THE FOREST FOR THE TREES is about writing, publishing and what makes writers tick. This blog is dedicated to the self loathing that afflicts most writers. A community of like-minded malcontents gather here. I post less frequently now, but hopefully with as much vitriol. Please join in! Gluttons for punishment can scroll through the archives.
If I’ve learned one thing about writers, it’s this: we really are all alone. Thanks for reading. Love, Betsy
Over the years I’ve tried to read Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. I’d never get more than 15 pages in. Some people I deeply respect say it’s their favorite book. Still, it continued to dog me. And I didn’t want to read any subsequent books of hers until I read this one. I’m a little rule maker like that. I started it again last week and boom I was at page fifty. I found the language so fresh and arresting. Something unlocked and the book let me in. I really don’t know why a book lets you in or locks you out. Is it the book itself or your circumstances, your “mood,” or your “readiness.”
We all know I’m jaded, blah, blah, blah. But I still do feel a sacred responsibility when I am the first reader on a book. It’s a moment in the life of a writer and the life of a book when the finger paint is still wet, when the colors are vibrant and livid and shiny and happy to be hung on a string against a wall of construction paper. I’ve often felt that life recapitulates kindergarten when it comes to ribbons and pats of on the head and your first taste that a bully is mean just for the sport of it. When I read a manuscript, I’m harsh and unholy. It’s not my job to deliver a soft boiled egg. But then I figure out a way to say it, to hold a mirror up to the mirror and ask, did you want to look this way? Is this your best light? What can you see that you couldn’t see?
Whenever I read that someone is leaving a job to spend more time with their family, I’m like no you’re not. It’s a euphemism for getting fired and it truly sucks that you’re fired. But spending more time with your family is no consolation.That’s worse than any boss giving you and your ideas the stink eye. Worse than having to sit by yourself in the corporate cafeteria with a cold helping of mac and cheese and some runny green beans. “Loyalty to the family is tyranny to the self,” a quote I’ve remembered my whole life from a woman in her nineties whose adventurous life took her around the world by steamship. When I met her she was home bound, reliant on a magnifying glass to read and kept company by a goldfish in filmy bowl. Small though her world was, she donned her artist’s smock every day, and studied her art books. I worshipped her. My family nearly came to blows on vacation over whether we leave for Portland at 10:30 or 11:00. Yes, a half hour took us down.
Going on vacation for two weeks. You can probably guess I’m not terribly good at vacations. Going on vacation, when you’re a workaholic, is like sending an innocent person to prison. The goal is to look at my phone twice a day. Sleep eight hours, or six. Stay off Ambien, and trust me it hasn’t been pretty. And to read FOR PLEASURE. I really hope I can hack it. I’ll miss you guys.
Betsy Lerner 