Writing from the Towson Sheridan after the talks on all things agent: how to find one, query one, fire one.I tried to stay upbeat except for the one moment when I think I said to prepare for a life of misery.
Now, I’m having a Law and Order relapse. Damn, I thought I kicked this thing.Oh, god, gotta go, Detective Benson has to make a hard decision. More soon.
What are you addicted to?
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Thanks to everyone for such warm birthday wishes. I had a great day. Yankees, hot dogs, old friends, lots of cards and calls, and all you wonderful commenters and one lurker. A lurker!
I’m too happy to post tonight. Happiness has never fueled my writing. Personally, I’ve always thrived on misery, depression, anxiety, and rage.
What fuels yours?
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I was never the kind of person who dreaded Mondays. On the contraire, I looked forward to them. My work life as an editor was fulfilling, exciting, challenging. My weekend life was depressing, lonely, and anxiety-ridden. I’m also an early riser — on Sundays, I would have read the NYT, done laundry, cleaned my apartment, read a manuscript, and it was still too early for brunch. (Not that I wanted to go to brunch. I hate “virgin Marys.”)
Now that I basically have my shit together (i.e. married and medicated), I”m a little less psyched to start the work week especially after a vacation. 400 emails await. Many with those little paper clips attached, and I can hear them screaming: read me, read me first. Read me now!
Okay, read for two hours. Then Hung and Entourage. My lime seltzer (livin’ large). Meds and bed.
What’s you Sunday night routine? Any writing getting done?
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Posting from my Pinkberry at LAX where plane is grounded due to mechanical difficulties. So more apologies for sub-par post and no graphics. Also, the sanitary pad isn’t working.People all around me on devices of all kinds. Read that Kindle is releasing a thinner, cheaper model. Press releases between Bezos and Jobs are exchanged like bullets across enemy lines and all for…books. It’s downright flattering. I’m lugging my hc 2666 where another girl is brutally murdered every other paragraph and I’m standing by the printed page. I’m standing by paper and glue and boards and headbands.Blah, blah, give me the blah. Had one amazing meeting in LA. This could be it but don’t want to jinx. Globes. Emmy. Globes. Emmy. Or as my daughter says, Mommy, what will you wear. And, omg, what will we do with your hair?
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Thanks to everyone who called the domain name problem to my attention. It should be resolved within fortyEight hours.
I’m on the road and posting from a sanitary pad. As a result, I have no idea how to find most punctuation let alone the beautiful pictures that usually adorn this blog. For the record, I usually hate vacation because I love routine. I also feel that any time off should be used for writing. I also do not care for the pressure of having fun. That said, I am in good spirits, deep into book iv of the 2666 which is extraordinarily disturbing, and visiting lots of indie bookstores and filling in my poqetry collection.
Tell me true, do you like vacation? As a writer, is there any such thing. Can you turn it off? Would you want to?
Tell me, can you ever take a vacation as a writer? The
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If you’ve been reading this blog, you know I have no friends. Well, no friends outside of publishing. And they’re only your friends until you get shit canned. Last night, I met some civilians and they were asking some of the usual questions, how do you find authors, how do you know if a manuscript is good, is there any money in it?
–You mostly find authors through referrals (and this does not include my mother who loves nothing better than to foist a manuscript on me by the son of a lady she plays bridge with). A good referral is usually by a client, or a writing teacher, sometimes (and I’ve been lucky here), an editor. This is probably because I was an editor and they think I’m not out to screw people. (Apparently, they didn’t get the memo.) I also find authors the old fashioned way. I read a lot of stuff and call people/writers who I think might have a book in them. Sometimes they are flattered, but spoken for. Sometimes they are flattered but are too busy doing “real” work. And then, every once in a great while, the writer is not represented, has some pages he or she is working on, and it’s like where have you been all my life. Though the writer was hardly under a rock, it feels as if you have discovered him or her and you can barely contain your desire to share this writer with the whole world.
–How do you know if a manuscript is good? How do you know if a scrambled egg with cheese on a roll is good? How do you know if fucking in a stream is good? How do you know if a man driving down a highway will, when he arrives at his destination, either kill someone or himself?
–Money. What’s money?
What questions do civilians most commonly ask of you?
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Remember the moment in BIG when Tom Hanks presents his ideas for a new toy and his jealous colleague played by John Heard snarks back, “I don’t get it,” in an attempt to short circuit the presentation. Of course, it backfired because this is a feel good movie.
In publishing, there is an equivalent moment at editorial board. A passionate editor (maybe young) presents a book he or she loves and wants to acquire. Some (usually senior and vaguely threatened) editor says, “Who’s the market?” or “Who’s going to read that?” Look, they are valid questions, but it’s the smug, dismissive way they are delivered that sounds more like: can I piss on your face?
Maybe I’m sensitive, but that’s what it sounded like to me. An editor has to come prepared to a meeting knowing that she is going to face the eventuality of that question being asked, whether by John Heard or an editor with a few flops he’s trying to live down.
And that is why it is most excellent for you, dear author, to have some sense of that. Of course you will work with your agent to put a pitch together. But if you’re pitching to get an agent, then you should also try to make some cogent comparisons. And don’t say you’re the next EATPRAYLOVE. Comparing yourself to an inexplicable phenomenon is a mad mix of hubris and magical thinking. Of course, if you find a lovable animal stuffed into an overhead compartment of a plane that goes on to rescue everyone from hijackers, then you, by all means, should compare your book to DEWEYMARLEY et al. This is a hungry market.
Ask yourself, who is going to read my book. Actually, fuck that. Just write it.
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Let me just come right out and say that there is almost nothing more beautiful to me than a jacket that is perfect for a book. And by perfect I mean that it gets you to want it before you’ve read it and makes you want to keep it afterwards. I think the beauty of book design is more crucial than ever as readers have the choice whether to buy and read a physical book or download one into their assbook. But I cared deeply about this long before you could purchase a file. Since I was very young, I didn’t even want to read a book if I didn’t like the jacket. I discovered some of my heroes because of their covers: Houseboat Days, In Cold Blood, Day by Day, Horses. But it’s not just the art, it’s the marriage of title and art, the way they work in tandem.
What I really hate more than anything is what I fondly call a Massengill cover, just some douchy artwork that is as generic as the crap you see at a street fair. It usually has a title to match like The Bland Daughter, or Heaven’s Happy, or Marco’s Oil. And the authors look like suburban women who sell real estate by day and are vampires by night. The men I can’t even talk about because they are scary as in: may I help you with your groceries, miss?
Please write in with your favorite jacket covers ever, if you like. Especially a book you bought just because of the jacket.
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A fiction writer recently asked me if she should take a poetry class, sort of to jump start her writing. I thought it was an interesting idea. Look, poetry is always a good idea. But, I thought, there must be others: What about a violin class, or snow boarding? What about having an affair with a boarding instructor who is missing part of his arm? What about shoplifting? What about staying in your house until you’ve eaten everything. Hello, smoking! Remember how well that used to work? Hitachi magic wand. Go to therapy. Get on the couch. Do it. Talk about how much you want to blow your therapist, how you really don’t hate your parents, how everything reminds you of something you ate. Am I forgetting anything? Work in a bookstore, volunteer somewhere, trompe l’oeil the garage! Clean! Throw away five hefty garbage bags full of stuff. Pick your face, pluck your eyebrows, moisturize. Read a book that is 1,000 pages long. Cut up your credit cards. Stop talking. Write in long hand! (Betty Lerner is a big believer in the long hand!). Get up at 5:00 am. Just get up. Or, stay up all night. Become delirious. Get a dog. Get a divorce. Get a physical. Use index cards. (Big believer in index cards!) Remember: no one cares if you write. Not god, not the angels, not the editors who turn tricks on 42nd Street. In fact, some people would prefer it if you didn’t write, would sooner see you wriggle on a hook for your whole feckin’ life than reel one in. What could be more liberating? Do it precisely because nobody gives a shit. Because language has not yet begun to go bald. And you are a star.
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I actually don't eat clams "trayf" but wanted to throw in some local color.
I was a guest at my sister’s Cape Cod house this weekend. There was a moment, I swear on my Little Necks, when everyone was reading! My sister was reading Abraham Verghese’s new novel for her book club. My brother in law was reading a Harlan Coban, my nephew was “reading” on his ipad, his fiance was reading some upscale trash that looked really good, my daughter was reading Member of the Wedding (school reading list), and of course I was happily reading a manuscript.
Later, I killed everyone at mini-golf. What about you?
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Betsy Lerner 
