Me Three

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Memoir of a Memoir-Writing Class, Part Three:
I Think I’m in the Wrong Writing Class

By Harris Bloom

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Click here to learn what this column is all about.

My hopes were high when I entered the classroom. It was to be our first week of critiquing each other’s work, and my own “Night of the Living Jews” was among those to be evaluated. I may have been biased, but I thought the class would like mine the most. Though Gail’s writing was impressive, I didn’t see it playing to this crowd. And as far as Juanita’s story went, I may have been more interested to hear the reaction to Juanita’s story than to my own…well, almost (and you’ll see why in a minute).

I was the first student there and I took the opportunity to daydream while I waited for others to show. I imagined Michelle asking me to see her outside the classroom for a second before we officially started. As I left, I would make some sort of joke about my being in trouble, even though I’d know what our summit was really going to be about. She would tell me that she’d read “Night of the Living Jews” and thought it was “beyond fantastic.” She would go on to add, as I nodded, that I have a way of “bringing my characters to life” and that I have my “finger on the pulse of today’s generation like none other.” She would assure me that I had no business in a beginner’s class and furthermore, she would like to pass this wonderful story on to a friend of hers at Random House, if that was okay with me. I would graciously accept her compliments and her offer. We would agree that I will get a refund from Gotham since I should not be taking a class but teaching one.

The second person to arrive was Roger, the fifty something year old gentleman. Through two weeks, Roger was the quietest member of the class. He seemed content to observe while thoughtfully playing with his glasses, as if he were a professor visiting from a nearby university. During the first week, when we were all asked why we were taking the class, Roger responded, “I thought it might be fun.” He was basically Ally Sheedy’s character in The Breakfast Club, sans the dandruff.

I asked him what he’d thought of this week’s readings. At the very least, I figured he would want to beat the rush, and complement me on my manuscript.

As if running for office, he stated, “I found the differences in style and structure most fascinating.” I looked at him for ten seconds before I realized he’d finished. I brushed off his comment and continued refining my International Personal Essay of the Year Award acceptance speech.

Soon thereafter, a few others walked in, and then Timmy. He waved at them before settling next to me.

“Your story was sooo funny,” Timmy said, as he took off his brown leather jacket with fringe, revealing a sky blue long sleeve shirt to go along with his brown suede pants. “I was laughing out loud reading it on the bus home. People musta thought I was crazy.” Though pleased with Timmy’s positive review, I wouldn’t have expected anything less from him given his extremely friendly tendencies.

“Thanks. Lemmee ask ya…what did you think of the other ones?”

“Umm, well, the ‘Juicy’ story was certainly interesting. The porn scene was a little shocking,” he said.

“A little shocking? All I know is that I was reading it, thinking this is the most incredibly dreadful writing I’ve ever read...and then came page six and an orgy with eight-year-olds!”

“Okay, a lot shocking,” he said, and then leaned forward and whispered to me,” What was she thinking? And her grammar…Oh my God!”

“Yeah, I started to correct it on the margin but I gave up in the second paragraph. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was written by a third grader.”

“I think that’s insulting to third graders.”

Gail walked in and sat on the other side of Timmy – further from me than last time – she probably thought I didn’t like her since I didn’t really talk to her. She acknowledged Timmy with a smile. Nothing for me. And so the dance continues.

“Hiiii Gail,” greeted Timmy, “ and how are youuu?”

“Busy. I just finished reading the stories.” She looked at me and continued, ”Yours was really good.”

“Thanks.” Hmmm, did she really like it, or was she just saying that in an effort to further ingratiate herself into the Harris/Timmy alliance? At any rate, she never looked better.

“What did you guys think of the ‘Juicy’ story?” she inquired, looking at each of us in turn. We briefly glanced at each other as if conferring whether we could trust her.

“What did you think?” Timmy asked with eyebrow cocked, trying to measure her up.

“I asked you first,” she replied with a glint in her eye.

“Okay,” I interjected, “I think we’re on the same page, and that page is six.”

“Like you said before, it should be interesting to hear the critiques,” Timmy added, looking at me.

“I ain’t goin’ first, that’s for sure,” I said. Then I turned to Gail and added, “Yours was good too, by the way.”

“Thanks. I was actually scared that I was going to be in over my head when I signed up. Now I’m thinking I woulda been better off spending the 400 bucks on gold laminated toilet paper,” Gail added.

When Michelle (ed. reminder: Michelle is the teacher) walked in she did not ask me to step out to talk book deal. She didn’t even make eye contact. At the very least, I would have hoped she would have winked at me in a sort of I-Can’t-Make-It-Too-Obvious-But-You’re-The-Cream-Of-The-Crop way. But none of that happened. She just put her bags down as if she wasn’t in the presence of greatness.

Before the critiquing part of the class came our in-class assignment. We were asked to write a noun, verb, or verb phrase on a piece of paper. The idea was that Michelle would collect them in a hat, and we were to pick one out and write a story about that word or phrase. Things were going smoothly until Michelle reached Natalie, who had yet to write one down.

“Just write any noun, verb, or verb phrase down.”

“I vill do later,” Natalie answered.

“We need it now,” Michelle exasperatingly responded and then regained her composure,” It’s for an in class exercise.” She pushed the hair that had fallen in front of her eyes back behind her ears.

“Vell, skeep mee. I vill not do zees vis class.”

“No, you have to do it. Without you, someone else won’t be able to do it,” Michelle implored, losing her composure again. “Just pick any noun or verb – Boat! – Car! – Hiking!” She brushed her hair away again. This time her eyes bulged as well. Natalie wrote something down, my guess either “boat”, “car”, or “hiking.

I couldn’t help but think I was in the wrong class. I thought of Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin pulling aside her commanding officer to explain that she didn’t sign up for this army – no, she signed up for the other army. I think I was supposed to be in the other memoir-writing class, you know - the one with the people who knew Basic English.

After we all put our words in a hat, everyone blindly picked a word out. I picked “hamburger.” I assumed the malnourished woman nicknamed Skeletor supplied it. Apparently Timmy picked mine.

“I can’t write about my word,” Timmy mentioned to the class, “I don’t even know what it means.”

“What word is it?” Michelle asked.

“Angstrom?” Timmy responded.

“I’ve heard of it, but I’m not sure what that is either. Who put it in?”

“That would be me,” I responded. “An angstrom is a unit of length equal to one ten billionth of a meter.”

During the break, students handed out their manuscripts to be read in time for next week’s class. While most left for cigarettes or gum or whatever, I stayed behind in the classroom to prepare my answers for the questions that would surely head my way during the critique of my masterpiece:

“Believe it or not, no, I’ve never taken a writing class.”
“Usually I sit – sometimes I pace, and then I sit – sometimes I pace and keep standing while typing, and then sometimes I lie across my sofa with my head dangling off the end and stare at the ceiling while softly tapping my chin with a pen.”
“Yes and yes – it is absurd I spent so long working as an accountant and I will send you an autographed copy of my first book.”
“No, I don’t think adding a porn scene would be a good idea, but thanks for the suggestion.”

Snacktime over, Showtime commenced. The moment I had been waiting for. Michelle reminded us of the rules…

– No insulting other writers.
– Start with one positive comment. Then give one “suggestion for revision” per manuscript.
– No repeating others’ comments

We started with Gail’s story. Even though Michelle told us we weren’t supposed to repeat another student’s positive comments or suggestions for revision, everyone pretty much said the exact same thing; her writing was beautiful, but too flowery. Of course every person had to take at least five minutes each to say the same thing.

I believe my comment went something like, ”On the positive side, umm, you really write very richly, umm, it’s really quite poetic, but, umm, well, as far as the neg-, I mean suggestions for revisions go, it just seems like, umm, there were too many SAT words. It took away from the flow.” Everyone sat silent for about five seconds before I spoke up again. “That’s it.”

My favorite critique was by ultra-serious Roger. He took off his glasses, looked skyward, and stated, “I enjoyed the language very much. In fact, I’m not sure I’m conveying how much I enjoyed it.”

I interjected, “Why don’t you say that you liked the language very, very much? You know, add a very.” He didn’t look amused. In fact, I’m not sure I’m conveying how unamused he looked. He looked very, very unamused. There. Better.

We moved onto my “Night of the Living Jews”. Here were some of the comments:

“Too long.”
“Tries too hard to be funny.”
“Too schticky.”
“Inner dialogue makes it confusing at times.”
“Not riveting.”
“Mean-spirited” – I got several of those.

And my favorite…

“I heet to say eet, but I find eet booring.”

She started her critique with that gem. I looked at Timmy. He was staring straight ahead with his hand over his open mouth. I peeked past Timmy to Gail. She was looking wide-eyed at me. We both started laughing, quietly but hysterically. Then Timmy started laughing. And then we lost it.

Timmy excused himself with, “I have to go to the bathroom.” Gail and I gazed in opposite directions. I felt myself turning red with laughter.

“Vhat ees so funny?” Natalie asked.

“I’m sorry,” I said with tears in my eyes, “but Timmy said something funny. I apologize. Go on, you were saying…?” She finished without another outburst. Timmy rejoined the festivities and none of us looked at each other.

Granted, these were the “suggestions for revision,” but it seemed like since the “positive” comment was always some version of “It’s funny,” I felt like I’d gotten about ten different suggest- awww, fuck it, negatives to one positive comment. Like a poker player who only remembers his bad beats, I only heard the bad ones.

Michelle was less harsh: It may be too long but she’d hate to take out any section. She did agree it had a “ pervasive meanness.” On the other hand, she thought I displayed a gift for dialogue and compared my “voice” to a “heterosexual David Sedaris.” Now that’s what I’m talking about! Cool…I can deal with that. I puffed out my chest.

As far as my classmates were concerned, I couldn’t help but wonder why they would be so critical given the fact that their obviously jealousy-inspired negativity makes it all the more unlikely that I would put in a good word for them with my publisher sometime in the future.

Next up was Juanita’s story. Though still slightly woozy, I was moist with anticipation.

“Who’d like to begin?” asked Michelle.

Silence reigned but for tumbleweed passing through and then the sound of a far-off wolf howling. Finally, Helen The Drama Queen – who else? – raised her hand and we were off…

“Immensely colorful”
“An engaging read”
“Very, umm, descriptive”
“Hard to put down”
“I loved zee vay you uzed zee Spaneesh, even zo I do not understand eet.”
“I didn’t have a problem with the porn scene.”

That last one was spoken by Roger. There’s something scary about a fifty-something year old guy who enjoys reading this: “…There were a bunch of girls rubbing their pussies, squeezing their lil’ tits and ass humpin’ each other up against the wall…” – But maybe it’s just me.

Suggestions for revision were split between the “Lose the porn scene” camp and the “Work on the grammar” camp.

My comment went something like, “Umm, on the positive side, I umm, really liked the energy of the story…umm, as for suggestions for revision, I umm, didn’t really like the porn scene. It was kinda out of place…I thought…that’s it.”

Michelle went last as usual. She’ll tell it like it is, I thought. She’ll set the record straight. She’ll throw a bucket of ice cold water, culled from the Reality Mountains on the hot air blowing in the region. Or something like that. Wait! Shhhh!! She’s about to speak….

“The originality and creativity reminded me of Last Exit to Brooklyn, which is one of my favorite novels.”

Stunned, I felt like getting up while declaring, “Well, that’s enough for me. Good night everybody!” and walking out, but I didn’t. After all, the class was already paid for.

Next Time – Part Four: Like Karate, Writing Is In Head and Heart, Not In Hands
Click here to read Part One.
Click here to read Part Two.

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Harris Bloom lives and works in New York City. When he's not sitting within his cubicle wondering where it all went so horribly wrong, he's hard at work on a short story collection. He can be reached here.