I’ve often talked about the peak moment in an agent’s life when he gets to tell a writer that there is an offer. What I’ve not written about is all the rejection any agent has to shoulder on behalf of his or her clients, and how those rejections get processed. For me, they only make me stronger and in that way being a stubborn bastard has suited me in this line of work. My mother once said that I never think I’m wrong (not a compliment), and that I always get what I want (again, not flattery). What she missed in the observation is that I’m a determined mother fucker. I eat rejections for breakfast. I paper the walls with them. Make origami. The longer you hold my head under the water the happier I am. Not at first; I used to flail. You couldn’t survive as an agent if you didn’t know how to cope with rejection and help your writers cope with it as well. Last week, I had to deliver a rejection to writer. His response was the best: no worries on passes, my main fuel for writing is revenge, anyway, so he unknowingly just gave me a boost.
Do you write out of revenge? And if not, why not?
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Do you think before you write? Or do think as you write? Or do you write first and think later? Or do you write to figure out what you’re thinking. Do you write in your head? In full sentences or fragments? When I was young I would say, I just write. ANd what I meant was I don’t plan or think about what I’m going to write. it just comes out, and then I work with it. Now, with screenplays, I figure it out down to the index card, but that’s because a plot it required. These posts: they explode from the constellation of stars in my head, the tiny petals of a daisy plucked to death, a datebook covered with extravagant doodles from the point of a classic ball point pen. They come from the well of a car door crammed with maps, napkins, receipts and wrappers. From a Neil Young sky and some beloved old boots.
What is true? What is real? What is authentic? What if I told that the story about the little girl having a meltdown at the bus stop was a fiction, if I made it up, or if I only witnessed the mother grimly walking off the bus and fabricated the rest? Would you feel I was a bad person? A good writer? Would it make any difference? Does a writer have a solemn pact with a reader to tell the truth or is she a master manipulator? Are things more real because they happened? Why does fiction sometimes feel like it holds deeper truths? Poetry even more so? THe more people responded to the story the more disgusted I felt with myself for writing it even though I wrote it as close to my memory of it as possible, down to the Hello Kitty backpack. And I’ve thought of that little girl and that mother many times, entering the short story of that moment in their lives as I did, by chance.
This morning while I was driving to the gym, I saw a little girl, maybe six or seven, refuse to get on the bus. Her mother picked her up to put her on the bus, but the girl thrashed so violently that the mother had to step back off the bus, nearly losing her balance. Then the girl wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist. A line of cars had formed by now, no one going anywhere until the school bus lifted its stop sign. The mother leaned over the little girl and whispered something to her. By now all the kids on the bus pooled around the front to taste a piece of the action. Then the mother tried to disentangle herself from the daughter’s grip, but she wouldn’t have any of it. She picked her up again, the small body ramrod, and with even more determination hoisted her on to the bus. I heard her scream, “you have to go to school.” And then the mother descended the bus steps, her head low, and marched grimly home. The school bus heaved a sigh, or so it seemed, and carried on. The ten or so cars also rolled along Dayton Street into an otherwise overcast Monday, each thinking their own thoughts. Me, I cried.
If you’ve been reading the blog for any length of time, you know that I like nothing more than to have a big fat pity party and invite all my friends.You know I like to wonder what life would have been like if I hadn’t been kicked out of film school, if I hadn’t fallen apart, if I had kept my eyes open when I kissed you. I try to understand why I didn’t make any sacrifices for my writing such as financial security, health insurance, a lifetime supply of remorse. Should we take the ferry or should we take the train? Did he just litter? Did you see that? I want to thank my parents, my sisters, the babysitter who got us stoned and taught us how to make Chex Mix. I want to be grateful for what I don’t have. I want to braid my counselor’s long dark hair again. If you went to my high school, you know a boy died there, you know the seniors paint the big rock out front, and that everyone is bored or maybe it’s just me. Is that a grey bear or a snowy owl? I saw my father in a tree. He wouldn’t look at me.
An editor recently rejected a project. He was apologetic because he really liked the book; he just couldn’t get in-house support. Then, he allowed that it might have been different had the author been younger. I pretended not to hear it because had I heard it, my head would have exploded. Look, I’m a realist. Everyone knows that the world loves an ingenue, a hayseed, a bright eyed and bushy-tailed, or PYT. But for fuck’s sake, this is writing. Experience used to be an asset. Oh, boo hoo. Great writing but the author wears Depends. Terrific prose, but her dentures were slipping in the meeting. La-de-da. My nursing home fantasy has always been the same: read all my diaries and letters and smoke cartons of Marlboros. Then I would turn to the Russians. Hopefully find a couple of gals to play Bananagrams with, watch the Oscars.
Truman Capote said when god hands you a gift he also hands you a whip. I think I got two whips. Suddenly, the word “whip” looks ridiculous. You know how that happens when you worry a word? I sit at a table and meet with writer after writer and try to find one helpful thing to say, one moment of connection. But all I’m really thinking about are the stacks of Mike N’ Ike boxes in the concession stand. Concession? That’s a loaded word. Driving home from PA, I tried to visualize my screenplay as a live action movie. I try to see every scene. Sometimes I’d lose track and think about all the men who have been mean to me, every humiliation I subjected myself to (yes, Lena Dunham, you may be the voice of your generation but you’re no Allen Ginsberg, and you didn’t invent shame, not by a long shot). I get an email from a woman I spoke with, she says I turned it all around for her, saw the forest for the trees, she is totally inspired to attack her book with the shift in emphasis I recommended. I haven’t even showered today.
I received an email recently from a guy who wanted to know why I didn’t respond to the comments left on the blog, specifically when questions are directly posed to me. I think he found it rather…ungenerous.
Betsy Lerner 