There was an article in today’s NYT (god forgive me for starting a post  with as lame an opening as that. I once had a boss whose entire social skill consisted of asking if you had read a particular article from either the WSJ or NYT. I always felt I had to read both papers when I worked for him and cram before I went in every morning, but I digress) about marginalia, where will it go in the digital age, who will care? I am big believer in the margins. The scrawls and doodles that make up a conversation between reader and writer. I once saw a project about Plath’s marginalia. I didn’t ultimately work on it, but it was pretty amazing stuff. A young woman went through Plath’s personal library and copied out her marginalia. It was as if Plath thought Dostoyevsky was personally writing for her. And the ways in which his ideas informed her poetry were also astounding to see. My marginalia is a touch more pedestrian. I once found an exclamation in my college copy of The Interpretation of Dreams in a passage about family destroying the self in which I remarked: that’s me! I also write words I don’t know in the backs of books and page numbers for passages I like when I don’t want to cock up the book.

Do you write in books?

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I spent the weekend putting the finishing touches on a writing project. I’m talking everything from catching typos, to seeing that a scene was missing, to sharpening up some dialogue, to making a final decision about the last scene in which I have taken a chance. Crazy or canny? I feel like a nervous bride on her wedding night. A clown in a dunking booth. Polly want a cracker. This is the moment no one has been waiting for.

How do you know you’re finished? How do know if it says what you want it to say? If it says what it needs so say? How do you know you’re ready to let it loose. What happens if the world’s indifference greets you with open arms? Does it matter to your future work? How do catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you pour a new foundation, pull a weed, remember those beautiful little packets of garden seed?

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Though I am a fully functioning human being to all outward appearances, I’m in that half-mummy, half-zombie state. In other words, I am in search of the perfect sub-title for a book I’m about to submit. The title, in this rare case, is a no-brainer. And I’d tell you what it is, but I can’t. The title is straightforward so the subtitle doesn’t need to explain it so much as offer some promise. There are all the usual sub-title variants:

How to Go Fuck Yourself

Seven Steps to Fucking Yourself

The Rise and Fall of Your Fucking Self

A Journey of

The Road to

The Path of

The Way of

A Meditation on

A Ballad of

A Song of

Notes On

The Philosophy of

The Psychology

A Short History Of

I will show off and say that my sub-title for Food and Loathing was brilliant:  Food and Loathing: A Lament. It was so brilliant in fact that the publisher made me change it on the paperback to the vomitrocious: A Life Counted Out In Calories. I cut this deal so they wouldn’t put mini shakes, burgers and fries on the jacket. You’re actually glad to see a book go out of print with that shit on it.

Do  you have any feelings about sub-titles one way or the other?  Did I miss any?

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I’m giving a talk tomorrow night.  I know that craftwork sounds a little like witchcraft, but it’s going to be good. Come if you can!

Craftwork with Betsy Lerner

Mercantile Library

17 East 47th Street

New York City

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After two years and three months of posting every day with the exception of guest bloggers when I’m away, it finally happened (and I know it happens to everyone and it’s not a reflection of my masculinity), but I couldn’t get it up. I started one post after another and I just didn’t feel it, couldn’t muster the desire or passion or just plain bone for life.

My head is swirling with the comments of the last few days and I don’t where to go with that. Much is happening at work, but I’m duty bound not to talk about projects and clients in play. I’m in the middle of three writing projects and suddenly feeling that a train is about to hit me as I dance on the tracks. And someone said my blog isn’t really about publishing and I feel defensive and wounded. Imagine that! My writing book is about publishing from an editor’s perspective, but the part that people seem more interested in is the inner life of writers. The wicked child and all that jazz. Touching fire! All that matters is release. I think that’s why I write. Bring my roots rain.

Have you ever had this problem?

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When I was hospitalized, a very good friend from high school, a writer friend,  wrote me a letter nearly every day for six months. She was the only person in high school with whom I shared my love of poetry. Under cover of darkness, we exchanged journals. The letters were deep and intense, addressing  much of what I was struggling with including my tenuous hold on life and battle with depression. She had strong opinions on these matters and her letters annoyed me as much as they helped me. She could not understand how a person could give in to depression. She didn’t believe in psychotherapy. She hated drugs with a passion. But still, those letters were amazing, just the fact of them, counting on their arrival, the familiarity of her penmanship, the pale green pages she tore out of a notebook. When mail arrived each day, I’d put her letter away until I could savor it in the day room on a worn out couch with a cigarette or two.

We fell out or apart soon after I got out. We exchanged one or two letters over the next few years. She told me that she quit writing and  had become a doctor. I found the letters over the weekend. They were all tied up with a string, a fat package. I couldn’t bring myself to read them.

Was there anyone in your young life with whom you shared a writing bond? Anybody now?

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Dear Betsy Lerner:

Do you ever wonder if there are great books that are not getting published? Name WITHHELD

Whenever people ask that question, it always sounds suspiciously like: is it possible that my great book won’t get published? Or is it possible that the great publishing machine might miss a great book or two? Or is there a great genius out there who does not seek publication? Or who has possibly given up?

There are a lot ways to think about these questions. Emily Dickinson always springs to mind first. Imagine sitting on the equivalent of all that literary dynamite and not seeing any of it published in your lifetime. If she were alive today she would be Lady Gaga. I think about JD Salinger who was one of the world’s great haters and wouldn’t let the likes of us besmirch his later works with our cloddish reviews and insufficient love and understanding of his characters. And then, of course, the Pulitzer Prize winning Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole whose mother got his book published posthumously in the aftermath of his suicide (a book I’ve started a few times and have never finished).  Do I think there are great books not getting published? Well, I know there are a lot crappy books getting published.

What do you think: are great books not finding their way into print? Or does the cream always rise?

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Dear Betsy: Much of the work I do is written in 14-point font, but publishers and others request 12.  Why the 12 when 14 is easier to read? NAME WITHHELD

You know, every now and then you get a question that touches you deeply. That cuts to the core. Font size is one of those issues. Like penises, they can be too big, too small, or just right. 12-point is the standard, friend, don’t fuck with it. And don’t go all Boldoni or Helvetica on my ass either. Bring it in 12 point type, Times New Roman, double-spaced paginated pages because there is nothing uglier on the face of the earth than an agent who has reached over for  a sip of her Numi ginger tea and dropped an unpaginated manuscript all over the floor. And while we’re at it: don’t use colored paper, don’t use personalized stationery especially if it’s decorated with a quill, a typewriter, kittens, or a tiny shelf of books,  don’t include a picture of yourself (really, do not), no little gifties like chocolate or gift cards especially if they’re for Cracker Barrel, no perfume, or CD’s, or a small horse made out of ear wax. Don’t do anything cute, or funny (as in ha ha), or cheeky, or silly. This is not an audition for American Idol. This is your manuscript. Keep it holy.

Tonight there is only question: what the fuck?

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Today has seen all the colors of the client rainbow. One was super cranky about his publisher. Another was intimidated by her publisher. One wanted to fire her editor. Another was pissed about publicity. One was grateful for his starred Publisher’s Weekly review. One was going nuts waiting for a contract. Another was waging war with his editor over catalogue copy.  Another was thrilled with his jacket. (It is a kick ass, home run, slam dunk jacket.) One needed reassurance that he could write. Another wanted to have coffee to talk about new ideas. A new client needed help with his proposal. And one little piggy  ran all the way home — turning in the final chapters of a novel that’s been in progress for a few years. And he nailed it. Dear Lord, help me help all my clients achieve their dreams. Help me help them.

What do you want from your agent? And if you don’t have one yet, what do you think you’d want?

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