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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"I'll light the fire while you put the flowers in the vase you bought today..."

Put my Blackberry away for the weekend. As a result, I got to the end of Book I in Roberto Bolano’s genius 2666, picked up an old project and added some pages,  and read about 150 pages of clients’ work. I also discovered why all the glasses in the dishwasher were coming out with a film of fine sand on them and fixed it. Of this last accomplishment, I am possibly most proud.

The little red light on my Blackberry that signals a new email or call is like a tiny laser that I can see no matter where it is: in the drawer of my bed stand, flashing inside my pocketbook, or in another room. We are like new lovers at a party, dying to find each other and escape so that we can be alone again. Most of the time it’s Twitter telling me someone I’ve never heard of with three followers is now following me. Or it’s a client who feels a pressing need to know her Turkish royalties for the novel she published three years ago.

It was warm enough to sit outside, and I read the Bolano while my dog madly chewed a stick. Once or twice (okay, twenty or thirty times) I patted my jacket for my Blackberry, the way I did for cigarettes when I smoked. So, apart from reading this blog, what technology is fucking with your writing life?

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Today, walking to my lunch date, I had a brainstorm about my first screenplay and how to adapt it for television.  And in the next moment, a scene for the fucker I’m currently “working on” started writing itself in my head. I took out my pad and wrote down the three key words that would help me remember the scene later: fidelity, regression, wrap around dress.

And then I went to lunch and met a new client for the first time. She had a tremendously lusty laugh and it was great to finally meet after months of phone and email. She had to run for a train, but instead of leaving with her I ordered a cappuccino (even though I recently read that people in Europe only drink cappuccino for breakfast, and when Americans order it for after lunch or dinner they appear unsophisticated, drinking a big glass of milk in the middle of the day like a school boy). But I digress.

Instead of checking the blackberry and glaring at the waitress for the bill, I relaxed for five minutes, sipped my cappuccino, and thought more about the two projects. When I was young and wrote pomes, they always started in my head and clipped along in my brain all day. When I stopped writing, the clopping stopped, too. For me, being most alive is cinematic, is my brain away from my cranium, is making up shit that is true, or rings true, or rings twice. It’s usually a good sign when I start writing in my head. However, it may also signal time to see my doctor.

Do you write in your head? More important, do you get it down on paper?

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You’re familiar with the idea, I’m sure, that you can’t really love anyone until you love yourself. God as my witness, I am married eighteen years today and I am extremely capable of loving others while still hating myself. I had a lot of time to think today, five hours to be exact, while retrieving the car from New Jersey. I mostly thought about my idea for a screenplay, never getting past the first eight scenes. I also thought about how much I hate certain people. I wasn’t actually thinking about how much I hate them, but rather replayed scenes and conversations when I felt wronged or betrayed.

Then Freebird came on the radio, and it seemed brilliant as the sun broke through a pyramid of clouds over Bridgeport. Am I really eighteen years married? During a period of severe depression, my mother told my husband that I was a lot of work, but that I was worth it. Am I a lot of work? I’ve always hated the idea that marriage or any relationship is work. Work is trying to understand a royalty statement, or pitching a book for the 29th time, or reading the 6th draft of a book, or renegotiating the Pitney Bowes lease. Am I wrong? Suddenly, I’m starving. Though I know you don’t read my blog, happy anniversary my love.

What does any of this have to do with writing?

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Hi Betsy,

Thank you for ‘The Forest for the Trees.’ Great book. Are there any forms of persuasion that entice you back into editorial hire? $$$$? Good looks? The Yin-Yang swing of your text might lead a young stud to believe your interest in things pendulous is an opening…I have an important book you see…one that could change the way we think about everything…it hinges on, of all things, the history of writing. Can you recommend a good editor? I want one. Also, I went to self-publishing boot camp and was told to fuck the system and do it myself. Do you concur?

Sincerely Yours,

The Editor and The Young Stud

Dear Sin:

So glad you wrote in. Lots of people ask me if I think about going back into editorial, but few (none) have wondered what it might take to get me back: $$$$, good looks, a young stud’s pendulum. Yes, there are things that entice me as I count my 15% at the end of the day and wonder about the riches sitting there atop editorial hill. I also like: gin, Monte Carlos, milk shakes, thread count, lipsticks, titties and fine time pieces. As far as fucking the system and doing it yourself, I prefer to work within the system and fuck myself. Thanks for writing. Sincerely yours,  B

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I have been trying to figure out who wrote the first book dedication for some time. It does seem to be a contemporary practice. I prefer books that don’t have dedications. It’s like a big fuck you that I can really get behind. It’s like: I’m an artist, this is my book, it isn’t for anyone, no one helped me or inspired me; it isn’t apologetic, grateful, beholden or indebted. It just is.

That said, I included dedications in my two books. I dedicated The Forest for the Trees to my authors. Aw. And I dedicated Food and Loathing to John. My pimp.

Since I still don’t have a bookcase, I picked up a pile of books off the floor and these are the dedications:

HOUSEKEEPING: “For my husband, and for James and Joseph, Jody and Joel, four wonderful boys.” Not my business, but what’s up with giving kids names that all start with the same initial? I guess it’s easier to sort the monogrammed towels.

THE END OF THE AFFAIR: To C. (End?)

LORD OF THE FLIES: For my mother and father (This is the single most popular dedication as far as I can tell. Weird, since most writers hate their parents or feel stifled by them.)

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE: For my friends, whom I love

BLOOD ON THE MOON: In Memory of Kenneth Millar (1915-1983) Dedications to lost friends and loves always move me. You’re not going to get any credit from the person, so it’s really pure, a salute.

THE AREAS OF MY EXPERTISE: Offered This Day with gratitude to KSF (I can never find fault with John Hodgman, even for this hyper-formal and too-studied dedication.)

EVIL TWINS: Chilling True Stories of Twins, Killing and Insanity: For Audrey and Mavis Hirschberg: my own identical twin cousins. (I know.)

Last, I can’t find the book, but I believe the poet Charles Simic dedicated one of his poetry collections “To Her” because it wasn’t clear whether she would be the same woman from the time he started the book to when he published it. If that is erroneous, my apologies. If it’s true: dude!

I would love to know what you think of dedications, if you have any good ones to share from books of your own: either published or planned.

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I would like to talk about something that very few people talk about: skimming. Do you skim when you read? And if so, when? When you’re bored, when the section doesn’t interest you, when you just want to know what happened? And for how long? Just a few sentences, paragraphs, whole chapters? And do ever get anxious that you missed the one important detail that will explain everything in the end? Do you skim fiction and not non-fiction, or the other way around? Does everyone do it but no one admits it? Or are there purists out there? I remember when I found out my best friend in the third grade read the last paragraph of each book she read before she started it; I was shocked. Aren’t there laws against such things?

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Last night in L.A., eating Thai take-out and watching episodes of 30 Rock on Hulu after a long day of meetings.  The night before I met my kid sister for dinner. She’s casting her pilot and was having a hard time finding the right young woman for a certain role when I spotted a gorgeous young woman sitting on a banquet at 9:00. I told my sister to check her out and immediately she saw what I saw. We asked if she was an actress and, eureka! she was. My sister told her a little bit about the show and then then asked for the name of her agent, which she put in her blackberry. My sister’s casting director will call the young woman’s agent in the morning to set up  an audition. Only in LA, kids, only in LA.

Star Meter: 0

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