I just read an hilarious column bashing Facebook, or MyFace as I like to refer to it, by Matt Labash in The Weekly Standard. I would link to it here, but who am I kidding, I have no idea how to link.

I myself tried to go on Facebook after getting the feeling that it would somehow be “good for the career.” Which career I’m not sure: agent, writer, new blogger, professional self-hater, whatever.

Here’s what happened: friend requests. I’m not from the friend request generation. When I was growing you made friends by having rolling papers on hand. No one asked to be your friend and you didn’t “accept” or “decline.” Also, what’s this with “getting poked?” I remember driving a bunch of CIT’s around at camp one summer and one girl in the back seat, we’ll call her Wanda, had just slept with half the waiters. “What can I say,” she said, “I like getting poked.” Why I remember this 100 years later is beyond me, but the term seemed exceptionally revolting to me back then and still does.

I’m also a diehard Woody Allen type vis-a-vis the club thing and not wanting to be a part of one that would have me. Here’s a list of things I haven’t and won’t join:

synagogue (sorry Mom, not now, not ever)
book groups (no, no, no, no)
jogging group (that’s what they invented IPods for)
PTA, or any school related function
any volunteer group

I lasted two days on MyFace. I’ve worked hard to lose people in my life; I couldn’t afford to have them pop back up. I also couldn’t bring myself to use the word “friend” as a verb. And the less I know about what my exes are up to the better. Do you feel me?

Finally, when you sign off of MyFace they ask you tell them why and there’s a list of reasons to check including too much drama. Check.

Tell me your MyFace experience.

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Audrey Niffenegger, the woman who wrote the Time Traveler’s Wife, just received a five million dollar contract for her new novel from Scribner. This is what EVERYONE is talking about today. I was flabbergasted to learn that the author kept her foreign, audio and CANADIAN rights. I’ve heard that the book is “good,” “what her audience wants,” “thin,” “needs edtiting,” is “really good,” is a “big gamble if her first book was a fluke,” “is a smart bet,” “you do the math,” “the p&l does work.” The agent was reported to make publishers come to his office and pick up a copy of the manuscript, well, their messengers. I would like to know if any grapes were peeled, as well. Am I jealous? You do the math.

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Fetching as I look in this crepe paper tunic, I am going a little insane as I wait for Dr. Fox, now over a half hour late. What does this have to with publishing? Patience, dear reader. Nothing except that I want to point out that two women in the waiting room were reading Twilight. I should have been reading a manuscript, but I was in the Blackberry zone, you know, where a person is one with her device. I was recently at a dinner party where most of the people were putting down the Blackberry, you know, trash taking my bff. I love my Blackberry so much, I’d marry it. It’s like an electonic pack of cigarettes.

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“Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.”

a) Kafka
b) Beckett
c) Tony the Tiger
d) Camus

This life affirming quote was brought to my attention in Dwight Garner’s 3/7/09 review in the NYT. He points out that BECKETT, a chatty Cathy if ever there was one, left more than 15,000 letters.

What’s your favorite quote? Anyone out there?

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Last night I went to the ceremony for The Story Prize. Larry Dark, who brilliantly organizes the event, was fantastic as he interviewed the writers as if they were on Charlie Rose or The Actors’ Circle. And the hall at the New School was packed, SRO. The best part was that I actually settled down and enjoyed the readings. I have this disease called author-readingitis. It’s an occupational hazard. The symptoms are: extreme fidgeting, scalp and lower leg itchiness, cuticles complaining, and deregulation of body temperature. Of course, all this is about my own writerly frustrations. But last night I was able to actually listen and enjoy the readings and interviews. I think in part it was because it was damn heartening to see such an enormous crowd gathered together for short stories. And also because the quality of the work was first rate. Oh, the finalist were Jhumpa Lahiri, Joe Meno and Tobias Wolff. Wolff won.

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I had lunch today with my client, Dave Cullen, author of Columbine, a book that has been ten years in the making. This has been one of the most challenging projects I have ever worked on — it is also one I am deeply proud of. It’s an astonishing piece of reportage, an in-depth portrait of the killers, a hearbreaking depiction of the community. The structure is a beautiful piece of architecture. The portraits are indelible. Ten years. To thank me for my work, Dave gave me a beautiful Waterman pen with one word inscribed: Stronger.

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1) He wears a tie with images of a craniotome (tool for drilling holes in the skull); 2) He’s sixty; 3)Atonement has sold over 4 millions copies (that’s a lot of fish and chips); 4) According to McEwan, “Narrative fiction is primarily about withholding information.” 5) He likes to take long walks. 6) He was in a Friday lunch club over which Martin Amis presided. 7) He “hunted for scorpions in the desert with a jam jar and roughhoused in the Mediterranean” with his domineering and temperamental father. *Thanks to Daniel Zalewski’s 2/23/09 New Yorker Profile

P.S. My favorite quote in the article, “McEwan is a connoisseur of dread, performing the literary equivalent of turning on the tub faucet and leaving the room; the flood is foreseeable, but it still shocks when the water rushes over the edge.” I think that’s a great description of suspense. P.S.S. Wearing a novelty tie under any circumstances is not acceptable unless you are pediatric oncologist.

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For some reason this week I found myself explaining how to write a non-fiction proposal to a few different writers. One of the first things I always explain is that no two proposals are alike, like snowflakes. Though I’ve always been doubtful about that. I think the chances are pretty high that at least two snowflakes are the same if not thousands and millions. Anyway, I don’t have a cookie cutter approach to proposals.

The best advice I have for any writer who is trying to figure out how to start a proposal is to sit down and imagine that you are writing a letter to me. In other words, it’s important that the voice is direct and somewhat intimate as you outline your thoughts and describe the scope of the project. It’s always good if you can include a memorable anecdote or two. Just don’t sit down and think you are writing a grant proposal or a college application. It’s your voice as much as your idea that will be of interest to editors. Obviously, if you are a historian or scientist or journalist, for example, you want to strike a more authoritative tone. The point is that the writing in your proposal should showcase the writing in the book.

So many writers say, I don’t know how to write a proposal, or I never wrote a proposal. And they want me to give them samples. I will supply samples, but I think it’s a mistake. There’s no trick to writing the perfect proposal and each proposal should be tailor made to the writer and the idea. You can sell a 6 page proposal or a 60 page proposal so long as each page does what it needs to do: seduce.

Technically, you basically need four components. An introduction or overview (this should evolve from the “letter”). You’ll need to add an annotated table of contents and a sample chapter if you’re a first time author. Your bio/credentials/platform is very important, where you’ve published, worked, how many millions see your blog (like mine!). If you’re writing a memoir, chances are you have to write the entire book (like a novel) in order to sell it. Other works of non-fiction can fly on a proposal. Also, please have a great title. (More on titles in another post.)

Others may disagree, but I don’t think you need to supply a lot of bogus marketing information such as the population of Jewish people in America if you’re writing a book about the history of the bagel. However, if your father owns a chain of 2,000 bagel restaurants where they will sell your book, that would be good to know. Or he invented the bagel; that’s interesting. Please don’t compare your book to the latest bestsellers like Blink, Eat, Pray, Love, and The Devil in the White City. Yes, publishers would like to acquire the next Blink, Eat, Pray, Love, and The Devil in the White City, but it’s better for them to read the proposal and say, Eureka!, this is the next Blink, etc. Or leave it to your craven agent to tout your project as the next Blink, Eat, Pray, Love, or The Devil in the City. It just looks naive at best and pompous at worst to say: look, over here, I’m a bestseller before you’ve even written your book. I once went out with a guy who told me on our first date that he had a nine inch cock. And that’s what it sounds like to me, claiming in a proposal how big you are. You may, indeed, be the next big thing, but isn’t it better to have someone else say: dude, you’re huge!

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Why is everyone so needy today, or do I have the worst case of PMS known to mankind? Speaking of PMS, there’s a feature in today’s NYT about a young (like 19) year old woman who put together an anthology about girls getting their first period. It’s called My Little Red Book, I think. I had an early opportunity to represent this book and I passed because I didn’t think that anyone would want to read about getting your period. Did I make a big mistake? Are you there god, it’s me Betsy.

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I hate to admit to watching Barbara Walters, but her interview with Mickey Rourke provided all the Oscar entertainment I needed. When asked what it would mean to win, Rourke replied, “Well, Barbara, you can’t eat it, you can’t fuck it, and it can’t get you into heaven.”

This is about as close to a world view as I could hope to embrace.

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