Aloha from the Nutmeg State! How the fuck are you? I know this is obscenely soon to check back in after my Oz-like disappearance from the internet, but holy shit on rye I finished my fucking screenplay and I owe it all to you. Well, first some august readers have to weigh in, but I finished the fucker. Do you feel me? Now I get to submit it to agents, producers, pimps and prostitutes. And be taken down a peg or two or three or four million. Courage Lerner! Courage Five Pumpkins in a Belly! Courage Wipeass!
And I finally figured out what I want to do next. And, yes, I am on my meds.
WHAT ABOUT YOU? Anybody home?
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One last question for 2012: 
Dearest Darling Readers of This Blog:
Hi Guys: It’s finally happening after four years: blogger’s block. I don’t want to write about Random buying Penguin, I don’t want to write about e-books, or having lunch with editors no matter how wonderful they are. I don’t want to write about rejection. We eat it for fuck’s sake. I don’t want to write about my screenplay and the nausea at the back of my throat. I don’t want to write about Amazon, or my mother, or therapy, or solitude, or holidays and how John CHeever started drinking at nine in the morning. I don’t care about facebook, twitter, tumbler, instagram, and anyone else I’m not including. I don’t care if this little ship goes down so long as for some amount of time something happened that might have gone unnoticed but produced a small change in a person who, like me, was stuck.
Do you ever introduce yourself as: a poet, a novelist, a writer, a scribe, a journalist, an essayist, an ink man, a doodler, a sailor, a puppet, a cheerleader, a spy. ANd what do you do for a living? I torment people. I type. I scratch. I hope. I’m a screenwriter; would you like to touch my Oscar? Yes, it’s heavier than you think. Yes, I could kill you by bashing it into your stupid skull. From this you make a living? WHat do you think he makes? After taxes and commissions? How much of your home office do you write off? Do you get your agent a Christmas present? I write press releases and THEY ARE GREAT. I write grant proposals and would rather hang myself in a half-filled yard. I write jingles. Text books. Holiday cards. Recipes. I’ve written over four hundred love letters to a man who doesn’t love me. I text. I twat. I instagram. I tumblr. I love. I eat. I snow. I can’t stop crying and I don’t really want to. I am an artist. A prophet. A season in hell. I myself am hell. I am an agent.
My daughter and I saw a young man perform his music tonight. It was an incredible night watching this performer give all of himself, surrounded by like minded musicians who collectively filled the space with their passionate music and voices. The young man was full of energy, intensity, was emotionally open, and whose voice had its own unique sound, an extraordinary range full of soul, jazz and pop. Later, my daughter asked me if I thought he would make it. I thought about myself at twenty feverishly putting my poetry collection together, all I lived for. Two years later, I was working a conventional job, health benefits (for the shrink) and a 401K. What’s the moral of the story: if opting out is an option take it. If opting out isn’t an option, you are prepared to sacrifice. You have a fierce work ethic. You have a freeway in your brain. You might explode. It’s cliche by now, but you have no choice. And that’s just your starting point.
Yesterday, a client sent me a note that nearly made me cry. She said that if I ever questioned why I do this work, I shouldn’t. She went on to say how much I helped her, especially in organizing her thoughts for a future book. Others have said it. One writer amused me once by saying with surprise, “You’re good at this.” But yesterday, those words really lifted me because I do, from time to time (and by that I mean always) struggle with my desire to write and my work. I’ve always been more devoted to my work because I need to be connected to the earth the way a Thanksgiving Day balloon is tethered by so many cables. First as an editor, and now as an agent, my work with writers has saved me. Work has saved me. The rest of life I don’t know what to say much of except of course my daughter, my half scratched diaries, the shoeboxes filled with letters, clippings, ticket stubs and brightly colored candy wrappers. A game of Uno with drunken friends, sex in a Tanglewood parking lot, a long slow cruise down the Nile reading Faulkner.
I loved the writing. The writing is fantastic. She’s such a wonderful writer. What exactly do you mean when you say that? It’s like saying a person is a good lover. Yes? And? What moves are we taking about? What makes you good? Or, she’s an amazing cook. Pies? Roasts? THat carrot cake? Donna is great friend! Does this mean she’s a great listener or has an unending supply of Percocet? Saying the writing is great is like saying sex is great or food is great or Donna is great. For me, if I have to say one thing (and I don’t because it’s my fucking blog), it is the feeling that I am in the hands of someone who is in control, who knows what they are doing.
In the fifth grade, I mispronounced the word “breast” as “breest” while reading an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem aloud to the class. I also pronounced the name Reggie from the Archie Comics as if it rhymed with Peggy. ANd while we’re at it, I mistook the Rolling Stones song “Angie” for “I Inject.” My favorite example comes from a bookseller who told me about a woman who came into his store looking for a copy of Tequila Mockingbird.
Betsy Lerner 