Grub Street Day 3

Sunday at Grub Street was great too. Breakfast was delicious, and I had a few good conversations. Then I had my "Manuscript Mart" session with agent Margaret Riley. She thought my query letter was simplistic and not as good as the writing of the sample chapters. She thought my bullet points did not work at all. That goes with what the other agent suggested, which is to just use one of them. As for the writing, she thought I needed to focus on the journey and not get pedantic or instructional. The Buddhist philosophy will come out through my experience. She also wanted me to show the suffering early in my life in order to show how I overcame it. She wants me to "do a deeper dive."

Then I went to a workshop by Matt Salesses on the Elements of Style. He said "A common word used in an interesting way is more interesting then an interesting word used in a common way." He also urged us to think about the rhythm and meter of our prose, using more stressed than unstressed syllables, usually ending on a stressed syllable.

In my spare time I thought of seven new chapters for my spiritual memoir:

1. Childhood "unbelonging"
2. Early romance: Rita and Florence
3. Summer of 68 in the Haight
4. Early days at Marietta
5. Summer with Charlie and LSD
6. Sentinel Reunions and other wild parties
7. “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.”

The next workshop was on voice in writing, and it was excellent as well. the teacher was a young woman named Alexandria Marzan-Leshevich. She talked about the voices of the author, the narrator and the character, which must be considered separately. We did a delicious exercise in which we tried to rewrite a paragraph from one author in the voice of a very different author. IN our own writing, she suggested we find a passage where the narrator's vice "sings," and then see what characteristics make it sing. Then try to apply those same characteristics to passages where the writing is more flat.

The luncheon keynote speaker was the world-renowned literary critic James Wood, who reviews books for the New Yorker. He read passages from great authors, such as Nabakov and Chekov, and pointed out how they were "serious noticers." He said stories are made of details, and a dynamic combination of surpluses and disappointments.

After lunch, I could have stayed for a couple more sessions, but I felt I had taken in so much that I couldn't learn any more.

I can't wait for next year's Muse and Marketplace workshop by the Grub Street Writers. Great job, Grubbies!