I had lunch with an editor today who asked me what I get out my blog. Ask not what your country can do for you. What do I get out of my blog? Lots of tickets to movie screenings. Suitors. Bracelets. Vajazzle kit. New clients. Hate mail. I get invitations to dinner parties, cocktail parties, birthday parties and book parties. I get duck eggs delivered to my door. What do I get out of my blog? June, July, August. I get phoney phone calls and parlor games. I get to feel the heat of ten thousand wings beating. The smooth underside of dog’s belly. I get a horse and carriage. What do I get out of my blog?
What do you think?
p.s. love and extra puppies to Shanna.
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Betsy Lerner 
What do WE get out of your blog? We get a little twisted path to meander down at the end of the day, like one of those narrow alleys in London, with a tiny, dark and delicious pub at the end of it.
smile. as in, i am smiling. not as in, you’d better smile.
🙂
amusement/love/other voices howling in the wilderness
Word.
Oh, I see how it is. August gets the name check.
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia
Oh I see how it is. Shanna gets a p.s. AND extra puppies.
All I get is pMs.
And who’s your fucking new client?
I had a dyslexic moment there–I thought you wrote, Who’s fucking your new client…
Ah, Jeezus, Betsy, my eyeballs are bleeding.
I think you get a lot out of your blog. Just from your list and from the fact that you keep coming back for more. What do you think?
(But, oh, Betsy, what you have done to my eyes, which are connected directly to my brain. I’m going to be having some trepidatious nightmares tonight.)
You get read.
What else does a writer want…okay lots of stuff but being read is good, read is what it’s all about, read is what makes us what we are.
If no one reads what we write than who is it for ? Just us ?
Diaries are just for us, writing is for everyone.
agree
Connection. That’s what it’s all about. LIke pulling into a Jiffy Lube and getting hooked up to the machines, but the juices and pulses flow in both directions. Hooking in to the universe.
book sales?
Self expression and connection. That’s what I think you get. But can you tell me more about the duck eggs? I don’t get any duck eggs from my blog.
Validation and probably some adoration But clients? Who knew?
A nightly ritual. A smile or two and a scowl. Where did you get that ridiculous image?
Don’t make me send you more puppy pictures.
A Vajazzle kit? Seriously?
Does it use surgical glue or some kind of velcro arrangement?
My thoughts EXACTLY, ‘tho something tells me the stapler is still the tool of choice.
I keep thinking of those big rhinestone guns—remember those?
Ouch. I mean, uh-huh.
a place to write poetically, i think. without the emotional pressure of writing poetry.
I think it’s pretty clear that you love coming here. As for me, I crave it when it’s the weekend; I relish the pinging sound in my inbox in the evening, Sunday through Thursday at about 6pm; I think of this place when it’s a particularly uninspired writing day and I’m feeling down on being a writer; I miss it when it’s not here. Don’t ever go.
You know, “ever” is a strong word. Just not anytime soon, ‘kay?
It’s the writers’ reality check here in the land of TFFTT. A brief respite from the bullshittery. Or maybe the bullshittery is just more fun here.
I did ask myself this. But apart from the duck eggs you must crack up sometimes, or let your heart bleed just enough, or let us see your soaring. It’s sort or public and cringing at the same time.
Maybe just a reply to the questions you pose just so you know for sure you aren’t alone in this (writing, such a lonely business). Or maybe that’s what I get out of your blog…
An interesting subject line in my e-mail list. A click. Then I see your words, your well chosen picture for the topic–a wonderful new thing of the day.
One more thing. I also saw a lot of “fucking something” here and there; in a whole, all sounds amusing, consoling… and inspiring in some way sometime.
Hopefully the same thing I did, when I first typed my thoughts and fears and opinions out there into the world wide web:
Release.
You get us. We get you.
Yes, this.
I’d like to think that we’re, all of us here, connected.
Kind of like after school detention?
The Breakfast Club, definitely.
That card is what what I get, exactamundo. A laugh, baby animals, and a reminder that I DO LOVE YOU.
Girls just wanna have fun,eh.
It’s nice to have a reminder that when idiots are in abundance, the smart ones are congregated here.
Oh – me? I’m just here for Teri’s puppies.
Free therapy? Seriously, It’s about the connections, and being able to let your hair down without having anybody criticize you because your roots need to be retouched. You don’t have to pretend to be all peace-love-and-Mom’s-apple-pie when you aren’t feeling it. It’s about being accepted and admired for exactly who you are.
This is Betsy having a few people over, seeing who shows up, dancing a little, seeing who’s got moves, and whos suffers from Anglo-Saxon Arhythmia. Stiff drinks, surprising canapes, it’s quite a party.
And the best part is she never asks us to clean up.
Or throws anyone out.
I think you get book sales, a daily chance for ten minutes of honesty, and a slice-of-life look at us, the “artists” you deal with.
my blog? the closest i’ve gotten for public appreciation for just being me. is that what you get, Betsy?
closest I’ve gotten TO public appreciation, I mean.
A moment to take off your mask, and put on another one. A chance to encourage writers, knowing they are you and you are them. A moment in time when you get a little adoration, not because you’re an agent, but because you are you, a poet in agent’s clothing.
What I think you get is probably a sense of an audience and a sense of contact with it. Writers usually want that, don’t they?
On my drive to work this morning, at around 6:30am, I came to the only stoplight in town, near the foot of the State Dock on Lake Huron. It was cold this morning, around 15 degrees, so I was surprised to see a man sitting on a park bench just beyond the cast circle from the streetlight. I didn’t know him, although this is a small town, but I waved to him just the same. It’s what we do here.
When I waved, he leaned forward from his bench, reaching out to return my wave as the light changed and I continued on my way to work. “I see you…” I thought, rolling through the deserted intersection.
I see you, Betsy.
Maybe that’s why…
If I could answer your question, I could probably answer mine, which is why am I so secretive about my own blog? What am I so afraid of? I’ll bet it’s something really dumb.
I’m not entirely sure because the sparkly bears have bedazzled my brain. The butterflies and bluebirds and floaty pink ribbon have jumped off the screen and are twittering old school-styles around my head. A carpet of grass and hearts and flowers has unrolled purtily around my house. Blog? What was the question again?
Hopefully nothing infectious, contagious or otherwise unpleasant; I’ve heard them computer viruses can be pretty nasty, wipe you right out and all.
you get to see your duck eggs hatch, then waddle w us down to the pond where we all splash in, then swim in a nice peaceful row behind you, our fearless leader. (while as the same time you get to carve, making sculpture out of poorly written great thoughts, such as this!)
Your blog titles make me want to ditch the classical wordlessness and sing to a rainy afternoon with the Paul’s: Simon and James McCartney respectively. How lovely, but I ain’t lookin’ for nothing in anyone’s eyes.
That image looks like the logo for a line of demented maternity clothes. Your motives for blogging are unknown to me. Won’t presume to know. Can barely understand my own.
You write beautifully. That’s why I come back.
The image looks like our company newsletter.
Oh, have mercy. That’s just so sad.
My favorite part about the p.s. is if you’re just tuning in I look like a total asshole.
No, you look like a much loved asshole.
A position I can only aspire to by the way.
Groupies. Really smart groupies. Literary groupies.
Groupies who can tell the difference between a metaphor and a raccoon, we’re so smart. And literate.
You get readers. People you’d have never been able to meet and share with sans the amazing information superhighway.
By the way, Steve Weinberg’s list of useful books on writing in the ASJA Monthly for February, has “The Forest for the Trees” at the very top.
You get to flash your dazzling wordiness chops, and know you are doing a good deed every day putting a human face on what sometimes seems to be an impenetrable wall.
I think it sort of satisfies the part where your tongue is twisted with words half spoken and thoughts unclear. And you get to use all those cool lyrics that someone put in a song before you could put them in a poem or screenplay.
i don’t know what i get out of my own blog, so how could i know what you get out of yours? oh wait, i know: fame, glory and riches beyond word.
I hope you are foremost, entertained: by our attempts at humor, witty turns of phrase and Deep Thoughts. And when you actually respond to one of these attempts, for us it is akin to receiving a glittery valentine. Thanks for providing a great forum! May the influx of presents and invites now increase dramatically!
What YOU get out of it? Wait, isn’t this all about US?
It’s weird. I talk about you every day.
I think you get the same as you give… just a little more Life.