An interesting series of developments:

I got to my Magazine Writing class late on Monday. It was raining really hard and for some reason the 1/9 mid-trip became an express train and went all the way down to 96th Street. So I had to go over to the other platform and wait to go back uptown. I was tempted to just skip the class, but I knew that if I did that Prof. Bennet and everyone else in the class would assume I was too crushed from last week's devastating experience to come. When I got there, he calls me aside (totally butchering the pronounciation of my name, which annoys me to no end). He says he's made copies of my pitch from last week and wants to distribute it to the class. I asked him why this was necessary. I asked "Don't you think you've butchered it enough? Why revisit it?" He says "I think it will be very instructive to the class, but I won't do it if you don't want to." Of course, I can't show him what a baby I am and how much my feelings and confidence in myself as a writer were shattered by his unrelenting vivsection of said piece last week. So I reluctantly agreed. He passes it out, and I see the shock and dismay on everyone's faces. They're all looking at me with real pity. Some of them rolled their eyes at me in solidarity. But then he launched into his critique saying that he thought it was a pretty good pitch. That he would have put the second graf first and left out one of the final grafs (since, as he said, it was "yuck," and sounded too much like I was acting like a "puppy at the gates" of Magazineland. But then he went over every single word, pointing out where he thought the cliches were, which it turned out was one word "powerhouse." The sentence was something like: "Dylan Ratigan is a loud-talking, name-dropping powerhouse." I can see that that is sort of a cliche, but the whole thing was a pitch and not the actual story. In the story I would never use that sentence. In the story, as Bennet always says, you "show, not tell." In the actual story I used descriptions and examples of what Dylan does that illustrate that he is a loud-talking, name-dropping powerhouse. All of which he IS. And in the end Bennet said that he thought it was a really good idea for a story. I ended up thinking the whole exercise was really helpful. Not sure if this was a way to apologize for his earlier treatment. Maybe, but this was one of the first times I really learned something from an assignment. So, that part was good. And it was also really sweet that some of my classmates came to my defense. Later he had us turn in our stories and I was starting to dread his response to that. But the best thing was that he had some serious criticism for the aforementioned Precious Golden Boy's story. I saw that PGB was totally surprised. I enjoyed his discomfort immensely.

The next day, Dylan's PR person calls me and says the she wants to vet his quotes before I publish the story. (As if the story was actually getting published aside from me printing it up at home and reading it to my class). But whatever. I had been purposely vague with her previously, suggesting that the story would be published in an "in-school journal," so I could get the access. But regardless, it is the height of chutzpah for some PR person to expect me to submit quotes to her for approval. I'm not writing a press release for her; it's MY story. I taped the entire conversation with Dylan, so it's not like anything I've used in the story isn't what he said. There are plenty of things I'm sure they would rather he had not said, but that's not my problem. In fact, when I got there the PR woman originally sat down with us while we were talking which was disconcerting enough, but then Dylan actually took me into a private lounge to give her the slip. Anyway, I told her that it would be a violation of journalistic ethics to have her approve my quotes. She was very upset. I think because maybe her ass would be on the line if anything was published that made CNBC or Dylan look bad. I told her I would talk to my editor to see what he wanted me to do.

I e-mailed Bennet immediately to ask him. He e-mailed me back and said he wanted me to call him right away. So, I did. I told him the situation and he said I absolutely did not have to show her, but if I was concerned about not burning any bridges with CNBC I could talk to her and find out exactly what she was freaking about her. I ended up taking this advice and I think me and PR lady ended on a positive note. But the more important thing, was that in my conversation with Bennet, he said he thought I could sell the story! He said he didn't think it could run in the New Yorker because it wasn't general interest enough, but he had obviously considered it. He said he would try to figure out a good place for me to pitch it! He also suggested a few changes I could make; he thought I shouldn't include a segment I had written where Dylan told me all about this alligator poaching he had been involved in in the swamps of Louisiana. The poaching was illegal and Bennet said there was no need to get him trouble. The whole New Yorker thing is to write stories that are "tough but fair." Apparently this is the gospel (ouch - such a cliche). But this deliberate aim is exactly what makes the NYer such a great read. So I took the alligator out and made some other changes he suggested. All of which were very helpful. I had already been working on re-writing anyway, from comments he had made in class the night before. Most of what he noted were places in the story I already knew were weak. So it was really cool. It felt like I was talking to an actual editor who actually is invested in my writing. I'm still not sure where or what this will lead to, but I re-wrote it and re-submitted it to him. I haven't heard from him since then. It's possible that I won't be able to sell it anywhere, but still, I feel pretty damn good about it.

The thing that's hard about this program is that I have gotten so befuddled about my ability to write that I can't even tell if anything I'm writing makes sense, not to mention if it's interesting.

The actual interview with Dylan was intensely gratifying. I called him up knowing full well that he had no idea who I was. I mean I met him at the wedding and a couple other times at parties at (a WN reporter) Kristen and (one of the editors at WN) Kourosh's but I never really talked to him. I more watched him with this simultaneous revulsion and fascination. He's such a total character. Machiavellian. Super schmoozy. Uber-confident. Unctuous. Very charming. But also seemingly genuine. He's also extraordinarily successful, at 32 years old he's making Big Time Bank, flies all over the world and knows everyone. He's kind of complex but also really surface-y. I can tell there're some demons, some kind of darkness, and I dearly would love to know more about that. Of course, in my 90 minute interview I wasn't going to get that out of him, but I sure tried. When I talked to him on the phone the fist time, like I said, he didn't remember me, but I knew he'd pretend that he did. So he kind of had to agree to the interview but I also knew he would do it since he loves to talk about himself. So then he sent a town car to pick me up to drive me to the studios. I got to follow him around while he's doing all his weird TV anchor stuff, interogate him in this fancy lounge area - and really it was no holds barred - I asked him all kinds of shit, and then I watched the show being taped. He doesn't hold doors for women (or at least not for me) and he had me actually running after him at some points. He also chain smokes, which was one of the few things he told me was off the record. Apparently, CNBC doesn't want it known if their anchors smoke. It was excellent sport to write down every little idiosyncracy and then figure out which ones best represented him. Then another car drove me home. The whole thing was so much fun. I kept thinking: this is exactly what I want to do. This little dance of asking him leading questions and fishing around to see how he'll respond to any given question - FUN. I also busted him lying a few times, which I promptly called him on. Luckily, he loved it and cracked up.

It was a turn-on.

Later I talked to Kourosh to thank him for giving me his contact information. He said that Dylan had called him to debrief after the interview. I guess he told K. that I was pretty aggressive. But just before I started to get all insecure and offended about it, K. told me that Dylan said he'd really enjoyed it. That he "likes personalities like mine." So that was reassuring. I also wanted to know if he thought I was hot. (I won't apologize for being a girl here, this is the way we are hardwired.) But I couldn't figure out how to ask K. this without tipping my hand that I am such a girl. Alas, I'll never know. Dylan's in Washington covering the Alan Greenspan testimony and then he's off to do some weird reality experience show in which he'll be a pit pig for some NASCAR bad boy in the Daytona 500. He's having a great life.

Then, I wrote the story. And submitted it to Bennet. And this is where I stand now.