Though it's just workshop props--and we all know that workshop has its own warped gravity, its own rules, blind spots + personality cults--I'm gonna fucking take the encouragement wherever I can get it. Here are Tom's comments for my last workshop manuscript (three chapters from my second novel in progress, Ninjas of My Greater Self). True, it may be just workshop feedback, but this shit makes feel good + sometimes, that's all we need to keep writing:

Jackson,

You don't need a workshop, you need a contract. This is so rich and beautiful and heartfelt that I'm won over to the project all over again. Here we can feel Hidashi as a character, vulnerable, angry + brilliantly observant, which (to my mind) wasn't necessarily the case in the earlier sections. But now you are getting to the beauty of things + dramatizing instead of posing + listing. Great stuff. Truly!

p.s. Love Hidashi's take on hipsters + the value of being hip
p.p.s. Love too how you're moving the story through these brilliant and hilarious scenes of dialogue

For a couple days, I'm gonna stand tall. Then, it's back to work.