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Fuck me dead. My friend Ilan who used to work at Gurgle told me (given my stats) that I would make about fifty bucks a month. Hey, fifty buck is fifty bucks, and then I get this REJECTION from AdSense which I don’t even want in the first place. Which is the story of my life. I don’t need this shit, AdSense. Difficult site navigations; what, were you big brothering my site. If so, can you stop Jeff? Can you bring back Lynn LeJeune? Can you help me with my fucking screenplay. Okay, no ads, no selling out. Speaking of selling out, unbidden, my fourteen year old tells me I should convert my screenplay into a romcom and “drop the drama.” This child was born to be an executive producer, or if she plays her cards right the head of Warner Brothers. DId I mention that I dared her find something on Youtube that I could sell as a book, and I’d give her a 1/3 share of my commish. She found these incredibly cool girls with a popular show, we worked with them to create a book proposal and sold it. Beats babysitting. Guys, I’m not myself tonight.
If you could sell out, how would you do it?
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I want to vomit on myself. In a sense, I already have. I’m referring of course to my screenplay, completed last night, reread this morning. What am I a fucking lonely goat herd? A refrigerator mom, a Skinner box? What am I doing? This is my fourth fucking one and they are getting worse. What am I, an organ grinder, an amino acid, a straw dog, a felt beret? What am I doing with these stumps? Wasn’t I happier for the twelve years when I stopped writing entirely? YES. Wasn’t I thinner? YES. Was able to do seventy five push ups? YES, YES, YES. Do I embrace life? No. Do I believe in love? Somewhat? What the fuck is writing anyway? What am I, a Mack truck? A pair of gold sandals? A forest full of trees? A baby carrot? Two buckets of blood?
While we’re on the subject of money, there was an 
The envelope from Penguin arrived today with the light blue sleeve. Royalties! Writing is great and all, but there is nothing like a royalty check to make the heart go thump. I can not tell you how gratifying it is to know that some number of persons found my book, stood in a line at a cashier or clicked through, and brought it home and left it on a side table, a shelf, the can. Thank you so much! I am in a good mood, dear readers! I’m going to use the money to pay for my daughter’s camp, not the jewels and blow of yesteryear, but still.
When I was a young girl, maybe ten, my grandfather called me farbisn, which is Yiddish for stubborn, bitter, truculent, dogged, and grim. This is what makes me a great agent. I am girded for this line of work. Bring it on: rejection, silence, lies, manipulation, disappointment, heartbreak, heartache, psoriasis, insult, injury, insecurity, douchery, failure, abandonment, revenge, pettiness, gossip, mind games, schadenfreude, back stabbing, pain, suffering and free-floating unhappiness. You can’t break my heart, my spirit, my determination because I am a bitter old man in an aluminum chair, a transistor radio plugged into my ear, with two days of white stubble and a borscht stain on my button down, window pane shirt and tan cardigan. Do you read me?
People always ask me when I write, their voices filled with bewilderment and wonder. I like to make up answers to this question depending on who is doing the asking. I write at dawn, I write all night, weekends and vacations, I write on the train, I write every morning for two hours, I write when I can, ha ha ha ha. I write all the time. I don’t know when I write! When does anyone write!
The other night, I participated in a fundraiser known as “Pitching Roulette.” This is where you sit at a table, and every ten minutes a different writer sits down across from you and tries to interest you in his or her work. Not a single person slipped some cash or hash under the table. That would have helped. Some talked the whole time and were impossible to help as a result. Some got so flustered they put their papers away in a fit of shame. One woman said, can we just sit here? Yes, my darling, we can sit here all night. We can sit here even though my pants are tight and I want to hit a deli on Fifth. Even though we will be getting our one minute warning in a minute. Even though I pray I can make a 9:50 movie, alone and in my heaven. One woman pitched three different projects. No, no, no. Who the hell am I to talk like this? The truth is I like helping people, even if just one person grabs on to one thought or idea and is reinvigorated. But I also feel old, tired, cynical and I don’t like it when I can smell another person’s breath and it smells like teen spirit.
Today, as I was walking to work, I heard a nice looking guy in a suit say, “I love you,” before he snapped his phone shut and put it in his trouser pocket. And I thought for a moment how fragile we all are, especially men, imagining his wife sitting at a granite counter in workout clothes, her yoga mat near the door, rolled. They don’t have kids yet. It’s early on. He’s trim and going places. Her ring swims on her finger. His shoes have a buckle. It’s starting to rain. I can’t see his face. Love you. Love you, too. On NPR, I listened to a woman describe the last phone call with her husband before he died in one of the World Trade Towers. My husband referred to our marriage as an ecosystem and in my mind it’s a fecund marsh with cattails fat as wurst, or a desert buzzing with death, or a field of alfalfa even though I have never seen a field of alfalfa. Though there were trees as big as dinosaurs in my home town and I have wrapped my arms around them and felt my veins thrum with life. In tenth grade, my friend’s father told us to never trust a man’s declaration of love before, during or after sex. Man, was that good advice.
How do you define “making it” in publishing terms? Money, acclaim, awards, or as some people swear, the joy of doing it. Getting that first agent, contract, royalty statement with a check attached. Holding your head up high at a family wedding or bar mitzvah? Having publishers vie for your self-published novel? Seeing a stack of your books in a store, or even one wedged into a shelf? The New York Times Book Review? The Daily Show? Is it fan letters? Publishing before your 30? 40? 50? Having a car sent for you? A major motion picture starring (your favorite actor). Being wooed by Andrew Wylie? A plum table at The Four Seasons ( I’m old school). Respect?
Today, dear readers, I decided to make pitch calls to a handful of movie people instead of just sending an email. My heart was pounding even though they could all be considered good acquaintances. I realize how much I hide behind email, how second nature it’s become. I think I get one hundred emails to every ten calls. I heard about an agent in LA who only uses the phone. I like to imagine it’s a dial phone. Why does that seem radical? A few years ago, I made a vow not to use email for difficult conversations. That lasted for about six seconds.
Betsy Lerner 