People always ask me what I’m looking for as an agent. Besides a house in Santa Barbara and a lifelong supply of Ambien, I usually say something like “prize winners or page turners.” Or, “I’ll know it when I see it.” Or something else equally evasive. I’m not trying to be cute, it’s just really hard to describe. Today, I read an interview with theater producer Sonia Friedman and she said, “I don’t want the writer to write what I want; I want the writer to write something that I didn’t know I needed. And that’s been the rule for me throughout my working life, to do with the thing that’s almost impossible to articulate, which is a about a feeling, about a chill, about a goose bump, holding your breath and realizing that time has stopped and I’m lost in another world, and if that happens, I’m all in.”
I’ll have what she’s having. What makes time stop for you?
photo: Sip and Feast
Filed under: Uncategorized |
Betsy Lerner 
I was listening to that song on repeat yesterday. Sadly it was while I was cleaning up, so not staying messy.
John C. Krieg.
I think I’ve developed a pretty keen radar for the standardized kiss-offs of editors and agents, and I try to remember that they really didn’t have to say anything at all and thus take those rejections (over 3,000 and rising) with a grain of salt. There’s one that I get every once in a great while that gets to me every time: “I read your query with great interest, but the writing didn’t move me as I had hoped.” First, I believe that they actually did consider the piece and give it a fair shot which is something I don’t always believe. And second, I take a little heart that the query was okay, that the platform was adequate or at least not a deal breaker, and that I least came off as professional enough to get to the sample reading stage. But then, lose all hope ye who enter here, because the writing didn’t cut it, and the truth hurts.
I do appreciate the brutal honesty they display, and that you’re likewise displaying here. The reason it tears me up so much is that I believe something that you wrote in The Forest for the Trees. Paraphrasing, you said that with some work you really didn’t think any amount of changing would really make it much better and that frustrated you to no end. That’s how I feel about this comment I occasionally get. While I feel that there is always room for improvement, after 34 years of hammering away at the keyboard, I really wonder just how much improvement am I really capable of? The old dog/new tricks syndrome. There is the benefit of practice and sheer tenacity, but I often wonder does it really make that much difference? I can only hope.
There are things I do, such as take a different angle on that piece, get right back up and write something else, or pray that someone else will feel differently. What I want you to know is, that besides the honesty, I admire that you trust your instincts, even when you are not entirely sure where they are coming from. I believe that you truly are looking for something that rattles you or brings you to tears, not just how much potential income it could bring you. The latent impulses of a true poet. You have the skins on the wall to show that your well-honed instincts have served you very well.
“What makes time stop for you?”
I’ve worked for so many years in a field where time is billed by the tenth of the hour, and before that served and paid out in eight-hour shifts, and before that measured in classrooms and marked by buzzers and bells, that I find myself enmeshed in our culture’s web of time-based accountability, just another fly writhing helplessly, unable to escape.
Here’s what makes time stop for me -the event I describe below- echoing what Sonia Friedman said – “the writer wrote something I didn’t know I needed.”
Last week, I had the opportunity to introduce a DCL author at a book talk:
“When this book came across my desk, I confess I had never considered reading about the topic but once I started, I was engaged by the writing.
As a noted book agent has remarked: ‘I can be interested in any subject an author is working on by the writing—it’s the writing that will draw me in. If you can tell me what brought you to the subject, you can bring me there.’
Which is exactly what I experienced.” [time stopped.]
(Source of quote: Writing Books for Readers Beyond Academe | How to get an Agent: Betsy Lerner [run time: 12:56])
Dottie Jeffries posted March 24 10:04 am comment.
What makes time stop for me: writing and researching, reading almost anything, Haagen Dazs chocolate ice cream or coffee ice cream, watching the waves rise and fall on Lake Michigan from the chaise longue in my living room. And then, musing about how very blessed I am to be able to experience all these things.
Right now? The Wedding People by Alison Espach. Absolutely hilarious, but with depth. It’s like she’s got a degree in psychology or something. She’s certainly able to describe the characters emotional state with the expertise of one.
Sometimes it’s good to read out of the box. I’ve been doing this lately because you can learn from any really good book.
At any rate, I get what you’re saying, and while it might seem like a vague/iffy answer, the gist of it is it’s no different than “regular” reading by us commoners <– haha, meaning, I know what makes me swoon, (or makes time stop) too.
One that I’ve been recommending to everyone is Two Step Devil by Jamie Quatro. (just won the Willie Morris Award in fiction) I couldn’t get over her ability to bring me into the world she created. Then, I set aside a book recently by someone who wrote one of my favorite all-time books ever.
C’est la vie!
What makes time stop for me? Beautifully written prose that doesn’t jar me with discontinuities but rather enligtens me with new insights on what it means to be alive, and most of all, seems to be speaking to me alone. Our secret. Insane, yes.
Almost the only thing that makes time stop for me is writing. I was raised by strict Scandinavian parents and I’m incredibly time conscious—I’m almost never late for anything. Unless I’m writing—then I can look up from what I meant to be a 5 minute thought and hours have passed. I also forget to eat.
The real love of jesus christ does. Once you accept that and come to know it, nothing else matters.
beauteous! Global Bamboo Industry Booms as Sustainable Alternative 2025 bonny