Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, Bret Easton Ellis returns with a new novel, his sequel to Less Than Zero. Man, does 25 years fly by. I was an editorial assistant when LTZ came out. How many words in Eskimo are there for “jealous.”

I picked up the Metro paper on the subway this morning, featuring an interview with BEE. Huge picture, wearing aviators, holding a rocks glass, jacket, shirt no tie, a whisper of chest hair, a grin-almost-smile, with LA fogged out in the background. He walked out on NYC after 17 years in favor of my fantasy home, LA. I didn’t even know he was gone. Like they say at Yankee Stadium when you hit one over the fence, See ya’!

The interviewer comments, “Nice author photo. It seems to sum up your life in LA.” BEE responds,” Every single author photo I have has been carefully choreographed. I wanted this one to look older and douchier than that louche young man in a loosened tie I took when I was 21 for Less Than Zero. This one took two days to pull off.”

I love him for that. Especially the internal rhyme of “douchier” and “louche.” I so flubbed my author photo it’s not funny. Granted, it would have taken more than two days to pull it off, still. What are some of the worst author photos you’ve ever come across. And what the hell do you want from a writer anyway?

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Vivian, what's this stuff worth?

A relative I haven’t heard from for years leaves a message. I take a week or so to return the call, torn between guilt and aggravation. He says he has something to send me. For a brief moment, I imagine that some more crappy jewelry has turned up that belonged to my Grandmother Frieda. But no. It’s exactly what I think it is: my relative has a friend who has written a memoir. Would I take a look? No one, to date, has ever gotten in touch with me because they miss me or love me.

The most memorable was a woman who stole my first college boyfriend. Can anyone steal anyone else? Of course not. The guy cheated on me with her. She was pretty in a horseback riding kind of way and had super shiny brown hair. Turned up a few years ago with a well crafted letter and box of pages. Really? There are like thousands of agents in this cow town. Please, don’t send me your fucking manuscript, don’t pretend we had something in common, and whatever you do, please don’t catch me up on your life. The chatty part of her letter is what really galled me. Why not just say: I fucked your boyfriend and I’d like you to read my manuscript. How about that for a change?

Am I being small? Should I admire any writer for using whatever he has to get an in? Is that what it takes? How far would you go to get an agent or editor to read your book? I’m really a pisher when it comes to pushing my own work. Maybe that’s what this is about. On the other hand, she fucked my boyfriend.

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You talkin' to me?

Two summers ago, Irwin Winkler became interested in my screenplay, Sugar Mountain. Over a six week period, he gave me notes and expected me to turn them around in a week, which I dutifully did, gleefully did. I didn’t agree with all the notes, and when I bravely objected once or twice he disarmingly replied, “Give it a try.” It was impossible to refute. I was old enough to appreciate what I came to feel was a master class in screenwriting. Irwin, in essence, taught me action.

At the end of the six weeks, his assistant called and asked if I could meet Irwin, now back from Capri, at this apartment in the Pierre. Okay. We spent one hour together going over the script. As he thumbed through it, he suggested a few more tweaks. One or twice he said something like, nice job.  I would send in the cleaned up draft and he would send it to the actor for whom he had it in mind. Someone, by the way, who I always felt was wrong for the part, but if Irwin wanted Charlie the Tuna to play my lead male, that would have been hunky dory with moi.

When I left the apartment that night, Irwin shook my hand. “One question,” he said, “Sugar Mountain, what does it mean?”

Obviously it didn’t go anywhere. I sent it to a bunch of other producers. One nibble, enough to start crafting my academy award speech once again. Then, silence. This post is dedicated to close calls. Do they kill you or make you stronger?

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Came to NYC to go to BEA parties: Google, Bookforum, Tin House.  Wore my one frock, high heels (and if you know me this is absurd), and a touch of make-up. It was 92 degrees a full moon refused to focus above the Chrysler Building. I had my game face on when something happened, not a panic attack exactly, just a flush of anxiety tinged with desperation and petulance. Did I really want to go? Who would I see? Should show my face. Why? And so it goes, a revolving door of doubt, immaturity, ennui. Am I part of this world? Am I a part of any world? The funny thing is, I always have a really good time at parties. I suspect that when your expectation is dread, nothing can be so terrible.

Instead, at the charmless midtown hotel, my husband and I shared a can of peanuts and a bottle of wine. We had a really good talk, even about some really difficult stuff to talk about. The moon came into focus.

Dearest darling readers of this blog: are you party animals or do you chew off your own limb in some dark corner of your mind. xxo

p.s. this post is late because I was too cheap/principled to pay for wi-fi in the hotel in case you were wondering.

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Are all writers narcy? Is it an occupational hazard or prerequisite for the job? I once dated a writer whose bedroom was lined with framed jackets of all his books. After  I slept with him, he loaded me up with copies of all of his books as I was leaving. Thanks!  How narcissistic are you and does it help or hurt? What does it really feel like to sit down with that notebook or computer? Just you, beautiful, terrible you? And what of those pages staring back?

Suggested reading:

What Narcissism Means to Me/Tony Hoagland

Advertisements for the Myself/Norman Mailer

Me/Katherine Hepburn

Food and Loathing/Betsy Lerner

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Can you teach writing? Asked another way, is talent god-given or genetic? How much does hard work matter? Where does drive come from? Are some people hopeless? What is a gift? How important is publishing in the writing equation? Asked another way, is writing fulfilling enough on its own or is it only consummated when you see the words in print? And what is it, exactly, to see those words in print? What is the charge?

Why am I asking all of these questions?  Because every writer I know is bummed out, disgusted, or irate. And every agent I know is thinking about an exit strategy. And every editor I know is whistling a happy tune so no one will suspect she’s afraid. Because the bar for rudeness gets lowered every day. Because it’s all so fucking hard. But mostly because in the face of all this: tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Music to my ears.

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You park the car at Walgreen’s, can’t remember what you came for, trying to remember feels like trying to do quantum physics. Four boys, young men, cross the parking lot. They are thin and own the asphalt with their enormous untied sneakers as big as boats! They will grow into them like puppies into their paws. They will be great lovers or crappy lovers; they will never remember the feeling of  being this loose. I get out of the car. Moth balls for my husband, hair conditioner for my daughter. Swick and swanky, long and lustrous, mango peach. Didn’t I need something?

The woman at the dry cleaners is flushed from the steam. She wears a ring of fake diamonds on her middle finger, too loose for her delicate finger.  A sign says they clean Uggs! I love watching her punch the cash register. In fact, I love to watch anyone punch a keyboard, especially airline ticketers with their fast claws. Why does it cost more to clean women’s clothing? Is it our special stench, the mix of cigarettes and sadness. Diet coke and pancake make-up? How we leak! I am back in the car, my husband’s ten shirts lay flat in the backseat, quiet as a corpse. I sit in the car for a few minutes. The heat is suffocating, all enveloping. I know there’s somewhere else I have to go.

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On Thursday, April 22, 2010, I attended an event at Regis High School in Manhattan. It was in celebration of my client’s book, Wisenheimer, about a hyper-articulate kid who becomes a pariah as a result of his excessive verbosity until he discovers his salvation: debate. Instead of your usual reading, Mark Oppenheimer organized a debate between himself and Hanna Rosin, they were partnered with Joseph Eddy (Regis ’10) and Claire Littlefield (Stuyvesant ’10). Readers, in a word: delightful.

In a few more words, it was fantastic to listen to the verbal sparring of these brilliant seniors and rusty world champions. I fell in love with Clair Littlefield, a young woman of poise, charm, guts and abundant smarts. The debate proper “Resolved: That American Political Dialogue is in Trouble” was followed by a series of Regis High School boys, er, young men, who were given a few minutes to contribute. Did I say confident, nearly cocky, assured and adorable. A night of blue blazers lining the balcony. It was one of the great book events I’ve ever attended. It was the spirit of words and their power, the spirit of blue blazers, and the spirit of great debate. When I was in high school, I may have debated my friends over which rolling papers we preferred, but that was about it. I was awash in nostalgia for something I barely knew existed.

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Can you believe I save these things?

Today, in the mail, I received a first novel with a note from the editor, “Hey Betsy — My first acquisition, a real book, at last.” I was so touched by that, remembering so dearly what it meant to acquire that first book and see it through the stages of editing, production, pre-publication jitters, post publication depression. One of the first books I signed up was The Early Arrival of Dreams by Rosemary Mahoney. We met at writing workshop at Johns Hopkins University. She was a teaching fellow, I was a lowly poet.

As with everyone I’ve ever fallen in love with, her writing was the way to my heart. When she went to China the following year, a series of letters she produced were so vivid and alive that I suggested she write a book about her time there. Ballantine offered her a modest advance, and we were off to the races. I can’t remember a more heady time, or a prouder moment than seeing Orville Schell’s full page review of her book in The New York Times. That was hot.

Would love to hear about your first time, loosely interpreted.

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Agents’ lunch today. One of our charter members has decamped to a new social networking company. I’m only surprised it hasn’t happened before now. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve never spent too much time writing about e-books and the future of the book. It’s not that I don’t find it interesting, or that I’m a technophobe, or that I’m glib about it. I just don’t feel that I can do that much about it. I have to stay focussed on my writers and helping them get contracts, and get their books written, and help them find lecture agents, and publicists, and accountants and shrinks. Okay, I admit it, I don’t give a shit about e-books. I was the last to get a vcr, phone answering machine, word processor (I loved my typewriter), the last to get a computer, cell phone, blackberry (the love of my life). So when I have to read on a Kindle, iPad, Tampon, whatever, I will.

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