Posted on October 23, 2019 by betsylerner
I don’t believe in inspiration. I believe in compulsion. Anything I’ve ever written, including when I wrote poetry, came from self-loathing. I never saw any light, angels, symmetry, never heard a muse, never lit a candle, saw Jesus in the tapestry or golden scroll unfurl with a string of notes only God could hear. I wrote out of pain, loneliness, confusion and desperation. I needed to keep diaries. I never said, “I really should write every day.” I wrote every day and it was a cross between a school girl’s cry and a banshee’s screech. I was compelled to write as surely as a leech needs to suck blood from a dying man. I was compelled to write because I was depressed and it was how, bucket by bucket, I pulled myself out, if only for the time I was actually writing. No halo effect. No resonance. No satisfaction. No after glow. In this way writing, for me, is like a contact sport, a staring contest, a long and exquisitely held grudge, a splinter. That’s what writing is like for me.
And for you, Boo boo?
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Posted on October 21, 2019 by betsylerner
“Life is a racket. Writing is a racket. Sincerity is a racket. Everything’s a racket,” as spoken by none other than the late, great Nick Tosches (1949-2019). I have to admit, this quote comes about as close to my life philosophy as anything I’ve ever seen. Insincerity is also a racket. Love is a racket. Friendliness is a racket. Hopes and dreams: big racket. Being nice, gossip, NYC, racket, racket, racket. Nature is not a racket. Good self-esteem may seem like a racket, but it isn’t. Your book advance, your number of followers, the idea of following is a racket. Publishing is a racket. Believing that you can make a difference is not a racket, though it often gets dressed up as a racket. Rachel Maddow, Starbucks, Netflix, New Yorker, the guy on the home page of Chase on-line.
What’s your racket?
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Posted on October 15, 2019 by betsylerner
What exactly does it mean to be in love with the sound of your own voice and why is that a bad thing, apart from the fact that it’s bad a thing. How does it manifest? Cleverness, for sure. Overwriting. Showing off. Maybe ascending to the second highest rung of the ladder is more canny or effective than going all the way to the top. False humility is also a form of it. Skipping down the keyboard like Lolita. It’s one of those things: I know it when I see it.
Are you in love with your own voice?
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Posted on October 12, 2019 by betsylerner
I’m thinking about subtitles and jackets and promotional copy and blurbs. I’m thinking about how hard we try to get it right, get the book “positioned” in the marketplace. I like to stalk people in bookstores and observe what books they pick up, linger over, leave or buy. Do they read the blurbs on the back cover? Read the first line or paragraph. A book is like a guy at a bar. Sure, I might like how he looks but do I want to take him home? What makes a person whip our their Visa? Even after 32 years in the book business, I feel I am a student of book packaging. I once worked for someone who always said we were “overthinking” things when we went around in circles trying to come up with the best title and subtitle. He was also fond of saying that life was too short when it was taking too long to agree on a jacket image. So what? Settle? I guess the way I feel is this: when I stop giving a shit about all this stuff it’s time turn in my blue pencil.
When do you turn in your pencil?
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Betsy Lerner 