Posted on March 15, 2012 by betsylerner
Sometimes I’ll ask a writer to think about the grand scheme. I ask how many books he would like to see on the shelf at the end of his life. Ten? Five? One, like Harper Lee? There are a lot of reasons people don’t or can’t write more than a book or two. Sometimes the experience of being published is devastating, whether good or bad. If it’s very good, I’ve seen writers buckle under the pressure of living up to their early promise. If it’s very bad, they can be crushed by the disappointment. Sometimes it’s a failure of imagination or the well is truly empty. Sometimes a nervous breakdown or crippling depression is responsible. Or alcoholism and drug addiction. Or, like JD Salinger, the critics killed the entire enterprise, or so he’s said. Or maybe the writer turns to another form: screenwriting, playwriting, finger fucking. I try so hard to motivate writers, but maybe silence is molten.
How many books will you write?
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Posted on March 14, 2012 by betsylerner
This morning I received an email from a FOB (friend of the blog) saying that I can’t say IFLKM (Ifeel like killing myself) and then not post the next day. I apologize and thank said FOB for reaching out. I too am a worrier when people say things like that. And since I post as regularly as Rob Lowe brushes his teeth, it might be a tad disconcerting when I miss a deadline. To be clear, as said IFLKM because some soft porn got buckets of publishing dollars. I would never kill myself. The worse day alive is better than the best day dead. Life is for the living. I love all of you who wake up and write or try to write or shake off a rejection or get some good news.
Do you think about it?
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Posted on March 12, 2012 by betsylerner
This is all everyone is talking about.
Now, I ask you. Not a one of you sent me a vampire novel that I could sell for millions and around the world. Does anyone out there have some BDSM? IDK, IFLKM. (I don’t know, I feel like killing myself.) Not really, it’s such a fun crazy circus right now. I just can’t quite tell if I’m the seal with the ball, the Capuchin monkey in a red fez, the muscular acrobat with a half boner, or the drugged lion with a mangy coat wishing he were free.
Do you get HBO?
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Posted on March 11, 2012 by betsylerner
Last year, our assistant Yishai Seidman pulled a manuscript out of the slush and fell in love with it. He convinced the author to work on it with him and together they got it into shape for a submission. After it was declined by most of the large publishers, Yishai found a small press that also fell in the love with the book and published it. Good story. Until last week, when the book was selected as the Barnes & Noble Discover winner for fiction. Great story. Congrats, Yishai. Congrats, Scott and your beautiful book, Untouchable. The stuff of publishing dreams. I don’t know about you, but it keeps me going. What keeps you going?
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Posted on March 9, 2012 by betsylerner
HI Betsy,
This is such a prude-y question. As practice I recently wrote out a scene between two people having a work fling. Its based on work crush I had ;o) I am happily married. My question for you is that when you or your husband write out sex scenes in your novels does it ever weird either of you out? You can tell I don’t share my writing life very much with my husband.
Regards, NAME WITHHELD
Dear Prud-y:
Great question. I think the bottom line is that people tend to assume that fiction is autobiographical and there ain’t nothing you can do abut it. But it sounds like the sex scene in question is more inspired by the work crush than with your husband. Awkward. There are sex scenes in my husband’s book, and I definitely recognize him/us in the proceedings. It’s not oogey to me because a) I’m a terribly sophisticated reader and b) I’m only concerned that the scene is well written and believable and necessary. Almost every sex scene I’ve read in submitted manuscripts over the years is written with a Vaseline lens, and the woman’s climax is usually marked by PERSPIRATION ON HER BROW breaking out in tiny beads.
How do you write good sex scene?
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Posted on March 8, 2012 by betsylerner
Congratulations Neil! Tonight was the publication party for The Space Chronicles, which conveniently coincided with the book hitting the NYT bestseller list AND Neil testifying before the Senate on the future of NASA. Dear Friends and Readers of this blog, if you don’t know Neil de Grasse Tyson or his work, do not delay; he is a brilliant scientist and passionate public intellectual. Whether talking about Isaac Newton or flying to Mars, he is an amazing communicator with an abundance of wit, charm, and passion, not to mention that People Magazine named him one of the sexiest men of the year (I know, I’m so transparent). I spent most of the party talking to his 84 year old dad, the tree from which this most shiny apple fell. And if you don’t believe me, check him out on twitter, on Jon Stewart, on in conversation with Colbert,
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Posted on March 6, 2012 by betsylerner
I had lunch with an editor last week and we found ourselves talking about the phenomenon when writers turn on their work, when it becomes the enemy or the receptacle for all of their anger, when the very fact of it sickens them, embarrasses them, as if the work itself betrayed them. It’s like a drunk on a bender, out of control, on a collision course. I used to gravitate toward those writers, confusing their self-destruction for authenticity and complexity. Some writers truly love their work, and continue to love it, like a first grader her first potato print. I feel so insanely proud of my clients’ work, but I’ve never been able to fully muster that feeling for my own writing. One of my writers once said that if she were a general, she’d polish her brass every night. I wondered what it would be like to feel that kind of pride. To stand up straight and salute the clear blue sky.
How do you feel about your work, really?
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Posted on March 6, 2012 by betsylerner
Spent the weekend with my oldest friend from my MFA days. Twenty-seven years later and we still howl about the biggest assholes in our program. When you’re talking about an MFA in poetry, there’s a lot of competition. And to think, all we were doing was writing verse. Given the behaviors, you’d think we were hedge fund managers or General Managers. Why are poets so difficult? Mental illness? Small penises? Financial insecurity? The world’s indifference?
Tell us about a poet.
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Posted on March 5, 2012 by betsylerner
I didn’t get a chance to write last night because I was drilling my kid on the American Revolution until I fell into a coma. I have to say I think school really sucks. I was reminded of how I used to feel dead walking down the locker-lined halls of my high school. My history teacher’s hair was chlorine-bleached from coaching the swim team. He was the type to perch on a desk in an effort to appear casual and caring (these were the Welcome Back Kotter Days). I often day dreamed about the girl who day dreamed in her seat by the window, her face pale with a sheen of oil, her boots like an elf’s. I also remember feeling agitated by the boys in the class and their flushed faces, some with scruff, their bigness and loudness. We had to made a chart of our lives, a history, and everyone brought in large pieces of cardboard sloppily decorated with baby pictures up to the present. One boy, Roland, had a circular graph of his brain. I still think about him for no good reason.
High School?
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Posted on March 1, 2012 by betsylerner
I’ve slept with a few writers and I have to recommend it. Yes, they’re self-involved. Yes, they will take the best of you and use it in their next short story. Yes, they can be just as awful as non-writing men. But, it’s still worth if you’re seduced by words, by romance, by a guy who can talk about an Alice Munro story while frying an egg. Their sensitivity can be sublime. Their narcissism genius. Mystery and thriller writers are reliable. Poets are grateful. Journalists will eat in bed. Novelists take their time. It’s probably better to sleep with a writer before they get too famous. You know what fame can do to people.
Watcha got?
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Betsy Lerner 