I know I have a great deal to be grateful for, but I hate this fucking holiday. When people say, have a good holiday, shit, when I say have a good holiday, it always sounds like: try not to kill yourself. It’s funny, but I don’t think I’d be a writer if it weren’t for my family, by which I  mean trying to get away from them. The crawl space under the stairs. The fort behind the house. The high school parking lot. The single in Tooting Bec. The little study painted in baby aspirin orange. The quarry in Rockport. And the fat raccoon who wished me well. Every twelve-plex. Every overcast sky. Every trail littered with leaf rot. Try not to kill yourself. And by that I mean, a happy and healthy to all of you wonderful malcontents and bitchin’ ass writers who show up here every day or from time to time. I am certainly grateful for you.

What are you NOT grateful for?

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Coming home from Miami  last night, my daughter was reading Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea. A far cry from Are You There God, It’s Me Mags. And yes, I bought it for her. Look, she knows about periods. I’m a bad mother. But when I was thirteen I was sneaking Harold Robbins novels from my best friend Lisa Zimmerman’s mother. God, those books were fat and racy. You could feel yourself up reading them.

I was reading a revision of a novel that went from humming to singing. That turned a caterpillar into an ocelot, a cougar, a  raven, a bat. I don’t think there’s anything more rewarding than seeing your editorial notes be received like a pint of blood. To see an author address your notes and hit the pile of cards hard. It’s a dance, a dip, a bow, a kiss It’s lightening in a bottle. It’s that feeling that you have understood and you have been understood. I am so inspired by writers who take a sad song and make it better.

What book did you sneak? And, for extra credit, how well do you take to notes for revision?

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Robert Mapplethorpe 1946-1989

“Many would not make it. Candy Darling died of cancer, Tinkerbelle and Andrea Whips took their lives. Others sacrificed themselves to drugs and misadventure. Taken down, the stardom they so desired just out of reach, tarnished stars falling from the sky.  I feel no sense of vindication as one of the handfuls of survivors. I would rather have seen them all succeed, catch the brass ring. As it turned out, it was I who got one of the best horses.”  Patti Smith, Just Kids, winner of the 2010 National Book Award

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National Book Award reading tonight. This event lasted longer than the Academy Awards: Four hours from the welcome reception to the medal ceremony, to the reading (twenty authors, twenty!).  Some of the authors were fantastic, a couple disappeared themselves, a few had that pronounced MFA way of reading where the breath comes at exactly the wrong beat in some sort of forced air way that is both counter-intuitive and not. I fell in love with the poet Terrance Hayes. Patti was wonderful. I sat in the audience as if watching my child’s first violin recital; prouder I could not have been.

So tomorrow’s the big night. I’m not the kind of person who says “whatever happens we’re all winners,” or “the journey is more important than the destination.” Even if it’s true it sounds so gross. Though I have to admit that the best part of tonight was hearing so many voices, and thinking about all the work it took for each writer to arrive at this moment in his or her life.

So give me your acceptance speech, the one you tuck into your pocket just in case.

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If I can’t have a little mental breakdown on my blog where can I? In other words, sorry for yesterday and thanks for so many notes of encouragement. “Sometimes I think my head is so big because it’s so full of dreams.” Sometimes I think my head is so big because I’m going to the National Book Awards reading tomorrow night  and the awards ceremony Wednesday. Sometimes I think my head is shoved up my ass.

Many have asked: what am I wearing to the National Book Awards. You know it’s going to be one of those last minute decisions that I’ll make with my gut:  my black suit or, er, my black suit. Some want to know if I will be wearing heels. No. Will I get my hair blown out. No. Nails done? No? Accessories? No, no, no. I will clean my glasses with sudsy hot water. I will floss.

I expect my pumpkin to turn into a cab, my dog into a great gold Palomino, and my fairy godmother to appear either as Elizabeth Bishop or Beyonce. Steve Martin will be my prince or a footman. Sonny Mehta will be the king and I will kiss his ring. James Frey will be the jester in a coat he borrowed from James Dean. The night will be magical. I won’t look at my blackberry but once and then it will be a minute to midnight.  And then we will know what we’ve known along.

If I could grant you one (writing) wish, what would it be?

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Am I the last person to find out Houdini was Jewish? Was this all about trying to get away from his mother, or what?

I was on a panel of literary agents the other day at the New School. I doubt I’m the only person to ever enjoy an existential crisis while giving advice about query letters, but today the hammer fell hard. It began the day before in therapy where I went into a fugue state while trying to understand why I never took the leap as a writer, how it is I’ve worked to help so many writers accomplish their goals while my nose remains pressed up to the glass. (Meow, meow.) From there I went to a burrito cart and that was just the beginning. Was it a coincidence that this happened on the same day that an essay I wrote was published? And then there’s the fact that I stood up for myself when the editor wanted to cut the bit about blow jobs.

It looks like progress, it smells like progress, and yet there are the egg shells of my life spread out on the pavement, there I am ricocheting off the sides of a well, down, down, down. I have a set of beliefs I don’t believe in. I have a set of rules I don’t abide. I am still fifteen years old and I hate everything and everyone.  I am Houdini only I can’t escape. I am a chameleon that forgot how to change. Writing is a urine stained cardboard box in Washington Square Park where someone lives who isn’t me.

Does anyone know what I mean?

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A guy from Amazon came to our agency to talk  about (shark music) electronic books. Turns out he used to be a buyer at B&N. And before that he was  (shark music) an agent. A little swag would have gone a long way, some free tote bags, mugs, Kindles. Just saying.  Did you all know that you can electronically publish your book like right now by clicking here? And did you know that will get 70% of your earnings. How you get readers is another issue, and one we can talk about. But for the moment just take it in: your novel could be published and available for sale to anyone who can down load before the current episode of  Law and Order is over.

They (shark music), Amazon, have some other pretty interesting programs they’re working on for e-books. I have to admit, I felt like packing a suitcase and polishing up my resume. But then I remembered the mandatory drug testing and figured I should stay put. Then the guy said he missed agenting, or was I dreaming that part? In any case, I realized that a lot has happened in the last three weeks since I rode on the back of that motorbike in Paris, but among the amazing things was realizing that I have this ringside seat to watching intensely creative people paint themselves in corners and box their way out. And how much I love my clients (yes, you too, even after that shit fit yesterday). Okay, enough. I’m starting to sound like I give a shit.

If you had one question for Jeff Bezos, what would it be?

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I’m posting from the train from my blackberry so please forgive the even greater number of errors. I saw my psychopharmacologist today. I see him every four months for a tune up. He’s French. I’ve been going to him for a hundred years. He knows how I am just from looking at me.

I feel this way about some of my writers. It was easier when there was no email and we were forced to talk. I could usually tell by the way they said hello when they answered the phone if they were productive, stuck, depressed, manic, suspicious, blazed, or loaded for bear (whatever the fuck that means). It’s more difficult to tell how someone is on email, easier to hide. Silences are also tricky. I don’t like it when I haven’t heard from a client in too many months. I often make a mental note to call but then the day goes to the squeaky wheels.

I’m starving. I talked to students at City College tonight. So cool. I’m missing Glee re-run. It was worth it. Big day tomorrow. Five meetings starting with breakfast with the new editor in chief of Hyperion.

What meds are you on?

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This post is about living with writers. Can’t live with them, can’t get them to pay attention to you. Sometimes, my husband and I will hear someone say something and recognize that it’s a perfect line of dialogue, and  one  of us will say, “I call it,” like children fighting over the last piece of french toast.

Sometimes it’s really difficult to create the mental solitude in a house where another bear sleeps. Sure, you can tap at dawn, tap at midnight, but the books are creaking in their shelves. Teeth are aching as if from cold. The old man is pouring. Where do you hide?

Are writers the neediest sheep in the pasture, or are they self-sufficient? Where do you hide your notebooks. I only read them that one time, before we married, when I needed to know. Okay, maybe I read them again, but you never said anything about me. It was galling.

Why do writers fall for each other when they both know it’s an act?

Did I ever tell you about the time I was in Mississippi in a bar and Barry Hannah was there, quite intoxicated, waving a hunny around, asking if anyone wanted to fuck a real writer.

Dearest Darling Anyone who is reading, tell me, have you ever fucked a real writer, dated one, lived with one, god help you, married one?  Or, to put it another way, what’s it like living with you?

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My favorite part of any reading is the q&a that follows, just as my favorite part of most museum visits is the gift shop. And last night was no different. First, that awful anxiety when the crowd is asked: do you have any questions. No hands. No questions? People all squirmy. Finally, a hand goes up in the front row. Phew. A young man begins by professing his love for this author’s work, then he talks about his own generation of writers and what they have learned from her. Finally, the question comes: is there a young artist or writer who you feel carries your torch?

The writer shoves her hands deep in her jeans pockets. Well, she says, I’m not exactly ready to give up my torch. The audience laughs. Innocence and experience. I remember an author of probably six books tell me that he felt the next generation of writers breathing down his neck, nipping at his heels. He tells me how, when he was young, he typed on a makeshift desk next to the boiler in his cramped basement just to get away from the babies and noise. How over the hours he spent typing he would strip down to underwear, but how he kept writing. Those were the days!

The writer urged the young man to find his own torch. Anxiety. Influence. She said they could share her torch. I guess what I’m thinking about is: how much do you feel the so called next generation usurping you, how much does ambition fuel your writing, is it a young man’s game, how much do you love your influences or need to kill them?

Are you the young man who sticks his hand in the air first, the middle aged woman who asks a question but needs to speak up for anyone to hear her, or are you like me, a million questions burning in my head, silent torch.

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