Uncategorized | Betsy Lerner

Now You Won’t Stop Calling Me, I’m Kinda Busy*

Posted on August 23, 2010 by betsylerner

Good god, how do the bloggers do it every day? I know people who get paid to do it, so that’s one thing, but right now I have a fever and some kind of all-over body ache and I can’t even keep the goldfish down. (The ones by Pepperidge Farm, not the kind that silently judge you while you make love with your spouse.) Anyway, I wanted to at least say hi and leave you with something, anything, to keep you hanging on till Lerner gets back.

These images are from a website called Better Book Titles by a comedian named Dan Wilbur, who was bummed everytime he went to the bookstore to browse and couldn’t tell from the cover or jacket copy what the heck the book was supposed to be about. So he made new covers so America could get the gist. Some of them are funnier than others, you know, but this is the best thing I saw today through my fever haze.

Is The Girl With the Pearl Earring Tattoo worth reading? Cause when books get this popular I simply skip em.

* This post was written by Erin Hosier, who has studied under Betsy Lerner for 2666 years.

Filed under: Books, Media, Uncategorized, Writers, Writing | 17 Comments »

I Put a Spell on You*

Posted on August 20, 2010 by betsylerner

Ilan is the one on the right. Visiting Auschwitz.

A little known fact about Betsy Lerner is that she rolls with a posse of young men who all worship her. To this day my hottest, youngest ex-boyfriend is always texting me, asking after Lerner. What would Betsy think of this? Will she come to my new girlfriend’s housewarming party? It’s eerie. She just connects with the young men in a way that I think eludes most of us. Or maybe it’s not just guys – she also worked her magic on me when I was a girl of 25, and she’s totally tight now with Yale’s best offering to America, the great publishing intern, Casey Blue. But my favorite of all her boys is Ilan Zechory, the young man pictured at left. He’s happily pre-engaged with a very capable girlfriend, but if I were even five years younger I’d try to show him my vulnerable side. That’s how funny and cool he is. Anyway, now we’re both just happy to be part of the Lerner Posse, and I thought ya’ll would like to hear from him about it.

Ilan, for the folks at home, how did you and Betsy meet? Betsy and I took a screenwriting workshop together at Yale. I was an undergraduate and she was the continuing education lady. During the first couple classes, every time someone said something stupid or bizarre, she’d desperately scan the room to see if anyone had noticed. I noticed, and we bonded. We quickly moved on to pre- and post-class chit chat, snack-sharing, etc.

Do you have other older-than-you woman friends or is Betsy the first? My grandma is the OG killer lunch date, but she’s a shrink, so she tells great stories. Betsy is, however, the first mature woman I can talk to about NSFMom content (nudity, violence, strong sexual content, my “art”). This has been psychologically fortifying. Betsy’s not going to like this answer at all…

I know, but I think it’s cool. She really is so down and gives the very best advice. For me, recently, we were talking about relationships and she said, “You know how everyone always says that you have to love yourself before you can really love someone else or be loved in return? I’m here to tell you, you don’t.” She always says exactly the right think in the moment. Can you remember a piece of advice that BL gave you that was really good? With me it’s a lot of of “No no, no, it’s NOT shit” type stuff, trying to keep my self-loathing in check. I could look back through my emails and find something more aphoristic. One time she told me “Your twenties just suck…” and that I should hold out for a better decade. That’s a thought that’s sustained me pretty well for the past few years.

Your first job in NYC was with Google, right? Are you writing? What are you doing now? After college I went to L.A. to work as a writing intern for David Milch. After a while L.A. started to make my teeth bleed, so I googled “good job in new york” and ended up with a job at Google in New York. Betsy wrote me a killer recommendation letter littered with false statements. I quit that job at the height of the recession (baller!!), and now I split my time between practicing clinical hypnosis and running Rap Genius, a website that explains the meaning of rap lyrics.

See what I’m saying? Don’t you think Lerner should open a school for wayward youth?

Wonderful Commenters: Besides wanting to hear your favorite Lerner one-liner or advice, what I really wanna know is: have you ever been hypnotized? And what was it like? What does it do? Should we throw Ilan some business? Can I watch?

*Betsy Lerner is on vacation so this post was written by Erin Hosier

Filed under: Friend, Screenwriting, self-loathing, Uncategorized, You Go Girl | 20 Comments »

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face*

Posted on August 19, 2010 by betsylerner

I have a bad habit. Okay, I have several, but here’s the one I’m most proud of: I think I can tell how somebody writes by looking at their author photo. And basically that’s how I decide which of the Important Books to skip, because really, who has time to read them all? Before you have a freakout about how mean I am, I swear it’s not a beauty contest. It’s more subtle than that. There are some bushy browed dogs out there who still do it for me, who really seem to inhabit their faces the way the voice inhabits the page. I’m looking at you Philip Roth. Not a beauty, but a Dick That Gets the Job Done. Ditto Bukowski, says my friend Sean. Maybe Fran Lebovitz isn’t a conventional beauty, but I like the vibe she gives off in a photo.

Jonathan Franzen, not so much. I mean, way to man up for the cover of Time, homie. I know he’s America’s Author, but all I see is America’s milquetoast. I suppose he’s conventionally handsome and the article mentions his perfectly tossled hair, but I look at his face and I think of the word limpid. I flash back to how he deprived Oprah’s masses of his gifts on the grounds that he didn’t want to, or something. I see pictures of Jonathan Franzen and I think of all the emo narcies who ever tried to teach me to crochet. Five bucks says he sits down to pee.

This is why I haven’t finished The Corrections and why I’m making it my Life’s Goal to make it through the new novel. I have a feeling it’s a much more rigorous Forrest Gump. Even as I write this I feel that guilty tug of you guys in my ear: You don’t even know what you’re talking about. All the reviews are raves. Read it before you judge. But I’m telling you I’ve already made up my mind.

Botox. I’m not against it. There is a way to use injectables in moderation, so that you still look like you’re made of flesh. But Mary Karr: frozen in bitchface. Can’t read her stuff, don’t like her attitude. I imagine if she were a visual artist, she’d paint in menstrual blood. Her perma-scowl makes me want to pick a fight about the origins of her stupid faith.

For Botox done well, see John Grisham, Jackie Collins and Justin Bieber.

Who can’t you help but loathe on sight?

* Erin Hosier, whose blog style is “on the rag,” is not the same person as Betsy Lerner, whose blog style is “perimenopausal” and on vacation.

Filed under: Agent, Authors, Bestseller, Books, Literary Agent, Media, Uncategorized, Writers | 53 Comments »

Good Morning Baltimore

Posted on August 11, 2010 by betsylerner

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?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 25 Comments »

I Don’t Care If I Never Get Back

Posted on August 9, 2010 by betsylerner

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?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 29 Comments »

The Silence of the Lambs

Posted on August 1, 2010 by betsylerner

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?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 33 Comments »

All My Bags Are Packed

Posted on July 29, 2010 by betsylerner

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?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 21 Comments »

In a Hollywood Bungalow

Posted on July 27, 2010 by betsylerner

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

Filed under: Uncategorized | 32 Comments »

Standing At The End of The Road, Boys, Waiting for My New Friends to Come

Posted on July 26, 2010 by betsylerner

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?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 26 Comments »

Here We Are Now, Entertain Us

Posted on July 23, 2010 by betsylerner

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.

Filed under: Booksellers, Uncategorized | 20 Comments »

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