When you’re a writer you don’t get to have it all. You might even get less than everyone else. You have to sacrifice to be a writer. Time, socialization, daylight, sunshine, stability, reasonable goals, human embrace, recognition, hope, financial security, beach body, etc. What you do get: anxiety, therapy, skin diseases, self hair-cutting episodes, insomnia, carpal, weight gain, bleeding cuticles, poor dental care, etc. What is sacrifice, in terms of art? Everything? Nothing?

If you had it to do it all over?

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I did something today I haven’t done in thirty years. I wrote a god damn poem. I had the first line about six months ago. And the rest showed up today, uninvited, unbidden, nearly unwelcome, I gave this up a long time ago. In fact, the day after I handed in my MFA thesis I stopped writing poetry. Completely. And I didn’t suffer.  Honestly, I miss smoking much more than I miss writing poetry.

What do you miss?

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Can you game the system? Write something cynically, just for money, and make a killing? Do you read a bestselling genre novel and think, I could do that, the way some people thinks small children are every bit as gifted as Picasso? I meet a lot of people who believe this to be true, but I’ve never met one that made it work. I know it’s annoying to always hear about passion this and passion that because obviously it takes a shit ton more than passion, but I do believe nothing can succeed without it. And by success I mean cold hard cash, bestseller lists, profiles in the New Yorker, and most important getting so incredibly stoned off your own work, drunk with it, pregnant, mind on fire, the running of the bulls in your brain. That feeling of reaching for the high bar and finding it, if only momentarily, in reach.

What’s your best?

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How many times do you write, call, email, etc until you get a response? What’s the right amount of time to wait until you nudge an agent, an editor, the person with your life and livelihood in their hands? Are you a pest or pro-active? Too demanding or passive? If I write too soon, will I scare her off? If I wait too long, won’t I be forgotten. The worst is when you start bargaining: I’ll call if/when the moon is full, when the laundry’s done, after I walk the dog, tomorrow, the day after that.

Does the squeaky wheel get the grease?

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And here’s the thing about inspirational books. I don’t like them, I don’t get them, I don’t want to be a part of a vast conspiracy that wants to make people feel better, or special, or blessed. That everything, no matter what, is okay and that we’re all on a journey. What’s wrong with a dead end, anyway. With days of endless rain, and anxious thoughts. What’s wrong with constantly disappointing yourself and others.

What if the glass is empty?

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When do you decide to call it quits? A day, a month, a year, more? When do you realize the patient upon whom you are operating is dead? Bled out. You forgot to add: color, description, voice, tone, suspense, plot? Oregano? Paprika? What? What if you’re not a quitter? What if you never say die? What it this pile of pages is all you got? Can you trust that something new will come, with feathers and spit, that the guts of this will be the grease of that, that fat is only fat?

When do drop a project?

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I’ve been pleasure reading again. Yanked myself out of the TV room and curled up with a few books. I’m not hating on TV. I love to TV. I’d like to work in a writer’s room. I can binge on any series with the best of them. But when I read I just read. I don’t shop online and do email. I slow down. And I remember what I love about my job and books and all the million decisions that go into making them. I’m reading a book right now that has footnotes (it’s a memoir) and I wonder if the author and editor talked about that. For me, it’s a distraction. But the writer is also very precise and you can see the way her mind works. The gears.

Where do you stand on footnotes? Endnotes? No notes?

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Over the years, I’ve usually said that a manuscript isn’t right for me when turning it down. It’s subjective, after all. All of us have turned down books that went on to success.  Today, in a fit of honesty, I told a writer I didn’t think her work was ready. Maybe that’s as vague as not right for me, but I felt it was more helpful in some way. It needs more work. Most people want a full green light. Orange not so good. Most things need more work. The challenge is finding a writing program, workshop, teacher, editor who can really give you a full assessment, but it’s worth seeking out this kind of support when you’ve taken it as far as you can. Most of the authors I’ve taken on have put their work through tremendous scrutiny and many drafts. Have published in magazines and journals and on-line magazines. They enter the fray having built up a considerable portfolio.

When do you submit your work?

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“I don’t suppose I get the six white roses, but thanks all the same. Does this leave you as confused as ever? Sorry, Best, Truman Capote”

This little fragment of a letter cropped up in some old letters and was reported on in the NYT today. It’s hard for me to believe this makes national news, but for me totally. When I was an editorial assistant at Simon and Schuster, the Gerald Clarke biography, ten years in the making, was just coming to fruition. I lovingly transmitted the book into production (known as “Passed for press”). Ever the eager student, I hoped to get an A, and stood nervously as the Managing Editor checked off the components that made the manuscript pass-worthy. More, I went deep into Capote’s work, reading everything, absorbing everything. One night, I dreamed he was my brother, more evil twin, and we shared a Hostess Snowball on a school bus painted brown.

Who is your literary hero?

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Where do you keep your diary? Hiding in plain sight? Under your pillow. Mattress? A rock? Do you confess, boast, embroider, lie? Do you confide, testify, take an oath, prepare to tell the whole and nothing?  Do you scribble, dribble, doodle? Ballpoint, pencil, fountain pen? Do you write every day or only when you have something beautiful to say? Dear Diary: I  can not tell you how bad I feel or how much I need or how lost I am. I can not tell how these pages have saved me.

Dear Diary:

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