betsylerner

Drive-by Shootings

Posted on July 15, 2009 by betsylerner

For each day that I’ve been here, at the Tin House Writers Conference, I meet with nine conference attendees for a ten minute agent consult from 4:30-6:00. I never did speed dating (I was more interested in long drawn-out painful dating), but it must be a little like that, you’ve got this tiny window to make an impression. Boom!

Some writers are like the little bird in the children’s book, “Are You My Mother?” In the story, a mother bird goes off to look for food. The infant bird awakens and falls out of the nest. He wanders the countryside asking all manner of animal, cow, horse, dog, etc., “are you my mother.” Of course the book has a happy ending, but it always broke my heart, maternal longing being what it is.

Others come somewhat shattered from a rough workshop session. Others come with questions written down on index cards. Index cards! Some of the writers are all over the place and you feel the ten minutes ticking down as they race to get everything in. With some, I dig a little, curious about their project, their day jobs and lives. With others, I begin to wonder why I was born.

Last night, I broke through a shyness wall and hung out with the big game, the published authors. Drank.

Filed under: Authors, Writers | 6 Comments »

Dear

Posted on July 14, 2009 by betsylerner

Half-way through the conference. Just thought I’d mention that the bathrooms are co-ed. Gave a rousing talk this morning about query letters. Spent a couple of hours at Powell’s bookstore in downtown Portland and never got out of the poetry section. Met Walter Kirn. Cool dude. Breakfast with Dorothy Allison. Coolest dude. What else? Met a new client who lives in Portland — very smart, lovely man. And played a mean game of croquet with Tin House editor Rob Spillman, his son Miles, agent Julie Behr, and the poet Kevin Young. I held my own.

Filed under: Writing | 2 Comments »

Don’t Knock a Teapot**

Posted on July 11, 2009 by betsylerner

I didn’t have a particularly literary day, unless you count going to Marshall’s, Home Depot and Trader Joe’s cause for a sonnet. I’m leaving tomorrow for the Tin House Conference. In preparation, I bought a new shirt and two bras at Marshall’s. I hope this will make me appear more perky than I feel.

I may not be able to post again until I’m back on Thursday, unless my plane crashes. In this case, I have left eleven poems, three screenplays, a third of a manuscript about my eighty-three year old pottery teacher, clay and loneliness, and thirty or more scorching diaries. I also have every letter I’ve ever received, including nearly fifty from someone in high school I never loved well enough, which I planned to use as the basis for a young adult novel. I ‘m sure I would love posthumous fame were I around to enjoy it.

**Don’t talk foolishness (from Hooray for Yiddish)

Filed under: The End of the World as We Know It | 3 Comments »

“I’m only interested in stories that are about the crushing of a human heart.”*

Posted on July 10, 2009 by betsylerner

A couple of months ago, a writer queried me with his work. I invited him to send it. Six weeks later, he politely asked if I had had a chance to read it. I had no recollection of his letter or receiving the material. I apologized and asked him to send it again, promising to get back to him in a week.

This morning I read his pages, first read of the day which is always my best and freshest. I was immediately taken with his precise prose. A superb adjective and simile in the first two pages knocked me out. Then some aspects didn’t sit well with me, then I grew restless with the story, even though I recognized his abundant skill.

I wrote him a rejection letter. I was apologetic and gave some notes about the work. Usually, I’m much more general. I knew that no matter what I said, it would ring hollow.

He wrote me back, thanking me for my time, polite again. He referenced Roger Angell’s rejection letters to Richard Yates. I looked them up and they are rich. He allowed that he believed in his work and that if the prose is fine, the rest should follow: plot, characters, setting. etc. It wasn’t like the usual letter I receive after I decline a work. It was poised and sincere and pained but not at all indulgent. And I have been haunted by it all day.

*Richard Yates

Filed under: Rejection | 12 Comments »

The A List

Posted on July 9, 2009 by betsylerner

Got one for the Asshole File today, a real doozy. I wish I could reprint the letter here, but that would be CAREER SUICIDE. I’ve heard from some readers that they’re starting their own A-hole Files, inspired by an earlier post on this very blog. Do you people have any idea how happy you make me?

Filed under: Editor, Protocol | 4 Comments »

Say It With Flowers

Posted on July 8, 2009 by betsylerner

This just in from a reader:

Hi Betsy,
My agent just sold my first book. I’m trying to act like a grown-up, but really, I feel like peeing my pants. Question: is there something special I should do to show my appreciation (besides, of course, forking over the commission?)
Thanks, K

Dear K: Congratulations to you and your agent. I know my readers would love to know what the book is, how many publishers were vying for it, how many millions the publisher is giving you as an advance. But we’re too polite to ask.

How do you thank an agent? Say it with flowers. Scotch if your agent is a dude.

One more thing: remember this feeling. You will never love your agent more than in this moment, or feel the earth a more benevolent place than now. This will eventually fade and be replaced with resentment (“forking over the commission”), disappointment, neglect and despair.

Love, Betsy

Filed under: Agent, Publishing | 5 Comments »

People Tell Me It’s a Sin to Know and Feel Too Much Within

Posted on July 7, 2009 by betsylerner

For the record, I actually had a superb day. Pitched a new project this morning and felt…hopeful. Later, some excellent dish at my agents’ lunch. Apparently, on a publishing panel at a writer’s conference, an agent, who unfortunately has to go unnamed, got up FOUR times during the panel because he was in the middle of an auction and his Blackberry was vibrating more than a Magic Fingers in the Tenderloin.I hope I can pull off a stunt like that when I’m on the agents’ panel at Tin House next week. That’s more than agenting — it’s performance art. We were going to talk about the Endeavor/William Morris merger, but we forgot to. Yawn.

Later that same day, I ran into my client on the street, coming from an interview with Leonard Lopate. He’s from Vermont and I rarely get to see him. I bought him a sandwich and we commiserated on the state of publishing. This guy won THREE major literary prizes last year and still no review from the NYT. What’s up with that?

And, finally, went to a kick ass party for the launch of Josh Lyon’s first book, PILLHEAD. My colleague, his agent, Erin Hosier hosted the bash and it was filled with people who all looked fantastic. They even had a special drink called “The Pillhead” made with Absolut Pear, lime, maybe a little Fresca and I think a few oxy’s thrown in for the hell of it.

Then, as providence would have it, walking back to the office through Washington Square Park under a darkening sky, my shuffle delivered up Simple Twist of Fate.

Filed under: Agent, Books, Client | 1 Comment »

Is It Soup Yet?

Posted on July 6, 2009 by betsylerner

A writer from New Hampshire asks: how do I know when my novel is finished?

Dear Live Free or Die:

Poke it with a fork and see if the juices run clear.

It’s a really tough question. I don’t have any answers, just some guidelines. First, whenever it is you think are “done,” put it away for a month. A whole month, and then look at it again. You just might gain some perspective for starting the revision process.

Get feedback. Give it to three or four readers (not anyone you’re sleeping with, or the person who gave birth to you). Sometimes a writer will tell me that all of his readers had different opinions and now she’s more confused than ever. I think that indicates that the writer has yet to control the story, has not yet gotten his readers where he wants them: in the palm of his hand. If all your readers tell you that the ending doesn’t work, it probably doesn’t work. If everyone hates a certain character, you need to develop that character more deeply so that we come to love his or her flaws.

Also, if you have a nagging suspicion that it’s not quite there, it’s not quite there. I think a lot of people write without being completely certain what it is they are trying to say, the writing itself is a kind of reckoning or awakening or grappling with. But when you think it’s done, you should have some clear idea of what it is you wanted to say. What is the operating metaphor? One of my favorite quotes (paraphrased here) is by Bernard Malamud who said he wrote the first draft to get it out, the second to improve the prose, and the third draft to compel it to say what it still needed to say.

Then, I gather, it’s done.

Filed under: FAQ, Writing | 1 Comment »

This Call is Being Recorded for Quality Control

Posted on July 5, 2009 by betsylerner

I’m not going to say anything about our move, all the things that went wrong, or how Comcast has taken out a restraining order on me. That’s between me and my internet provider.

What I will say is that my new home office is beautiful. It’s a third floor attic room with a pretty alcove just big enough for the sculptor’s stand I found in the attic of my old house. And atop it, my beloved American Heritage Dictionary.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Sincerely

Posted on July 2, 2009 by betsylerner

The best thing about getting published, aside from the heaps of cash, are the fan letters. One of my clients recently forwarded a fan letter he received with the note: makes it all seem worthwhile. I knew exactly what he meant. When all the dust settles, the reviews (good, bad or non-existent), the sales (good, bad, or non-existent), the expectations dashed, the dreamed of prizes and literary acceptance proven elusive, you might be lucky enough to receive some letters from readers who felt you understood them, maybe even changed them, entertained them, and finally compelled them to write to you and say as much.

typewriter_jpg

I have this fantasy when I’m in the nursing home, wearing purple and smoking Marlboro’s, that I’ll read through all the great letters I’ve received. The best one was typed on a plain white postcard with one single sentence across it: What a fine book is The Forest for the Trees. I taped it on the wall next to my desk. I don’t look at it for encouragement or succor. It’s the look of letters banged out on an old typewriter and the odd syntax that give me hope.

Filed under: Books, Client, The End of the World as We Know It | 1 Comment »

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