Kids!  Great news! We made the top ten list of worst jobs according to Health Magazine. Writers place fourth on most likely to get depressed list.  Finally, they’re taking us seriously. Here are my top ten things I hate about writing:

1) Bed sores

2) The mind games

3) Can never keep enough Imodium on hand

4) The guilt

5) Having people tell you they have a story in them, too

6) The New Yorker

7) Hearing what people think

8. Night terrors

9) I’ll fuck you up, Colbert.

10) Other writers

What do you hate most about being a writer? Don’t hold back.

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It’s that time of year when you might be wondering what to get that special agent, editor, or writer in your life.  Here are some suggestions (Kindles not included):

For him

For her

Yes you can!

From the Hemingway collection

Victorian Writing Desk

Edith Wharton's Pocket Watch

Gives new meaning to boxed set

Pen Holder

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The problem with watching too much In Treatment is that you begin to take on Gabriel Byrne’s characteristics, his brooding mien, his Irish accent, his eye twitches that signal he gets it. You start telling people to get a good look at themselves, to find the connections among various life events, to pick up the almighty pattern.  And then you try to offer a little  hope, just a wee bit of salvation or redemption or revelation. You know: insight.

I’ve always fancied myself an armchair shrink, so it doesn’t take much for me to get into character. Though, I usually wind up feeling more like the patient. Of course, I love seeing Byrne with his shrink. You know, the doctor heal thyself crap. Sometimes when I stare at my shrink, I imagine her in the most banal situations, waiting for a mammogram, running back into the laundry room to throw a Bounce in the dryer, mindlessly playing with green beans on her square plate.

Therapy is to writing as writing is to ____________________________.

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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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