Memoir
of a Memoir-Writing Class, Week 10 (The Final Chapter)
Something to Hang Our Hats On
By Harris Bloom
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Click here to learn what this column is all about.
Note:
There was no homework assignment for the final week.
With
a sense of melancholy I sat in the classroom, awaiting my classmates for
the last time. One by one they came in…Gunjan the Indian woman,
gay Jon, gayer Timmy, Skeletor, Ann the Broadway dancer, Natalie and,
um, that was it. Out of fourteen people present at Week One, only seven
made it to the not-so-grand finale. A few more weeks and this could’ve
been an Agatha Christie novel.
Michelle started things off by discussing How to Get Published. She prefaced her remarks by saying, “You all have material that’s publishable or nearly publishable.” I nodded blankly as I threw up in my mouth. Was she kidding? Then I thought about it. She did say “…or nearly publishable.” That left a lot of leeway. I suppose I could agree with her statement if by “nearly publishable” she meant “you may get published if you change the story lines to make them interesting, take some high school and then college grammar courses to make them understandable, and also…hell, just hire a ghostwriter and tell him or her to make shit up.” Yup, then I’d agree.
Later, she may have realized her gaffe and tried to cover up when she stated, “Even crappy work gets published.” Now THAT’S something this class could hang its hat on. Though I couldn’t help but wonder why she was looking at me when making that proclamation.
Continuing with her theme, Michelle asked if anyone had already been published. Natalie answered that yes, she had been.
“Really? Where?” inquired Michelle.
“Eet eez ethneec site I am member ov.”
“Is it in English?” Michelle deadpanned. Classic. It turned out to be the first of several unintentionally hilarious lines in this particular class.
According to Michelle, various markets get hot from time to time. “For instance,” she pointed out, “recently, there have been a lot of books by Indian writers.” At that point, she looked at Gunjan and added, “But by the time your book is ready, you may have missed it.” Number two.
Michelle then further stated that we shouldn’t waste time submitting our work to publications that don’t publish our kind of stories. “For instance, The Village Voice doesn’t publish first person non-fiction.”
“Vhy not?” asked Natalie.
“Cause they just don’t, idiot.” Okay, Michelle didn’t say “idiot” but I inferred from her tone that she was thinking it.
“I vuld like to deescuss zees furzer.”
“Well,
see me after class. We have to move on.”
Next, Michelle delved into the importance of accumulating Publishing Credits
(i.e. stuff in newspapers and/or magazines). Jon, who was sitting next
to me, raises his hand and asked, “Does a ‘Letter to the Editor’
count as a publishing credit?” I wrote this and handed it to him…
So Jon, I really liked your book proposal. You mentioned a letter to the editor. Can I get a copy of it?
Signed, Mr. Random Book Publishing House
Dear Mr. Random Book Publishing House,
Sure! Here it is…
To Whom It May Concern,
Your movie reviewer is stinky! Every movie I like, he hates! And every movie he hates, I like! I think you should get a new one!
I’d also like to see more gossip items about Tom Cruise. He’s Yummy!
Signed, Jon
For some reason, Jon wrote “JERK” across it before handing it back to me. While Jon and I were busy corresponding, Michelle mentioned that The Big Three magazines to get into are The New Yorker, Harper’s, and The Atlantic. When Jon asked her to repeat the titles since he’d missed them, I whispered to him that he really doesn’t have to worry about magazines like those anyway, at which point he extended his middle finger at me. Very rude of him, I thought.
Michelle talked about the difficulty most writers have in getting their work read by anyone “important,” since unsolicited manuscripts typically end up in the “slush pile,” to be read by 19-year-old interns while speaking on their cell phones all day.
“Sounds good to me, “ I said, “19 year olds just so happen to be my target audience.”
For some reason, Michelle reiterated her belief that we are all close to being published, and even added, “I wouldn’t just say that...” I didn’t get it. It wasn’t like she was trying to get us all in the sack. The class was already paid for. And worst of all, this time, she didn’t look at me!
“I think a lot of you would benefit by taking the Memoir Writing 2 course.”
Then I got it.
* * *
During the break, Skeletor, who now weighed less than my Yorkie, walked
over to me.
“Do you remember my Halloween story from a few weeks ago?” she asked.
“Um, no, not really.” (Week Six.)
“I
told you I’d bring in pictures and I forgot to, until this week.”
She handed me about 15 Polaroids. I glanced at each, nodding and chuckling
my way through them as she explained whom everyone was in each picture.
She herself appeared in two of them. Why me?
After the break, we took turns getting up in front of the class to read
something aloud. Ann went first and read from Breakfast at Tiffany’s
– super, she proved she could read.
Natalie was next, reading a story that I think was about how during the time the communists forbade drugs, she’d gone to a rock concert starring “The Foreigners,” where everyone around her was doing drugs while she just sat there breeding.
Gunjan, who was sitting on my right, claimed she’d said “breathing” when I asked, but I don’t know. I swore she said “breeding.” Whether she said breeding or breathing we’ll never know, but there’s one thing I think we could all agree upon – her stories were terrible and we’ll miss them terribly.
Gunjan followed with a story about laughing with her mother over something.
Having to read in front of an audience was already making me nervous, so I can’t say for sure what Gunjan’s tale was about.
I read from my hilarious (though I may be biased) essay “I Was A Teenaged Accounting Whore,” which chronicles a few of my jobs during college. I don’t know if it was noticeable, but I started sweating halfway through. Maybe I fit in with this class a little more than I cared to admit.
Skeletor was next. She had three readings for us. First, a story about chickens in a barnyard eating other chickens. No, I didn’t make that up. Second reading -- a poem about New York that was supposed to be poignant. When she’d finished, she looked up from her paper and scanned the room, as if expecting to see tears in our eyes. When she realized no tears were forthcoming, she asked the guys in the class to get up and be “beat boxes” (she didn’t know the term so she demonstrated – quite the sight) for the rap song she’d written. Naturally she went at it alone once we had all demurred, but not before she went to her desk to retrieve the Big Fur Hat she wore to class. After putting it on, she launched into a song and dance (and I use both terms loosely), rapping like, well, the 50-year-old white woman she was, and dancing like she was in the midst of an epileptic fit. I almost called an ambulance.
Jon and then Timmy followed. I have no idea what either one read as I was still in shock from Skeletor’s performance, but if history is any gauge, I’m sure both pieces had very gay themes.
Lastly, Michelle read a moving essay about her recently deceased father. Afterwards, the room was in complete silence. She and a few others wiped tears from their eyes. Someone had to break the silence.
“Wow,” I stated, adding after a dramatic pause, ‘I thought my reading went rather well, no?” I got a few chuckles and a few “rolling of the eyes.” Michelle did both.
Michelle thanked us all (yes, me too) for a wonderful semester, once again reiterating our marvelous chances to being published, and wished us well. One by one, everyone walked up to her to say his or her “good-byes, “ as if she was The Godfather. I was no exception.
“Well, um, on the um, positive side, it was, um, interesting. Thanks for teaching us and, um, everything. As far as suggestions for revisions go…”
“Zere can be no reeveesions,” Natalie interrupted. “Zee class vuz perfect azz eet vuz.”
After
thinking for a second, I replied, “In a way, I can’t argue
with that.” I wished them both well and walked out, leaving them
to discuss the finer points of writing, getting published, and why The
Village Voice doesn’t publish first person non-fiction.
Next
Week: Epilogue, Alternate Endings, and Outtakes!
Click here to read Part
One.
Click here to read Part
Two.
Click here to read Part
Three.
Click here to read Part Four.
Click here to read Part Five.
Click her to read Part
Six.
Click here to read Part
Seven.
Click here to read Part
Eight.
Click here to read Part Nine.
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Harris Bloom lives and works in New York City. When he’s not wiping off the vomit he stepped into on the subway, Harris is hard at work on a short story collection, or maybe it’ll be a full-length memoir. He doesn’t know. Either way, he can be reached at harrisbloom@yahoo.com.
©
2005 Me Three