Dear Readers of the Blog:
It’s been so long that I almost forgot how to sign in. I miss you! I apologize! Anyone out there in the writing trenches still around? As you may know, I’ve drifted over to TikTok where I’ve been reading snippets of my diaries from my twenties. I’ve found a big audience of mostly twenty-somethings who relate to my ongoing quest for love, sex, poetry, identity and friendship. It’s been an incredible experience rereading them. One theme threaded throughout is trying to be a writer, a poet, part of some larger literary world. Followed always by lots of doubts about being a poseur, an imposter, just not being good enough. There are thirty diaries in total. I’m on #21 when I enter my MFA program and start spiraling big time. It’s really painful, but also sort of beautiful to see how forty years later, I’m still the same girl, or certainly can access her, but to also know that some of those dreams came true.
Sending lots of love and high hopes for the new year. FTF! Catch us up!
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Betsy Lerner 
Happy New Year, Betsy. I’ve avoiding Tik Tok, but now I must check it out.
Karen
Hmmmm, I’d had a gate up around Tik Tok, but maybe now I must reconsider! Regardless, getting your blog email in my inbox made my day, and your sustained, dogged/intrepid efforts and joy (at least my perception) at being a writer in the world with others keeps me going every time I see an example of it.
Not sure why it says anonymous – but my name is Jennifer Ruth Keller and I am subscribed to your newsletter (just so I’m not looking like a hidden voyeur.)
Hi Betsy, I have been missing your seeing your blog appear in my inbox.
I am continuing to work on my memoir and cut it down to a respectable 75K word document as you suggested. Just too hard to determine what to cut on my own so I have enlisted a wonderful experienced editor to help and progress is being made. As the scourge of gun violence continues in our country I want so badly for my story of the personal experience of gun violence to be shared with others.
Hi Betsy! Wishing you and everyone a joyful and fruitful 2026. Glad your diaries are connecting with a younger crowd. As for me, I hired a best selling historical fiction author from Reedsy (which I highly recommend) as a developmental editor for my novel Maimie Mimi Maimie: Girl Prostitute Reformer. That’s the working title. Rereading it, I discovered I started writing it in 2014!
Gail
Hi, Betsy. Good to see you again (as always). I drop by here every morning to see if you’ve come back by. It only takes a second to open the tab (between Krebs on Security and Bluesky) and take a look. Sometimes I see you on El Libro de la Cara and give you an upfist there. I don’t Tiktok, time is tight. HNY!
Oh how I miss you and the writing rabble here.
Regarding a catch-up, well not much at this end. I have just about tossed my Scrabble set of ideas, articles, op-eds and newspaper column pieces and have settled down to a writing world of manila folders filled with clips in a file cabinet. That this is the close to my writing dreams makes me sad but I am relieved beyond words. No more deadlines. I have written two novels. (unpublished). Some friends printed copies of one, had them spiral bound, passed them around and egged me on to pursue ‘the dream’ but…..though I occasionally take it out and continue final edits I am filled with the enormous responsibility of the task it takes to become traditionally published at my age. So, here I am catching up and letting go. Miss you all, especially you Betsy because within this huge world of words you are/were always the most honest among the rest.
Happy New Year writers and may your endeavors end up as big fucking successes 🙂
Carolynnwith@Ns
PS Hey, it wouldn’t be me if didn’t throw a “fuck” in there.
That was me Carolynnwith2Ns
Hi Carolynn,
At 74 closing in on 75, i threw caution and 2500 bucks to the wind. I’ve hired a bestselling writer to developmental edit my 1st novel (I have another and a novella) who says she guides writers towards publication. I recommend you check out Reedsy (elite editing agency) for the “fuck” of it. You never know!
Gail
John C. Krieg
Yeah – I feel the uncertainty inherent in sitting at the keyboard, staring at a blank screen, and wondering if what I’m writing today is any better than what I wrote 10 years ago. Ken Kesey had this problem which led to his dearth of material, although what little he did write was ultimately great. Salinger, for all his accolades, was never particularly prolific on the publishing front.
I too have my struggles with imposter syndrome which fuels self-doubt. Plath said that it is better to have written than to write. At least it’s easier on the ego. But a writer writes or might as well call themselves a, “former writer.”
At this advanced age, I wince at the thought of starting every conversation with every new person I meet with the words, “I was.” Your words in TFftT ring as true now as they ever did: The only one that can make me stop writing is me. And it’s the same for you. And neither of us is going to stop.
Thanks for returning to this blog. It’s like a shot in the arm because your honesty motivates me. There’s just no getting around it, this writing thing is hard work no matter who you are.
John you have inspired me. I don’t want to be a “was.” I guess really want to an “am.”
Again, it’s me Carolynnwith2Ns who should read and edit before sending. John your words have hit home.
Thank you. I don’t want to say much more as this is Betsy’s territory.
john…
What a joy to see your name in the ol’ inbox. Thanks for the shot across the bow, or drying pine bough. I’m pulling out old sketchbooks that contain all the embarrassing thoughts and cringy feels. My plan is to dump thin colored ink on them, then paint around and over them. Honor past me, then mess me up.
Am I fashionably late?As you know Betsy, I’m a BIG fan of your TikTok vids. Or maybe you don’t know, but either way, you’re rocking it out there. You’ve got something special with those 30+ diaries. Wow. I couldn’t keep up with that one little book with a lock I got when I was eight. How you did that, I have NO idea. Kudos, either way. What you write, and share resonates, for sure. The latest is a beast. What I’ve discovered is when you write a book like Promiscuous and then try to follow it? 🤢Struggling. That’s been my word of the day for months.
So glad I clicked on your icon today! 2025 was a year of tragedy for me; my writing efforts suffering from the heavy toll of sorrow. Still, I’ve managed to slowly find another Normal: while sorting through my late son’s files, I found a trove of (mostly incomplete) short stories he had written over the past two decades. I’m now ghost-writing/editing those stories with the goal to have them published to support the memorial fund I established at his alma mater.
Hmm. Looks like I’ve been given anonymity: this is Karen from New Orleans
God bless you in finding a way to carry on. His stories are certainly a precious gift. If you don’t knowvit, Permission to Thrive is an amazing story.
Sorry to hear about your loss, Karen. Best of luck with the work you’re doing to keep your son’s spirit alive. Peace.
-MikeD
Dear Betsy, you posted this on my 44th birthday, and, I also just (just now, moments ago) finished reading The Forest for the Trees, which I greatly enjoyed. While I am not on TikTok, I do hope you will write here more often. All the best in 2026.