The Idea After the Idea

Also , why NOT an Oscar nom for Cole Sprouse?

I’m going to show you how my sausage gets made. Remember — it’s always a bad idea to learn how the sausage gets made.

I write one newsletter a month. I find this hilariously Herculean. I am a huge fan of the obvious suspects here on Substack, the people who have put in the work and created their own magazines in a sense: Anne Helen Petersen, Lyz Lenz, Virginia Sole-Smith, Parker Malloy, Val Monroe, Michael Ruhlman, to name a few. I happily send them money because I recognize how much effort goes into what they do — and how much value I derive from it. Good words, great recommendations, lively communities.

My newsletter is free, and worth every penny. But I still want it to be . . . welcome in everyone’s inbox. (My open rate hovers at 65-75 percent.) (Yes, Substack provides an open rate and, yes, it is a peculiar hell to know that there are PEOPLE WHO SUBSCRIBED TO MY NEWSLETTER AND DON’T EVEN OPEN IT.)

I publish my newsletter on the first Tuesday of every month. Within a week of publishing, I open a draft file for the next month’s newsletter, jotting down my ideas. Here is what I saw when I opened the draft last week:

Best picture noms/talking to my class/Lisa Frankenstein

Lincoln Michel

Taffy’s training

So tired of smart little boys.

Amazingly, I actually remember what most of this means.

1. My students from Writers in Paradise are still chatting with one another, which I count as a win. Earlier in February, one of them mentioned that they were trying to see all the Best Picture Oscar nominees. I said I was trying to do the same and had seen 7 of the 10, but that most of them “had no idea after THE idea.” They were well-executed, but a little flat. (Please note, I’m not saying this about ALL the best picture nominees, and I’ve decided not to reveal the ones I found a little one-dimensional, because I’m not a big fan of fighting with people about my personal opinions.) And I told my students that genre writers must face that charge, in part because we don’t have to. There are plenty of readers who will be happy if we just execute the plot mechanisms of our story. But plot, while great — AND PLOT IS GREAT — is not enough. Smart genre writers know their stories are about more than who killed the chauffeur. Although, I would argue, when Howard Hawks asks you who killed the chauffeur, maybe you should know who killed the chauffeur.

2. Lincoln Michel. Big fan. Love his Substack, Counter Craft. No longer remember why I put his name in my drafts file, but I think it might have been because of this piece on the importance of finishing. But all his Substacks are smart.

3. Taffy’s training. So I am lucky enough to know Taffy Brodesser-Akner and, as Sanjay said to Richard Smith-Jones in Slings and Arrows, “Yes, I’m bragging.” In 2019, I took a notion that I should do more freelancing and I really wanted to land the “Letter of Recommendation” gig at the New York Times Magazine. My topic? My love for my double-boiler. In a series of email exchanges, Taffy kept exhorting me to dig down. Why did I love my double boiler? “It is a superior way to warm up leftovers.” But why did I love my double boiler? “I don’t own a microwave.” Why? “Oh my dad had this pathological fear of radiation, so we couldn’t have a microwave, or get X-rays at the dentist, or sit too close to the television, and one day he ended up naked in the closet, trying to figure out if his wristwatch glowed in the dark, which might indicate it produced radiation.” You’re getting there.

4. “So tired of smart little boys.” As noted, I’ve been going to the movies a lot lately and I do love me some movies, but some movies leave me feeling that I’m being forced to admire the director’s intelligence — and nothing more. Love me! Admire me! I call this the Shrevie effect, per Diner. This 20-something man wonders why his wife never asks him what is on the B-side of his beloved 45’s. Shrevie, it’s because she doesn’t fucking care, OK? Look, I can recite the Marx Brothers films in order and I don’t wander around making people listen to me do it. Just chill, dudes.

Anyway, that’s my sausage. I highly recommend that you crumble it into olive oil, fry it up for 5 or so minutes, add some white beans, then some hearty greens, then serve with a poached egg and some parmesan. (Recipe via Bon Appetit.)

By the way I think that Lisa Frankenstein is a good example of a writer — Diablo Cody — having an idea after the idea, and Cole Sprouse is terrific in it. Is he really Oscar-worthy? I don’t have time to debate it, I still have two Best Picture nominees to see. (I’ve been trying to see as many in theaters as possible and I’ve tracked down matinees of my final two, which means I will have seen 8 out of 10 in theaters.)

Read/Reading: Outline, Rachel Cusk; Poverty, by America, Matthew Desmond (audio); Alphabetical Diaries, Sheila Heti; Leaving, Roxana Robinson.

Rereading: The Moon by Night, Madeleine L’Engle; Lost and Found, Geneen Roth (audio).

Me, me, me: I finished the revisions on my book and everyone seems to like it. (“Everyone” comprises agent, editor and assistant.) I need to take one more pass through the book, but I’ve been assured it will be light relative to this one, which took more than four months. I’ve sketched out the opening to my next book, but I won’t allow myself to return to it until the current book has gone through copy editing.

Selfie of the month: I went Full Docent for a recent AVAM tour. The fourth-graders were so impressed.