Writing | Betsy Lerner

That Perfect Feeling When Time Just Slips

Posted on May 2, 2009 by betsylerner

I read a quote today from Mary Cheever, John Cheever’s 90 year old widow, rejecting the notion that her husband’s inner loneliness was due to his life in the suburbs:

“His was the loneliness of a writer, when he would sit by himself working alone. They all complain about it. It’s not a social craft.”

Sometimes I like to be contrary for the sake of it, but my first thought when I read that quote was that she got it backwards. Writers are lonely pretty much all the time except when they’re writing. The focus, the intensity, the mind engaged — this is not a lonely state.

In my experience, it’s the dinner parties, the award ceremonies, the neglectful agent and editor, the jealous and/or smug friends that are lonely making. It’s the bad reviews or no reviews, the not knowing what to write, the rejection. These are the things that will kill you, along with the gin as in Cheever’s case.

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Your First Cigarette

Posted on April 25, 2009 by betsylerner

I wrote a screenplay a while ago called Sugar Mountain. I got an agent who gave it to a big deal producer, BDP, we’ll call him. BDP worked with me for six intense weeks, taking the script through six revisions.

Every phone session lasted exactly an hour and his notes were amazing. He taught me how to write action. My scenes were too talky. “We’re not Woody Allen,” he once remarked.

BDP was in New York and I got to meet him for our last session in his apartment at the Pierre. Heady days for a girl with a dream and an acceptance speech at the ready.

Long story short, BDP shared my script with two or three actors who declined and then he dropped the project. Then my agent stopped returning my phonecalls. My Cinderella story ended in my own little corner, in my own little chair.

Why am I writing about this? Because I decided that I would send out Sugar Mountain to ten producers on my own before throwing in the towel.

Which leads me to: my cover letter. I have to write a freakin’ cover letter. Me, who has been advising and critiquing cover letters for nearly 25 years. Talk about stage fright. I actually cleaned out the attic this morning as a stalling tactic. Does anyone have any mending or ironing to do?

If I have the guts, I’m going to post my query letter (when I’m done mowing the lawn), and keep you posted on how my script crashes and burns. Just for sport.

Filed under: Agent, Film, Writing | 4 Comments »

Twelve-Step Program

Posted on April 22, 2009 by betsylerner

Please read this article by Jon Karp, Publisher of the imprint Twelve, if you want some really cogent thoughts on the state of publishing. And you won’t need to turn your life over to a higher power except your keyboard.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6652430.html

Filed under: Editor, Media, Publishing, Writing | Leave a comment »

FAQ: I’m About to be Published – How Come I’m not Happy?

Posted on April 21, 2009 by betsylerner

R. writes, “I’ve got a new book coming out from (major trade publisher) in May. So how come I’m not happy?

R. adds that it has already received terrific early reviews from PW and Booklist (not mentioning Kirkus one can only imagine the worst — who are those anonymous Kirkus bastards anyway?). She fears the book will sink “like Sarah Palin’s reputation.”

R. further divulges that she has done well with two previous books, blogs for some pretty big deal blogs like Psych Today, writes a weekly column for her city paper (think Wallace Stevens), co-edits a scholarly journal and is a full professor at a kick ass univeristy. Go Huskies.

Why is R. unhappy?

1) R. is a writer. A happy lot? I think not. If we were, how would the shrinks make a living?

2) R’s book is being published into the worst financial crisis, slashing of book reviews and massive store closings. Never have books had to fight so hard for their readers, except during the Spanish Inquisition.

3) R. is doing everything right, promotion-wise: building a profile in print and electronic media. Could R. be doing more? Sure. Why not hire one of those grad students for a month or two and put together email & mailing lists of places where he might be welcome to talk. There are two basic ways to get attention, either through national media or a grass roots campaign. I encourage all of my clients to wage the grass roots campaign in the event that the national media doesn’t come through, but also because it’s a smart way to extend the reach of your book. Look into getting a lecture agent. Go to NYC and meet with your editor, publisher, publicist armed with ideas. The more you bring to the table, the more you invest in getting the word out, the better off you’ll be. If you’re at the beginning of your career, prepare to do everything you can to get attention for the book.

4) The real reaon R. is unhappy, I think, is because R. spent a year or more writing the book, probably nights and weekends since R. has a full time job, and there’s like a six week window (or less) to get it noticed. Let’s face it, unless you’re Malcolm Gladwell, Inc., getting published is like getting crapped on.

This may sound harsh, but I mean it in the most inspiring way possible: I think it’s really important to remember that no one asked you to write.

R., glad you asked?

Filed under: Media, Publishing, Writing | 2 Comments »

FAQ – “Fiction Proposals”

Posted on April 19, 2009 by betsylerner

Finally, I remembered to check my new gmail account and found three items: a note from a guy who dated my college sophomore roommate (this isn’t My Face, hello!), a query letter about addiction, and a bonafide question from a man we’ll call L.

L. asks if I would consider “fiction proposals from works in progress”? In a word: no. I’m not even exactly sure what the term “fiction proposal” means, hence the obnoxious use of quotations. I take it to mean synopses of incomplete work. There is no way to judge fiction except by reading it. You could send a partial novel with a synopsis, but if you are an unpublished writer, this would be a mistake (unless you are famous, if Toni Morrison recommends you, if you have a story in The New Yorker — mitigating circumstances along these lines).

As a sidebar is the whole question of including a synopsis at all. About this question there has been much debate and talmudic scholars are not in agreement. Personally, I hate them. Describing plot is like describing your dreams. Maybe, maybe, your lover will be interested but that’s about it. I really can’t bear to read them. I prefer a succinct few lines in the cover letter and then I want to read the work itself. It speaks for itself.

L., I hope that answers your question. Thanks for writing and good luck with expanding the stories.

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Baa

Posted on April 11, 2009 by betsylerner

In this week’s Sunday NYT magazine (not a particularly obscure reference, I realize), I was taken by something the poet Frederick Seidel said when asked to what he attributed the seventeen year silence between his first and second book. “Cowardice,” he said.

When asked what he was afraid of, “The expression of aspects of the self that you understand or, rather, that you fancy may not be attractively expressed or attractive once expressed.” I take this to mean fear of looking bad. I guess that would be a fear when you write lines like, “A naked woman my age is just a total nightmare.” LOL. As if a naked man his age with a crepe nutsack and tits is a picnic. But that’s not my point.

What first attracted me to poetry was not what it revealed, so much as what it concealed. I couldn’t understand half the poems I read, but I read them over and over. They held secrets, sometimes answers. I knew when something sounded true, even if I couldn’t articulate why. And I think I wrote poetry when I was young because I could hide there, in images and ellipses.

This all came to a grinding halt when a professor asked if I were intentionally trying to obfuscate meaning in my poems. Intentionally, well no. I then wrote some frank poems with titles like “Calories and Other Counts” and “Venus Envy.” And then, shortly after getting my MFA, I quit writing poems. Cowardice?

People sometimes ask me if I still write poems. No, no, no I quickly reply, as if I gave up sleeping with farm animals long ago. Nah, not me, haven’t touched a sheep in ages.

I would love to know what people think keeps them from writing (besides e-mail).

Filed under: MFA, Writing | 6 Comments »

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