The first day back to work after Labor Day is usually something of a feeding frenzy when agents flood the market with their projects. Received wisdom dictates that you don’t sell a book in August when most editors and publishers are taking vacation. Agents will stockpile projects rather than sell them in the final weeks of August. And then September with its macintosh back to school plaid and patent leather snap arrives and let the games begin. Me, I let the foot soldiers go first and then I attack. WHat? Please. In publishing, a strategy that works is a strategy that works. There are more exceptions than rules. And the inmates most certainly run the asylum. Or should.
It’s September, do you know where your pages are?
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Holiday weekend reading bag. I have two manuscripts that clients have completed (go clients! it’s your birthday), a sample chapter from a proposal in progress, a new proposal, and if at all possible, I’d like to finish the memoir on my bedside table even though I hate the big fat boot on the cover. What are you going to read this weekend? I hope you get a little time off. One last drink of summer. Love, Betsy
TOday on the subway platform, I saw an attractive couple, young, crisp in their white polo shirts. She was slightly aloof, he was trying very hard to make her smile. He would touch her arm to no effect. He’d peck her cheek. He’d peck again. She’d pull away. Then it became clear there was something wrong. I couldn’t hear what they were saying until he raised his voice and I heard him say, “I’ll try harder, I will.” She looked away. Oh, baby, don’t go there. He pulled her to him and kissed her head, then her neck, and again she shook him off. Then, she took out the heavy artillery and wiped a tear away.
Today we had a clean up day at the office and I decided to weed archived files. I thought the task would be time consuming, what I never expected were the intense emotions I felt upon seeing correspondence from three clients who had died, a beloved colleague whose emails over the smallest deals were always filled with the greatest enthusiasm ($500 from Turkey!!!), and my British agent who was like a father to me. Or the pride I still felt over the yellowed NYT reviews for some of the first books I edited or sold. THe little note cards filled with thanks and gratitude after a book was sold. The seven and eight page editorial letters. The jacket comps. Even the goodbye letters, like divorce papers, a rebuke of all you once did together and all you once had. For all those relationships that didn’t last, all the intensity long past; still, I’m sorry.
Okay. I did it. Twenty two hours, eight Coke Zeros, four low fat hot dogs, and a million cherry tomatoes (wouldn’t it just be easier to smoke?): I finished my screenplay. I said I’d do it by the end of the summer or put it on that cold shelf in hell. I fell asleep twice while writing, reorganized my top desk drawer, moved all the pictures in my office to different spots four times, destroyed my baby toes, and got the motherfucking thing done. I’m not looking at it for a few weeks, advice I’ve handily dispensed all my life and never followed. The desire to start picking at it is titanic. But I’m not doing it. I think I cracked the structure problem, and I may even know what it’s about now. Maybe. My husband asked me what I’m going to do with it now. All I could lovingly think to reply was that I would shove it up my ass. A little angry? Sure. I mean what is all this for? It’s not like I’m living the dream.
In the time honored tradition of trashing books I haven’t read, I’d like to call attention to Molly Ringwald’s first short story collection, When It Happens To You. According to the NYT today, her writing skills are on par with her acting ability. Sure, she’s an easy target. Everyone from St. Elmo’s Fire is an easy target. Was Ringwald even in St. Elmo’s Fire? Who really gives a fuck. All of those movies suck and are particularly offensive to me because they are my gen and it shames me. Where are the Easy Riders? Where are the Days of Heaven? None of the actors went on to have careers of any note with the exception of James Spader and Rob Lowe! Am I missing anyone? I heard that Andrew McCarthy is writing a memoir. I hope it’s not about his life. For my money, I would like to read the short stories of Mickey Rourke, Daniel Day Louis, and Winona Ryder.
While I was in graduate school, I worked part-time at a literary agency. My primary job was read the slush. After a few months, I turned to the senior agent with whom I shared an office and said, “It would be nice to find something good once in a while.” She laughed the dry laugh of the knowing, “tell me about it.” Her all knowingness was coupled with a weariness, squared with disgust and finished with a demi-glaze of contempt. Someone once asked me how I know if something’ s good. It bites me in the ass. Have you ever missed anything? Does turning down The Liar’s Club count? Are you afraid of missing something that could be huge? No. That’s the way the crumble cookies. If you don’t see it, you can’t sell it. Every work that surfaces did so because it was believed in. You can’t get it all. That said, if I turned my adorable nose up at anything that went on to become a “franchise” like Fifty Shades or Twilight or The Tipping Point, yeah I would want to die. At the very least turn in my agenting badge.
Met a really impressive young producer today. Heard about what he has in the pipeline, pitched him a couple of novels. Shot the shit about industry gossip. I continued to spread the rumor that Courtney Love got Ed Norton addicted to heroin when they made the Larry Flynt movie and it took him a few years to kick, which explains his disappearance in the late nineties. We trashed a movie about yuppies having babies and talked about the new Bourne which I loved, and kept the rumor to myself that Jeremy Rennert was a porn star whose cock rivals Willen Dafoe’s. YP (young producer) never, not once took out his phone while were talking. I was impressed. Some movie people actually carry a Blackberry and an iPhone as if they’re gunslingers out of a Clint Eastwood vehicle. Bam! Bam! Oh, and what about Tony Scott jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, CA. Respect. The dude made Top Gun. I love everything about this fucking business. I can’t quit you movie business.
I’m in a mixed state. Elated one minute. Deflated the next. Falling asleep. Can’t sleep. Strangely happy. Predictably unhappy. Great certitude. Grave doubt. Patient. Irritable. Loving. Disgusted. I’m clearly closing in on my writing project and I want to throw myself down a dry well.How can my script be brilliant one hour and a piece of shit the next. How can I have a panic attack at the dry cleaner and weep in the shower after a tepid workout? How can I tell every writer I know to keep on, keep going, grab the motherfucker by the throat when I’m at the bottom of a bathtub? Who am I kidding?
A couple of letters asked to be filed in the Asshole File recently and what a pleasure it was! The last letter I put in there was over two years ago! Look, the bar is very high to make it into my Asshole File, and the reason is probably because I’m such a big Asshole myself. Or, perhaps, rejection letters don’t bother me as much anymore, nor do letters from world class narcies or arrogant pricks. Or break up letters. I can take it. Of course, more subtle affronts have also been known to qualify for the file. There’s even a business card from a high ranking lieutenant from the publishing wars with one word scrawled on it: lunch? I have this nursing home fantasy where I’ll be smoking Pall Malls in a screened in porch and reading the file, along with all the letters and scraps I’ve tucked away in shoeboxes over the years, and I’ll laugh and cry as think about my beautiful launderette.
Betsy Lerner 