I used to crack the office window and smoke into the cold morning. Across the way a water tower. A woman moving inside a building — easy to imagine her more beautiful than I. The stone ledge smudged from so many mornings. It was the part of a lifetime. Do you miss me? Did I doze? Can you hear me skidding? Someone took the stones from my father’s grave. Who am I talking to? The end of the year means nothing, but visits upon me a strange feeling. Long ago, I resolved not to make any resolutions except to distrust people completely. Ha! Will I always be nine years old with my bangs cut unevenly across my forehead? Is there more faith in the world than in a plastic barrette plastered to the head of girl ready for greatness, poised for destruction.
I miss Jim, raconteur extraordinaire. Ralph is gone, our loyal friend. Lucy died this time of year. Then Tracy. Then Liz. Some are dead and some are living. My grandmother said you are the captain of your own ship. You are the captain of your own ship. Oh, I am nostalgic. To all my beautiful writers and the books you brought into the world, for little or much. To everyone who opened a book and turned her beautiful pages. I love all of you who leave comments here, magnificent breadcrumbs on a lonely trail. Thank you for reading, lurkers too. Have a happy and healthy new year, or in lieu of that: WRITE YOUR ASS OFF. Love, Betsy
p.s. I’ll be back Monday, January 3.
Filed under: The End of the World as We Know It | 36 Comments »
Well, this incredible year is winding down. I felt like quitting publishing in March after I crashed and burned so badly on a project that I no longer trusted myself. And that, whether you are an agent, editor, publisher, or writer, is the worst. We’re all clomping around in the forest as far as I can tell, but when you realize you’ve lost your compass, well you’re fucked. All you really have is your taste, your belief, your instinct, your gut. Separate yourself from these for a moment and you are a goner. Nobody really knows what’s going to work, but believing in something and having the insanity of your convictions is crucial to any success. If you build it they will come, and all that. But of course, here in bookland, if you build it they can also ignore it, savage it, remainder it, and pulp it.
My older sister read my script over the weekend and noted that she didn’t like one of the character’s names. When I asked her why, she shrugged, “I don’t know.” It was meant to be a funny name, or comic name. It rhymed with looney. It clearly wasn’t working. How is it that sometimes a name seems just right, perfect, beyond question? Other times, they ring wrong. Sometimes it seems as if the right name can set the stage, open doors, lead the charge. King Lear. Jo March. Augie March. Boo Radley. Newland Archer. Dick Diver. Nathan Zuckerman. Hanibal Lecter. Herbert Pocket. Victor Frankenstein. Elizabeth Bennett. Esther Greenwood. Daisy Buchanan. The World According to Garp. Garp? What makes a name memorable? Is your name your destiny? Scout. Pip. Jude the Obscure. Where do you find your names? What’s in a name? I think, for me, Charles Dickens is the author to beat for great names.
Hi Betsy,
Sold my last book of 2011 today. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa. I know many of you hate agents out there and I get it. I hated most agents when I was an editor. Taking them to lunch so they could shit on your face, if you feel me. I once took an agent out to lunch who looked at the menu and said, “If I have one more cobb salad, I’m going to kill myself.” Another pulled a bill away as I was figuring out the tip and said, “Gimme that, I know 15% of anything.”
How can tell if your work is good? How can you tell if it’s done? how do you know if readers will feel what you want them to feel? See what you see? Why did you choose red over scarlet? Blue over cerulean? Dumb ass over douche bag? What’s the frequency, Kenneth? Is your character real or made from mix? Does your work scream amateur or does it mingle in a smoking jacket? How does time move? A day, a year, a century? A million kisses? Is there a clock? For whom does it toll? To thine own self? Or Ruth amid the aliens? What pattern is the wallpaper, the china, the china china? Are your similes brittle, brash, unexpected, bashful? Does a river run through it? Do you even know what it is “about?” And please don’t “about” me. Are you lean, concise, compressed? Bold, sassy, expansive? Highway or my way? Back hoe or pick? Do you tap, slam, rap, dip? Brush, smudge, thumb, tongue. Do you lick it, kick it, kill it, burn it. Are you in the driver’s seat? The sandbox? The stairway to my fat heaven. Can I see your license and registration? Do you seek the sun, the sea, the long finger of love.
According to Bookmovement.com, where over 26,000 book club groups are registered, here are the top twenty book club picks of 2010:
Okay, fuck the query letter. But before I take my pre-holiday dive into depression, weight gain, and the return of the winter rash between my big and second toe, I have to tell you something, Nation. Tonight, from 6:45-8:30, I was in the GREEN ROOM of the Colbert Report. I was there, of course, with Patti Smith. Mr. Colbert is too big of a pussy to have me on his show and take me up on my challenge to eat through an interview. But the laugh is on him, because I ate through his green room: raspberries, blackberries, pineapple slices as thin a permanent paper. There were six kinds of cheeses, crackers, prunes (though maybe just large olives), and a HUGE JAR of m&m’s. Yes, folks, this is LIVING.
Betsy Lerner 