Thanks to everyone who read and continued to comment over the holiday. Apparently, some people didn’t think I could stay away, especially our darling A. who wrote, “Yeah, who knew Betsy had such self control?” Not how I envisioned her.” It’s true, self control isn’t my strong suit. My parents always accused me of “not knowing when to stop.” And god knows, I’ve found myself waking up in bushes enough times to know that I had a wee problem putting on the brakes.
I’ve always wondered how temperament relates to writing. I used to edit a young woman, totally out of control, who basically plugged her pen into a socket. I worked with another woman, so quiet and cautious that she seemed to disappear. And she wrote a book about that: Disappearance. I know another writer who claims to have a huge cock, and this, he would say, accounted for his big sprawling novels and his staying power.
If you are a safe and cautious person, is that reflected in your writing? If you are bold and swaggering, then what? Does personal temperament inform your writing? Do writers resemble their work? Why do we love to look at author photos if not to glean something about the personality and how that relates to the writing. Is that you, baby, or just a brilliant disguise?
Betsy Lerner 
In addition to my internal editor, I must constantly battle my internal parish priest to ensure that my writing does NOT reflect my safe and cautious personality style.
I’ve pitched my tent in the temperate zone, equidistant from the tropics and the polar snows. Some days a hurricane will push up from the south, steered away by a blast of chilly air from the north. I live with the uncertain weather, the risks and compromises, the sudden revelations.
That photo: a young JCO, yes?
Bingo.
brilliant disguise.
I knew you couldn’t wait: I was expecting your first comment today, not tomorrow. I do have self-control, which is good discipline for my writing, but living without your blog for two weeks was not good for my Betsy addiction. Great to have you back.
I’m a fairly cautious person, and my novels seem to reflect that to some extent. Often my characters are more adventuresome than I am.
In one case, though, I went out of my way to design a very adventuresome character, and often when she faced a decision, I asked myself how I would handle things, and she then did the opposite.
You’ve got to be bold in your writing and accept the fact that some readers will like you and others won’t. Those who seek to please everyone end up pleasing no one, including themselves.
I write nonfiction, and I’m much more open in my writing than I am in my personal life. I’m much braver on the page with my words. I write about ideas and thoughts that I would never think about sharing with people verbally. I’m still trying to make sense of this split personality.
I find the exact same to be true of my nonfiction writing, Rachael. I can write about my deepest, darkest thoughts, but would never open my mouth to articulate these things. I feel a safety in the written word – perhaps it’s an illusion, but that’s what I feel.
This is perhaps less true in my fiction writing since a character as hesitant as I am in real life would be pretty dull to read about.
Me = obnoxious Jewish woman writes as, um, obnoxious Jewish woman. This means that I always think I have something important to say even when it’s not.
“Write what you loathe” has worked for me so many times that I’m beginning to wonder if I’m really an insufferably opinionated bitch.
Well, it’s not really “wonder”. It’s more like a working hypothesis.
Is it just about self expression? God, I hope not.
I’d like to be introduced to your client with the big cock, please.
How do you know he likes women?
Oh, dear…:(
Whew. Betsy’s back. Now I can exhale.
I can’t stand extravagant writing. Half a page of Henry Miller is all I can stomach, forever. I take it for granted that people have tumultuous and filthy inner lives — I would love it if people did not feel obligated to share their mania with the rest of us. That said, I’m pretty bossy in real life.
I’d rather look at a Vermeer than a Pollack, I’d rather read Austen than Kerouac, I’d rather write about the weather than my sex life. I’m a much nicer person — friendly, almost — in my writing than I am in person.
It’s not a disguise, it’s about taming the ego. Or the id; I get them mixed up.
Of course the writing reflects the writer. Of course. We can’t write outside ourselves.
That’s why it’s so terrifying and hurtful and exhilarating when our writing is accepted or rejected- because then WE are accepted or rejected.
“Dear Ms. Lerner:
Per our conversation regarding my collection of short short fiction, enclosed please find a picture of my cock.”
I’m a timid, sober, introverted, profoundly-monogamous milquetoast, myself. If I led a big sprawling out-of-control life, would I really spend this much time sitting at a computer recycling the contents of my own head?
Makes me wonder about Dan Simmons and TC Boyle and the late great Don Westlake: authors who write in a variety of genres and tones. And I keep meaning to email Betsy a question about those of us who aren’t driven to write anything in particular, which seems to touch on this question of temperament.
I missed you, Dude. Exactly how short are those stories?
I’ve met lots of aspiring writers who don’t know what to write about. In response, I usually put two pears on a table.
But once you get to a certain level, it would strike me as very weird if you didn’t know what you wanted to write about, were writing about or hoped to write about.
Flash fiction.
I was clearer about what I wanted to write when it was just aspiration. Now that it’s also (rarely) published, I find myself eyeing my Blue Cross Blue Shield bill and telling my agent, “Why yes, I’d _adore_ writing clown-based pornography with two obligatory ‘squirting flower’ scenes.”
I seem able to sell stuff that I write with purely commercial motives. But at the faintest whiff of _me_, editors recoil. I suspect that I have the soul of a hack.
I will spend more time looking at this: http://www.modernartsmidwest.com/collection/34219/Merrill.Peterson
August, I loved the link — and the best part is that you have to make an APPOINTMENT to see it. Perfect.
I’d read anything you’d write, and if you ever need an illustrator, let me know.
“No amount of applied crap can hide lack of originality, individuality, and content.”
I love that.
Do you like Jonathan Gash’s Lovejoy books? I’m not sure I’ve ever found a woman who does, but your comment about pearls vs. Mardi Gras beads got me wondering.
I found (for me–I can’t possibly extrapolate this to the world) that it wasn’t until I finally found a non-crazy relationship, environment, mind, and became . . . dare I say it . . . sorta secure and happy, that I could dive down and write from the dark honest places.
How to leave when you need to leave, stay when you need to stay. I write about self determination. And i love Henry Miller.
I often wonder if the me I am when I write, when I make videos, is the me I really am, and I just don’t know how to be that 24/7. Someone once quoted something back to me I’d said in one of my tutorials, saying she’d written it down and kept it on a slip of paper in her purse, and I was like, “I said that? Really?”
I like Elizabeth Gilbert’s description of catching inspiration by the tail… sometimes I feel like I catch it, and sometimes it feels like it slips through my fingers, leaving me with drivel.
I write. I have received some nice rejections, but have yet to be accepted, honored, or paid for my work. I consider myself an author, but I don’t know what makes an author an author, and a writer a writer. I am writing now, but this is not writing.
My writing is proprietary, because I am spoiled and like to be more free than I am now. I like having money and assets… freedom. $$$$$$ You all know what I mean. I’m too honest, though, and I usually cry or whatever when people are critical of me or my work. My grammar sucks, and my vocabulary is small, but my dreams are big and I remain hopeful.
I LOVE writing, and I LOVE learning from people who know. Thanks again.
I was directed to your blog via Twitter 3 hours ago thanks to @maudenewton.
It is a new world.
How will I thank her?
I bet she knows already, all the gratitude directed her way. I bet she loves beets and cauliflower, too. I bet she likes a good Chilean carmanere.