Posted on July 20, 2017 by betsylerner
You’re a first novelist and your mentor from the Iowa Writer’s Conference has referred you to her agent. You send your book to the agent who replies right away. At the same time, your uncle’s high school friend is a famous agent, famous for his A-list writers and unscrupulous ways. Both agents read your novel in under a week and offer representation. Your mentor’s agent has a great reputation, has launched a number of other young literary writers and is known for being hands-on. People says she’s amazing, but not that aggressive. The uncle’s friend is dazzling, seductive, represents writers who are your heroes. He is known for being all about the deal and landing big advances.
Who do you go with?
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Posted on July 19, 2017 by betsylerner
The first time you sent out a story the first time you got rejected the first time you got accepted the first time you kissed a boy the first time you started a novel the first short story the first time you saw a play and cried when the convict died. The first time you got a bad review, a good review, lukewarm, no review. What am I chopped liver? Baby in a corner. Ship in a bottle. Port in a storm. The first time you couldn’t write. The millionth time you couldn’t write. The dictionary. The dinosaur. The first time you wrote a character that didn’t smell like you. The first moment you realized you were a goner.
What was your first time?
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Posted on July 16, 2017 by betsylerner
Pip, Holden Caulfield, Lily Bart, Humbert, Ethan Frome, Miss Havisham, Portnoy. How do you name your characters? Phone book, high school year book, book of names? Or do they come to you in a dream, visions of Johanna. Do you start with a name and build from there, or does it emerge later, organically. Do you give your character a name the way you do with an infant and hope it fits. Can a name mean too little or too much? Have too much import or not enough. I once started a novel called the The Resignation of Rochelle Epstein.
What’s your favorite character name?
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Posted on July 14, 2017 by betsylerner
I can’t tell if I’m a writer because I’m unhappy or if I’m unhappy because I’m a writer. I can’t tell when everything first went wrong or right. For me writing has always been about keeping secrets, which probably explains why my first loves were the confessional poets. I’m talking about writing in a notebook in front of a painting, in front of dramatic cliff, a ditch, the front seat of your boyfriend’s Monte Carlo if you had a boyfriend or feelings for anything except yourself. I don’t know why I wanted to sit in a crawlspace under the staircase by myself writing shit down.
Where’s your writing spot?
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Posted on July 9, 2017 by betsylerner
Writers in the summer not pretty. We are indoor people. We are lumpy or bony with bad hair. We are not poolside, oceanside, hikers, bikers, or amusement park riders. We are bad houseguests, self-absorbed and antsy to get home. Brunch brunch brunch brunch. I fucking hate it. I don’t want to pick berries. I don’t want pale ale. I don’t like chicken thighs. I hate summer because I don’t know how relax.
What’s your summer?
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Posted on July 6, 2017 by betsylerner
Do you ever have one of those days when you mistake your life for a short story? When every detail is telling, every person a character, every snippet of conversation a witty quip? Do you see yourself leaving the deli after flirting with the counter man? Do you see the gumsplat and grit in the sidewalk as a constellation of stars. Is that you saying hey to Pat, the weather, the weekend, the holiday. Are those the trains pulling in or pulling out? Did a stranger leave or come to town? Are the best days ahead or behind? Do not look at yourself in a mirror.
What am I talking about?
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Posted on July 6, 2017 by betsylerner
In the middle of a big editing job: erasure shavings everywhere, post it notes creeping up my ass, hunting and pecking for transitions, new structure shaky like the legs of a doe. Looking for the heart of the thing, the lungs and liver. I fucking love this work. It’s just me and the page. Face to face. Man to man. Thirty years of a muscle. I truly believe where there is great writing a book of great beauty can emerge no matter the struggle . I loved being an editor. Was proud to tell a stranger on a train what I done for a living. Now, I’m that thing with eight legs but I still have my blue pencil. Still have a trick or two.
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Posted on July 4, 2017 by betsylerner
I’ve been reading David Sedaris’ diaries, Theft by Finding. Reading a writer’s diary is something of a guilty pleasure, like being invited into his apartment and rifling through the medicine chest, not that I would ever do that. Sedaris is so brilliant at the telling details that it isn’t surprising to find the diary filled with them, with hilarious dialogue, with life’s indignities and absurdities. What I find so moving in reading the entries is feeling how essential they were in the formation of the writer. Not just because they supply material — that’s the least of it. Every single diary entry no matter how ordinary or extraordinary reveals the Sedaris mind at work, like looking into the gears of a beautiful clock. You understand how writing is living.
Do you keep a diary?
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Posted on June 28, 2017 by betsylerner
How did everything suddenly become “curated?” I was happier when curators did the curating. Now the instructor at spin class curates the play list. The publishing imprint curates its titles. The waitress explains how the menu at the farm to table restaurant is carefully curated. The summer festival is curated. The boutique is curated. The pickles are curated. The cupcakes? Curated! The wine list, the pearl jam, the french macaroons. I sing the body curated. Collections, selections, groups of things, bunches of stuff beware. You, too, could be curated.
How does it happen?
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Posted on June 26, 2017 by betsylerner
Work parties are weird. All parties are weird if you’re a writer. They call forth all your anti-social skills. Personally, I lurk by the walls, find one person to talk to, and monopolize them. I don’t drink because of my meds, or maybe just one glass of white wine or bar hill gin and some artisanal tonic. And I don’t smoke either, except in some vestibule and or atop a manhole cover erupting with steam. It’s always great when somebody snubs you or loves you or asks about your work.
Have you ever been trapped by a writer at a party?
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Betsy Lerner 