Barrett, I have to be blunt here:  Chapter 3 is almost entirely garbage.  Last week Julia warned me that we were going to be in deep shit if what we turned in was a series of transcripts etc pieced together, and I assured her that she couldn't be more off base.  But in fact this chapter is a series of transcripts/chat-room recreations pieced together, interspliced with almost impenetrably dense, abstract, academic asides--smug, too, by the way.  Totally, totally off the mark--not just for Julia, Barrett, but for any OTHER publisher we might approach if Amazon were to turn this down and demand their money back.

Here's what's usable:  starting with "When I got out of prison in 2007, I needed a new hobby."  Go from there up into the first (but ONLY the first) "memes" riff, the Power Wrist scene.  Those pages, edited extensively (especially at the end of that section)?  We can use them.  But that's IT.  Everything else, Barrett, EVERYTHING, lacks context, lacks careful execution, and fails to even pretend to be told from Gregg's perspective.

I will send you the edits from this section that are usable.  But if this is representative of what you think is a nearly-usable first draft?  Turn in crap like this, AND late?  We are fucked, plain and simple.

________________________________
Dan Conaway
Literary Agent
Writers House