Posted on December 10, 2009 by betsylerner
I’ve always been a little turned off by the expression, “finding your voice.” Was it lost? Behind door number three? Stolen by fairies in the night? And yet, we know when writers have one and we know when they don’t. My question is: is it something you can find or is it native. Can you locate it? Alter it? Develop it? Deny it? Can you choose it? Can you eat it? Can you fuck it?
What is it exactly: voice? Is having a voice and writing well the same thing? Can you write well and not have a voice? I think so. That’s a lot of what gets submitted. Is voice writing well + distinction? I think voice is like a stamp, a brand, a thumbprint. Even your physical voice. Is this Betsy? This is she. I know some of the commenters on this blog by their voice.
Is voice an extension of personality? Is it channeled? Marshalled? Arrived at? Discovered? Is it a put on? A fashion show? A daily special? All dressed up with some place to go? Or is it fuel, gas, highly oxygenated blood? Where will it take you? What happens when it goes?
Filed under: Writing | 40 Comments »
Posted on December 8, 2009 by betsylerner
True or false: the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I’ve been thinking about this lately. Some writers have no trouble asking for what they want and need. They are in your grill. Others nearly disappear themselves. Some authors send me a query letter and follow up a week later. One man this year wrote me every day pitching himself and the merits of his project. Some send a project and follow up many months later, hoping not to bother you. Why does it feel like the person who is too pushy can’t be a particularly good writer? Maybe because being a good writer requires a certain amount of emotional intelligence, sensitivity, communication skills. Then again, there are the Norman Mailers of the world. I’m just guessing, but I don’t think Mailer was shy about what getting what he wanted.
Sometimes I bristle when a client pushes me too hard, but then I tell myself that this is his job. If he can’t be ambitious about what he wants, who can. Other clients need me to be ambitious for them, to suggest the parameters of a dream, or look into my crystal ball. It’s extraordinary, really, watching how a writer’s ego, esteem, confidence, insecurities, and talent combine to help or hurt them as they put their work forward. Even after 25 years of working with writers, I marvel at how some can shout it from the mountaintops, while others barely whisper in your ear. How do you comport yourself as writer or author? Do you find you get what you need, and if so how? More bees with honey? The squeaky wheel?
Filed under: Authors, Protocol, Publishing | 28 Comments »
Posted on December 7, 2009 by betsylerner
After the fact, I discovered that my co-publisher Bruce Craven had named our magazine after this movie.
Rick Moody emailed me out of the blue because he needed a copy of a piece he had written in a magazine I published in 1990. He was wondering if I still had the issue. Well, they don’t call me the Archivist Extremis for nothing. His piece was in our last issue of BIG WEDNESDAY, Volume 2 Issue #1. We published the likes of Bill Matthews, Campbell McGrath, Kate Braverman, Pagan Kenedy, David Means, Denis Johnson, and others. We promoted our publication with a monthly gathering at a bar with a game show-style event called Wheel of Poets. Our emcee was a woman named Jennifer Blowdryer. We actually had a wheel and she spinned it with it about as much disgust as you could possibly muster.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
Posted on December 6, 2009 by betsylerner
Sometimes I think that all writing is an attempt not to disappear, not in the sense of being immortalized, but in the act itself, the actual writing. That every pen-stroke or key-stroke is a way of refusing to be erased, a way of making sure you’re still there.
I used to write in the crawl space beneath the stairs when I was 10. I had a diary with a thin gold rule around the edges and a lock that a butterfly could pick. In there I confessed my hatred for my best friend, the ongoing torment from my older sister, my great love of hot dogs. When I think of myself down there, the blanket and pillow I purloined from the guest room, the shadeless lamp, I could really cry. Why did I need that makeshift bunker? What was I so desperate to express and why did I have to hide it?
I had no idea that I would grow up and help countless writers out of their bunkers, help them with their books, see the light of day. Though I have a few writers with a positive outlook, I’ve mostly observed that writing comes out of darkness, that writing seeks light. I think that’s what I was doing in my bunker when I first found words. I would love to hear from other writers who wrote as children or teens and what they recall of their first efforts.
Filed under: Writers, Writing | 38 Comments »
Posted on December 4, 2009 by betsylerner
I only knew Don Congdon by reputation, and that he represented David Sedaris. Oh, Envy! When I read his obituary this morning I was really moved. Apparently, as a young man he came to New York with $8 and started out as a messenger for a literary agency. He would eventually work as an editor and agent before starting his own highly successful company.
It was this quote, by Ray Bradbury, a lifelong client, that really got to me:
“I married Don Congdon the same month I married my wife,” Mr. Bradbury said in a speech to the National Book Foundation in 2000. “So I had 53 years of being spoiled by my wife and by Don Congdon. We’ve never had a fight or an argument during that time because he’s always been out on the road ahead of me clearing away the dragons and the monsters and the fakes.” Mr. Bradbury dedicated his novel “Fahrenheit 451” to Mr. Congdon.
The dragons and the monsters and the fakes. Would that I could keep you safe.
Filed under: Agent | 6 Comments »
Posted on December 4, 2009 by betsylerner
Years ago, long before I became an agent, I fixed up three couples, all of whom got married. I didn’t even know any of them particularly well. I just had a “feeling.” And when things worked out for the happy couples, I applauded my own prescience. (Let the record show that this skill did not extend to my own romantic adventures.)
My point: this same “feeling” applies to agenting. Of all the things the job entails, first and foremost discovering writers, the next most important decision you make is selecting the editor you are going to submit any given project to. I think this is common knowledge, but in case it isn’t, you can only submit your book to one editor at a publishing company. If that editor passes, it’s a pass for the whole house. You can’t try the editor in the next office over. Your chance with that the publisher is over. So a good agent will have relationships with a few or more editors at every house and have as much hard as well as anecdotal information about each editor with which to target the submission. Writers often ask how we decide which editors to send to. You choose a certain editor over another at a publishing house to submit a project to because :
- You have a perfectly clear sense of what they are looking for; it has “their name on it,”
- You have sold them books in the past and you’re tight.
- You have some inside knowledge from lunch dates about the editor’s life or taste .
- You’ve done copious research (i.e. a publishersmarketplace.com search) into their buying patterns .
- You saw their name on a restroom door at Grammercy Tavern in conjunction with a certain sexual proclivity.
I wonder what’s more difficult these days: getting married or getting published.
Filed under: Authors, Client, Editor, Protocol | 8 Comments »
Posted on December 3, 2009 by betsylerner
Lately, a few of my clients have asked if a particular post were about them. It’s funny because I think I go out of my way not to write about my clients and to never write about any ongoing deals, like the seven-figure advance I’m brokering for the White House party crashers. And the film deal with Happy Madison. Ixnay on the etailsday.
I'm so vain.
What’s your experience writing about people you know? Any horror stories? I sometimes think fiction is worse, more room for projection.
Filed under: Authors, Client | 20 Comments »
Posted on December 1, 2009 by betsylerner
I suffer from the medical condition known as ICP ( Impulse Control Problem). This usually manifests in saying the most hurtful and/or obnoxious thing that pops into my head at a holiday gathering or dinner party.
I’ve noticed that a lot writers also suffer from ICP. You finish writing something and bang! you send it to the New Yorker. Or to your editor, or agent. Or your bff. You know you should sit on it for a month, or a couple of weeks, or hours, even ten minutes, but the desire for feedback is overpowering, the desire for confirmation that you are, indeed, on fire. One symptom of ICP is sending multiple drafts before hearing back from the person you sent it to. Stop! Read this draft instead!
Writing takes time, even when it comes out in a torrent. You need to understand your work and practice your craft before seeking feedback. Plus, having other people read your work too soon fucks with your head, to put it plainly. It’s like a giving a patient a diagnosis before all the test results are in. If you need immediate feedback, ask someone on a date or, my tried and true, step on the scale. But your writing, protect it. There is always time to expose it to the sharp air. If you can: wait.
A lot of people ask me how to know when it’s ready. How? How?
Filed under: Writing | 30 Comments »
Betsy Lerner 