush about her poetic style. Chapter titles changed from one to the other, but the song remained the same – family recipes dominating the narrative - this time venturing beyond her mother’s and grandmothers’ to include favorites of her various aunts and uncles. I didn’t know enough about the world of publishing to say whether there was room for a memoir about an Indian woman and her family recipes, but if there was, she had gold in them thar pages.

As usual, I wrote whatever positive comments came to mind in the margins so that I’d have something prepared to say when my turn to critique arrived. I always tried to come up with a few, since, at least theoretically, we weren’t supposed to repeat another student’s comments – a rule broken by myself and others with increasing regularity.

After I’d finished, I knew I had to volunteer to go first at the critique round because “richly written” was the only usable comment I had for her (I also wrote “sounds tasty” but decided to cross it out). Interestingly, despite the fact that the first few chapters had titles (i.e. “My Favorite Aunt”, ”Uncle Raj”), the later ones were merely numbered (Perfect! I had my “suggestion for revision”). My guess was that she got bored with her own story.

When space permitted between recipes, she discussed her father’s cancer and the toll it took on her and her family.

Manuscript Number Two: Gail’s "London" chronicled the time she’d spent across the pond during her 20’s.

Much like her first piece, it was very dramatic (“And so a series of events were put into motion that would change my life as I had known it for the past 29 years….”), but also at times sounded somewhat detached and too thoughtful (instead of saying a guy had a look that she dug, she’d say he “merited consideration” – yawn – I assumed if she had spectacular sex, she’d refer to it as “satisfactory intercourse”).

Chapters focused on the loves she left behind, loves (or a reasonable facsimile) she met while there, work, and friends. Despite the aforementioned lapses, overall, it was well written and dark. Boy, was it dark. In addition to references to being slapped by her boyfriend, she kept ominously referring to something bad that I assumed would happen in a later chapter. It read like a chick lit novel written by Anne Rice.

Manuscript Number Three: My short story, “Anterior Motives,” depicted America’s fascination with celebrities and detailed my futile attempt to get on the syndicated TV show, Blind Date (hey, I’m not immune to the 15-minutes-of-fame bug).
To summarize, I’d done so well on my phone and face-to-face interviews that the producer told me she already had my date picked out. However, I did so poorly filming the promo, the footage was unusable and I wasn’t asked back. How bad did it go? Let me count the ways…

1. I was sweating so much they gave me a towel to hold.
2. I forgot what I was saying in the middle of several sentences.
3. I forgot my name.

After the half-hour was up, I might as well have been lying on the floor in the fetal position while sucking my thumb.

To add insult to injury, my girlfriend at the time (yes, I had a girlfriend) decided that I still owed her for allowing me to try out.

After the beating I took for “Night of the Living Jews,” I purposely picked one of my more self-deprecating stories. Don’t get me wrong, I made just as much fun of the other guys trying to get on the show (the title refers to a quote by one of the guys being interviewed – he said it when talking about how he doesn’t trust chicks because they often have “anterior motives”), but I saved most of the jabs for myself.

Although daydreams of my classmates triumphantly carrying me out of the classroom on their shoulders while chanting my name were a thing of the past, I was still hoping to get some love for this story. Perhaps silently leaving their pens on my desk as they silently walked out like in A Beautiful Mind. That would be cool. I just hope I don’t cry.

Homework complete.  Click here to return to class.