This is it, my last post until Monday, January 4, 2010.
As a small child, I felt in my heart two contradictory feelings, the horror of life and the ecstasy of life.
Here’s my question, if I don’t believe in god, resolutions, or e-books, what do I have to look forward to in the new year? The answer, Nation, is writing. Writing. And writing. As far as I can tell it’s the only way out. I want to know on January 4, 2010, what you did, writing-wise, on your vacation (or few days off, I hope).
Did you finish your novel, start one? Did you get your query letters buffed and polished? Did you write a poem? Read a poem? Sublimate massive amounts of rage at those who rejected you this year and kept writing? Did you write a letter? On paper? Did you put a novel away? Did you write in your diary? Did you find the common thread in your story collection? Did you start therapy to deal with your writer’s block?
Did find a title for your new project, and that title galvanized the whole thing in your mind? Did you write twenty new pages? Ten? Or did you throw out every page you wrote, but wtf, you knew you were getting somewhere, big picture-wise. Or you threw every page away and fell into a deep despair which seemed to have no end in sight? Or did you just jerk off, and by that I mean were you really good to yourself?
My goal is block out my new script with my collaborator. And figure out how to install the new Final Draft software. If it would help to pledge your writing goal here, go for it.
Please take good care. I miss you already. Otherwise, happy and healthy new year. Let’s hope it doesn’t suck as much as this year. Love, Betsy
Filed under: The End of the World as We Know It, Writers, Writing | 40 Comments »
I always feel that it’s a big mistake to tell people what you’re working on. In part, if you talk too much about it there’s a greater chance that you won’t do it. There’s also the feeling that if you give too much away, you leech the project of its essential oils. I’m never paranoid that anyone is going to “steal” my ideas; I don’t think people really can steal your ideas, or execute them the way that you would. Still, blabbing too soon is like an artist showing his subject the portrait when it is half done. You leave yourself wide open.
It’s 2:00 a.m. Home after the annual agency holiday party. I’m wired, agitated, and depressed all at once. I’m one of these people who dread all social gatherings. Then I have a really good time. Then I hate myself. It’s so fucking predictable.
I wish I had something to say to inspire you tonight, but my tank is low if I’m going to be honest. I know I’m not an ER nurse, but sometimes this work is incredibly draining. Worse, I know that whatever anxiety I’m feeling whether it’s waiting for an editorial response, waiting for money, waiting for an offer, etc. it’s far worse for the writer. I have all these children living in my shoe. When something doesn’t happen for one, it’s bound to happen for another. One writer is getting tons of attention, a fat new offer on her next book, foreign sales galore. Another writer can’t get arrested. And three years from now their situations might be reversed; fickle are the gods of publishing.
Two manuscripts came in last week on stretchers. One needed a heart transplant, the other a new leg. It took hours of surgery, but they are both doing well. People ask if I still edit. I can’t not edit. I think we all read with pencils in our hands. Isn’t that the job?
Let’s get back to tupperware and how it relates to writing. When I studied and wrote poetry, I loved using the forms that most of the other students balked at. I loved writing in quatrains, and sonnets, and my magnum opus, my personal Howl, was a sestina, ” Calories and Other Counts”. What I loved about form was that it forced you to make decisions, it put you in a box, and half the fun was seeing if you could get out. It fit or it didn’t. I’m not saying poetry is easy, but there was a template if you wanted it. Or wanted to break it.
Since I’ve been writing and revising an Oscar speech my whole life, here’s my Blog version: I want to thank my readers most of all, lurkers and commenters alike. Though I love the commenters a little bit more. My mother used to say she loved us three girls equally, but I read Lear and knew she was lying. Sorry, off topic. I want to thank the bloggers who I’ve read over the years and who inspired me, the agent bloggers who have been very kind to me with tips and links. I want to thank everyone who has linked to me. To the folks who wrote in questions and subjected themselves to my answers. To Hillary Moss who set up the site. To the folks who participated in my fakakta surveys. I want to thank the people in my life who have to hear me say things like: today in my blog, or I have to post, or blog blah blah blah. And Riverhead Books and Becky Saletan who green lit the revision of FFTT. To Vivian who is so Swift. And to my bro, LC. And August, the month in which I was born. And to a poet who got so angry with me that he up and left when I wouldn’t or couldn’t help him. This has been an incredible experience. Dad, (now I get teary and look to the heavens) this if for you. (I say this shaking my imaginary statuette at the ceiling.) You never really believed in me as a writer and that gave me all I needed. Thank you.
Betsy Lerner 
