Writers | Betsy Lerner

The Ten Commandments of Collaboration

Posted on November 22, 2009 by betsylerner

1) Thou shalt not censor. Both partners need to feel completely free to float ideas no matter how idiotic.

2) Thou shalt control thine ego. No crying, whining, bullying or icing. No temper tantrums, passive aggressive maneuvers, or diva moves. No pouting, sulking, or “innocent” jabs.

3) Thou shalt be on the same page. More difficult than you think. Both writers must share a basic, core belief that they share a vision and equal ownership of the project.

4) Thou shalt watch thine partner’s back. i.e. control those sadistic impulses. Yes, you.

5) Thou shalt share a work ethic. How do you define a work day? Four hours? Eight hours? Eighteen? How many naps?

6) Thou shalt not be a credit monger. The first writer to yell, “That was my idea,” gets a time out.

7) Thou shalt have fun. And by this I don’t mean smoke tons of weed unless you’re Judd Apatow and Seth Rogan.

8) Thou shalt not sleep with your writing partner. (Unless you’re Judd Apatow and Seth Rogan.)

9) Thou shalt snack. The host writing partner should supply an assortment of junk food and apples.

10) Thou shalt know when to move on. That would be before one writing partner is found in pool of blood and the other is getting finger-printed.

(Am I missing any?)

Filed under: Writers, Writing | 9 Comments »

I Hate Myself For Loving You

Posted on November 20, 2009 by betsylerner

Okay — I’m not going to pretend that I’m not thoroughly moved by the hilarious and painful responses that have flooded my inbox all day. Were you to have seen me anywhere today, at the butcher, the gym, Executive Cleaners, St. Dunkin’s, you would have seen a girl with her head in a prayer-like position reading her Blackberry, blown away by the comments coming in.

Am I nuts or is there a book here? A collection of hurtful comments that writers are subjected to that also defines in some essential way the core struggles of being a writer: no one caring, no one waiting, being exposed, being suspect, being trivialized, or worse, being a dime a dozen.

I know I identified with almost every comment. We could call it THE BOY WILL COME TO NOTHING (a quote from Kafka’s famously cruel and discouraging father) and I would organize the book into five sections, insults from: parents, friends, siblings & other relatives, random people at cocktail parties & other gatherings, and (probably the worst) insults from other writers.

Then, I’d look for a top drawer agent to represent the project who was known to be fearsome and intellectually rigorous, gracious to a fault, fun and pretty. Oh, that was easy. And then I’d try to sell it to a really fun publisher who does great packaging with books like these such as Workman, or Chronicle, or Running Press.

Does anyone else see a book here? Could we scare up another 100 comments? I would donate all the money to literacy or a good cause we could all get behind.

As my brilliant client and mega-blogger Heather Armstrong (Dooce.com) says: it’s time to monetize the hate.

Filed under: Books, Writers | 24 Comments »

You Light Up My Life

Posted on November 19, 2009 by betsylerner

What a relief!

When my husband finished his first book, he gave it to a friend to read. When our friend finished the book, he called and said, “Well, it must be good to find out you’re not Shakespeare.” What exactly did he mean? Is anyone in danger of thinking he is Shakespeare? Was it supposed to be a relief, joining the human race, or being taken down a peg, or a few thousand pegs? Did the book suck, or did it not suck? The only thing I am certain of is the effect of that scorching comment.

Writing is hard!

Just to be clear: I’m not Shakespeare. I’m not Kate Moss. I’m not Johnny Depp. Not Saul Bellow. I’m not Denis Johnson. I’m not Malcolm Gladwell or his agent, sadly. I’m not John Lennon. I’m not Squeaky. I’m not the person I most detest. Well, that’s a relief.

What is this post about? Random, hurtful remarks not meant to wound that can stay with a writer for years. Or random, hurtful remarks that are meant to eat away at whatever self esteem you cobble togther as you sally forth.

When my memoir was being submitted to publishers, one of my sisters said I had a pair of brass balls to be selling a memoir before I turned forty. That comment stayed with me the whole time I was writing the motherfucker, and as I wrote I often wondered where I got the audacity. Worse was constantly asking: who the hell am I to be writing this.

Got any doozies?

Filed under: Writers | 127 Comments »

So Tired, Tired of Waiting, Tired of Waiting For You

Posted on November 16, 2009 by betsylerner

We’ve all been there, waiting for someone to read our work. A friend, a classmate, a teacher, a producer, an editor, an agent, a critic. The worst part, possibly worse than the verdict, is not knowing when it will arrive. A day, a week , a month, longer, like never. How well do you cope with waiting? I know I sometimes like to delay gratification, or stave off rejection with a healthy dose of denial and magical thinking (i.e. no news is good news, or at least not bad news yet.) I know a lot of my readers here on the blog drink (I’m not judging). One writer offered the following rant, which I reproduce here anonymously in all its beautiful despair:

“Waiting is to publishing like foreplay is to porn: a necessary interval which precedes the money shot. As in porn, it’s usually glossed over—for everyone, that is, but the author, who, as far as waiting goes, is pretty singularly hung out to dry. The agent? She has another twenty or thirty people to care about, and she already suffers from compassion-fatigue as it is. The editor? From a scheduling point of view he or she is usually on some corporate version of life-support, too overtaxed, overworked and overextended to think straight. It’s the author, that fragile reed, who passes his days eating his nails to the quick, aggressively advancing the onset of happy hour, and fighting recreationally with his wife and kids while he waits and waits for the dime to drop.

First, he waits for years to write the damn book. Then he waits for the response to his manuscript. Then he waits for the editor to gather support if he likes it, and for another editor at another house to give judgement if he doesn’t. Then if he’s lucky enough to have a book taken, he waits a year for it to be published. Then he waits for months for the reviews. During this time, he suddenly remembers the Monty Python skit about the father who found his son so boring he began to pretend he was French, and he wonders if he could pretend to be someone else to get away from it all. In the meantime, waiting, he grows old. He wears his trousers rolled.”

How do you fare?

Filed under: Authors, Rejection, Writers | 17 Comments »

Keep Your Day Job

Posted on November 5, 2009 by betsylerner

“Keep your day job,” was the working title for The Forest for the Trees. In fact, it’s the title I sold the project with. Obviously, what I meant was that you can’t expect to make a living from your writing alone. The percentage of writers who do is infinitesimal. The title was too negative and no longer reflected the book once I finished it, but there’s something in that title that I want to talk about.

I’m assuming many readers of this blog work full time jobs and write “on the side.” That would describe me. I think I may be less frustrated than many because my “day job” involves what I love most: writers, writing, books, editing, etc. But it’s still really difficult to turn off the job and indulge my own creative impulses. This is why I’m one of those pre-dawn writers. I work best before anything or anyone else crowds my brain.

When I worked at Simon and Schuster, there was an assistant who will go unnamed (Rick Moody) who reputedly wrote most of his first novel in his cubicle. The rest of us were outraged that he “could get away with that.” In truth, I was deeply envious that he could put his work first, that he had to. God knows I’ve been writing my whole life, my first diary dates to age 8. And I did put my writing front and center when I got my MFA. I can still recall having my poetry collection spread out on the floor, pacing in my bathrobe, rearranging the collection for days. Oh, that was heaven. But since then, I’ve worked full-time. In other words, I have not quit my day job.

What I’m asking is: if you have a day job, are you in agony where your writing is concerned?

Filed under: Writers, Writing | 43 Comments »

Same As It Ever Was

Posted on October 19, 2009 by betsylerner

I just finished my revision of FFTT. It’s almost 2:00 a.m. New Haven has gone to bed. I’m buzzy, agitated. Like James Caan in Misery, I want my one cigarette upon completion. Actually, I need help with three outstanding items:

–Does any remember Jay McInerny doing scotch ads? If so, was it Dewar’s? Or what brand was it?

–“Query letters that sound as if they were penned Crazy Eddie, instead of a thoughtful writer…” They want me to swap “Crazy Eddie” for a more contemporary nutcase? I’m drawing a blank. Any ideas?

–I also need to replace Don King as an example of a nutcase self-promoter. Any names come to mind?

I know this isn’t your job. If a bribe of any sort would help, name it. Scotch, cigarettes, a signed copy of the 10th anniversary revision of The Forest for the Trees. I want to tell you something. When the book was first published, I used to dis it, trying to be clever or self-deprecating. After all, I had an MFA in poetry and here I was writing an advice book. I’d gone from Sylvia Plath to Erma Bombeck. My husband described my behavior as “psychotic disassociation.” I knew he was right. I was weirdly ashamed. Who the hell was I? I trashed my own book and acted like it was funny. Fast forward ten years. I’m still an asshole, and I mean that in the best sense of the word. I’m also proud the little fucker is still in print. God knows, I’m lucky to have the chance to make it better and update it. Only here’s my new iteration of self-flagellation: oh, you had to rope them into letting you revise the book instead of creating something NEW. I hope, if you are a writer, you will applaud this new low.

Filed under: Writers, Writing | 22 Comments »

I’m Rubber and You’re Glue

Posted on October 13, 2009 by betsylerner

Michiko Kakutani ripped Jonathan Lethem a new one in her review today of his new novel, Chronic City. She is, of course, famous for this kind of attack but it’s been a while and I was growing old and getting fat reading about luminous this and numinous that. These are, by far, her two favorite words. I hate those words. Moving right along. She called the novel, in case you missed it, “tedious,” “overstuffed,” “a lot of pompous hot air,” “insipid,” “plasticky puppets,” “lame and unsatisfying.”

I’m not particularly interested in her taste, agenda, what have you. What I want to know is how Lethem’s feeling. Does this mean another ten years in therapy or is he able to shrug it off, so many books behind him, his literary stature seemingly secure. I’m writing because when I read a review this rabid, I get scared. And I think about what it is to put yourself on the line as a writer. It’s easy to forget about the vulnerability involved when it looks like a published writer has it made what with publications, teaching positions, awards and so forth. When one of my clients gets a bad review, I want to say, hey, c’mon, my kid deserved a B+. That wasn’t fair! Then we spend lots of time talking about how fucked up the review was, how wrong, how the reviewer had an agenda, how it doesn’t make a difference in the overall scheme of things. And sometimes I say, don’t forget, tomorrow that newspaper will be used to pick up dog shit. (Though, of course, most people use plastic baggies.)

Well, Michiko just sold at least one book for Mr. Lethem. I’ve never read him and now I’m totally intrigued. It’s like when my mother says she hates a movie; I rush out to see it the next chance I get.

Filed under: Books, Media, Writers | 6 Comments »

No I Would Not Give You False Hope on This Strange and Mournful Day

Posted on July 25, 2009 by betsylerner

A lot of painful conversations lately about literary fiction and its demise.

Was it ever any different?

When I was an assistant at Simon and Schuster 25 years ago, there was exactly one literary fiction editor. And his position was rumored to be precarious as a result of focusing exclusively on the literary stuff. (In fact, he was let go a year later.) Of course, this was especially true at a house like S&S where monster political and celebrity books ruled. I can still recall an anxious conversation between a senior editor and a publicist because they couldn’t remember if Jackie Collins preferred white roses or red.

I understood at that tender age that to focus entirely on fiction was to jeopardize my hope of becoming an editor. It’s a tough racket: writing, publishing, and selling books. Or as the great sub-rights director of S&S once explained when I couldn’t fathom the math of a profit and loss statement, “Toots,” she said, “It’s a nickel and dime business.”

Are things worse now? Sure. Internet, Kindle, My Face, a million more distractions. The economy, unemployment, the dow jones. Might just be the perfect storm ready to sink the great publishing ship Titanic. What does this mean to any committed writer in a publishing climate that resembles the parlor game musical chairs? Nothing. I would not give you false hope, but we need you more than ever.

Filed under: Agent, Publishing, Writers | 20 Comments »

FAQ: When Will I Be Loved

Posted on July 23, 2009 by betsylerner

I received this letter in my askbetsy box: Dear Ms. Lerner, I’m a writer and blogger, and I’m doing my best to promote my work, get an agent, and move to the next level. Can you tell me why it’s so hard to market and sell a literary novel these days, especially for a nobody like me? I think that writer’s today needs fan’s of their work, people who will fight for them no matter what, but how do you get that to happen?

I’ve had several conversations on my blog about this very issue, if you’d like to check it out. But for someone who has been writing for ten years, building an audience, shaping his work, getting footholds in the literary ezine market… what advice, besides “don’t give up” or “you just have to get lucky” would you give a writer trying to break in for the first time, in this economic climate. Go to graduate school in Iowa, sell a kidney to get into Yaddo, pay a huge fee to go to Breadloaf?

In other words, who do you have to blow around here?

Dear Writer: You’re tired of hearing “don’t give up.” Okay, try this: give up. Walk away. Get out while you’re young cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run. Did I say run? Run like the wind.

I could tell you all the economic reasons why it’s so hard to publish literary fiction. I could tell you about a novel I sent to 32 publishers and couldn’t sell and truly believe it to be the best work of fiction I’ve had the good fortune to work on. That and a token. It’s not hard, it’s nigh impossible. Ask any local bookseller what people are buying, if they’re buying.

Your anguish, frustration, and pain are very real to me. Much of an agent’s work is picking up the pieces (it’s often just as shattering to be published, but that’s a little like telling a single person who wants to get married what a bummer being married can be). But, you know, ten years isn’t really that long. You have to practice the piano longer than that to get to Carnegie Hall.

Is it all about fancy conferences and connections? No, not really. Mostly no. It’s more about luck if you ask me. And since you’re asking, you create your luck. And you’re doing that with your blog, the zine world, etc. Another writer, sitting under a rock, would marvel at your literary life. Everything you’re doing is right.

You may feel that the light is permanently yellow, but it will change. It always does.

Filed under: Rejection, The End of the World as We Know It, Writers | 6 Comments »

Whenever I Feel Afraid

Posted on July 16, 2009 by betsylerner

I’m relieved not to face another cafeteria meal, not the food so much as the reminder of myself in seventh grade when the planetary system of our junior high lunch room shifted in ways often imperceptible and sometimes like a meteor storm leaving so much debris in its wake. All that self-consciousness then, and even now, at this advanced age. Excuse me, is that seat taken? Hi, is anyone sitting there?

Tin House is an excellent conference with worshops, lectures, and readings in a stunning outdoor amphitheater overlooking a pond where ducks and geese squabble. Cocktails every night on a beautiful quad, and from what I hear there’s even a decent amount of hooking up. In the faculty dorm, drinking, poker, and other manly arts.

I spoke with a few writers around the edges of the conference who reminded me of myself when I first attended workshops as a student: a little awkward, nervous, excited. They had all taken that first brave step, announced in some important way to themselves that they were writers. They were here.

One young man told me he was working on a memoir. “What happened to you?” I asked. He laughed and coughed on the drag of the cigarette he was taking. “What happened to me?” he repeated. “Yeah,” I persisted, “what happened that you have to write about.” The young man snubbed out his cigarette, “Okay,” he said, “If you put it that way, I’ll tell you.”

And then he told me one of the saddest stories I have ever heard.

Filed under: Writers, Writing | 7 Comments »

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