your id list... what pleases you (and your readers)

+ what I've been able to say in French ++ revisiting a favorite novel +++ cooking caponata by the seat of your pants

Sep 19, 2024

∙ Paid

A quick hello and thank you to all the new subscribers! I’m happy you are here.

hey-ho,

For five years I’ve been on & off studying French. I use duolingo and have an amazing French tutor/friend whom j’adore. We meet once a week and she’s incredibly patient avec moi! 👋🏼 Bonjour, Sylvie! (she’s a subscriber) Guess what, I made a joke in French:

A couple people near me at a restaurant asked if I minded if they smoked,
“ça te dérange si on fume?”
And I was able to say, in French:
“Pas du tout! Tout sent meilleur en France. En particulièrement les politiciens!”
(Not at all, everything smells better in France, particularly the politicians!)

Wow, did I delight in their laughter!

Also, I’ve been able to hold my side of a conversation on topics such as:

flamingos in the south of France
bicycle tires going flat
why I’m voting for Kamala
mushrooming: pharmacists in France will tell you if your found mushrooms are poisonous or edible

Oh yes, there have been gaffs! We’ve been:

kicked out of a cab in Paris by an angry driver!
schooled for talking on the bus
chided for attempting to pay for pears with a dented and blackened 2€ coin

All of it pleases me. I’m so glad to be here for an extended time, to continue to make mistakes and new friends. If you’d like, follow along with instagram account here.

Are you off on a new adventure, making gaffs and friends? Please do share with me.

read:

Wish you were here in Collioure, where I’m about to teach with the ever fabulous Karen Karbo, and Meg Wolitzer (a favorite writer of mine), at the Come to Your Senses Writing Retreat. In preparation I’ve been re-visiting Meg Wolitzer’s terrific novel, THE INTERESTINGS, which is coming to Broadway. I loved this novel the first time I read it and this time is no different. The characters, whom we get to follow from youth to middle age, are complex and full and human. They begin life with verve and wild dreams, and well, you know what happens….Here’s what the flap copy has to say:

The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence…. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken.

oof…. that line about creativity at 15 not enough to propel one through life at age 30…. try at age 60 my friends! Which reminds me of a few lines from a poem I read yesterday…

Separation Wall, Naomi Shihab Nye:

We would like the babies not to find out about

the failures waiting for them. I would like
them to believe on the other side of the wall

is a circus that just hasn’t opened yet. Our friends,
learning how to juggle, to walk on tall poles.

That non-existent circus… it’s like when I learned about entropy in fourth grade, such a bitter pill to learn that things fall apart, no matter how hard one strives!

Wolitzer’s novel is far from bitter. It’s full of joys and sorrows that come with a rich life, plus the balm of friendships.

Our zoom r.w.e. book group will meet in October to discuss HELP WANTED, by Adelle Waldman. The flap copy touts the novel this way: “Waldman brings her unparalleled wit and astute social observation to the world of modern, low-wage work. A humane and darkly comic workplace caper that shines a light on the odds low-wage workers are up against in today's economy, Help Wanted is a funny, moving tale of ordinary people trying to make a living.”

We will be meeting on 20 October at 9:30a pacific time.

The book group is a perk for paid subscribers and let me tell you we are a lively bunch!

Go ahead, upgrade to paid and claim your spot. I hope to get to know you better!

Check my read.write.eat. Bookshop Store, where you will find many of the books I've recommended in the newsletter. Buying books from my shop is a way you can be a friend to the newsletter.

write (and live) :

In a “heads together” planning session, the wonderful, sharp-as-a-tack

Karen Karbo

and I circled around to a list she had re: 6 Things Readers LOVE. She’d received this keys to the kingdom list from another writer,

Leigh Stein

(who offers a wealth of information on her Substack. I encourage you to check it out). Stein references a talk by Jennifer Lynn Barnes a fiction writer and behavioral psychologist who recommends that writers build an “id list.” What is that you ask? It’s a list of all the tropes you adore (for ex: older siblings raising the family, twins in a mansion) and hence should try including in your writing to keep yourself and your readers happy!

Okay, per Stein, readers love when books include these 6 things:

MONEY: I don’t really write about $$$… but do I put my characters to work. I find the workplace an incredibly rich setting… filled with tension, personalities, plus the deepest fears of your characters rise to the surface at work. Stories to consider: “A Manual for Cleaning Women,” by Lucia Berlin. “Refund,” by Karen Bender.
SEX AND TOUCH: When I examine passages I’ve underlined in my books, it is often touch, whether the stroking of a child’s forehead, pinching one’s own cheek to bring up color, or scratching a dog’s back… touch is a direct path to firing mirror neurons in your reader. Here’s a passage from a story I wrote, in which a mother, checking on her daughters in the middle of the night, climbs into bed with her youngest for a quick cuddle.
Barrett lay on the warm bed with her littlest, curling into her daughter’s body like one of those clinging koala bear toys all her girls loved.
“Mommy?” River’s fingers touched her eyelids, propping one open. “Did you know I think about you even when I’m not thinking?”
“Me too, my girl, me too.”
BEAUTY… hmmm. I guess I mostly write about beauty in a setting, whether that be a home or the natural world. I really can’t recall writing about a character’s physical beauty, nor do I recall loving reading about beauty. In Jess Walter’s amazing novella, The Angel of Rome, one character is alarmingly beautiful. It isn’t so much her beauty that compels the story forward, but the effect of her beauty on everyone around her.
I also think about the teenage boy in John Updike’s story, A&P, in which three swimsuit clad young women enter the grocery store. Okay, I know, the story dwells alarmingly in the male gaze, diminishing these three young women to mere bodies. Updike isn’t using irony, pointing out this kid’s narrow minded view and his tender, misplaced chivalry, yet there are lovely and unusual descriptions of beauty.

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