Took our intern to lunch today. She’s really smart and lovely. She’s working for us two days a week and at an ultra hip lit mag two days a week. They may be cooler than we are, but do they sit around and listen to the Mel Gibson tapes? Does Patti Smith drop by their offices and sing a few songs? Do they order in take-out from Grammercy Tavern and talk about books while eating foie gras and french fries? No, I didn’t think so.
Our fair lass has one question for me: to be or not to be. To work in the book business or not to work in the book business. Will it hurt my writing? Will it help my career? In one question, our dear intern has nailed my life’s conflict. And I believe many who work in publishing. I mean you’re not toiling on editorial row because you want to be a lead guitarist, or a sous chef, or a hfm. I could be wrong, and I’d love it if a lurking editor or two chimed in with a comment, but I think almost everyone in publishing has dreams of writing. And many have gone on to publish.
I swore I would quit if I ever got paid for writing and I didn’t quit after either book. I also stopped writing completely for 12 years after I got my MFA, when I poured myself into my editorial career. I didn’t think the world deprived of my poems would be any poorer. Too, I loved being an editor, or rather becoming an editor. Those years were heady and exciting. I actually felt myself improving with each manuscript I worked on.
But when I did start writing again, the conflict reared its head. But for me, I know working in publishing has helped. Not only did I learn how to write a proposal. I learned how to write prose. And how to think about books in the marketplace. And just to be in the world where writers and books are at the center.
I still wish I were the kind of girl who could tend bar at a western town, ride horses, have love affairs with the occasional movie producer passing through town, and write a masterpiece. Ain’t me, babe.
What do you tell a twenty year old about the writing life?
Filed under: Writing | 45 Comments »
Great quote in Harvey Pekar’s obit, “I always wanted praise and I always wanted attention; I won’t lie to you…I wanted people to write about me, not me about them.”
I apologize for posting late. My third floor attic office isn’t air conditioned, and I couldn’t face the stairwell let alone broasting up there when my daughter had just started “Dear John” On Demand with Channing Tatum, Tatum Channing, Tatum O’Neil, frankly who cares so long as he never speaks and keeps his shirt off.
What do you really want out of this rodeo? Publication, money, literary acclaim, celebrity? Do you want to write every day, find words every day, that sweet spot two hours in when the blessed motherfucker starts to write itself and you are roping it? Do you want that perfect solitude when you and the keyboard are one, when your brain exists only to bring forth words? Or do you want to help others? Yourself? Make someone proud? Dad? Mom? Someone jealous? Do you seek revenge, adoration, admiration? Or something spiritual, transcendent? Do you want power, dominance, do you want to tip? Blink? Do you want pussy? Looking to get out or get in? Do you want mastery over a subject? Do you want the last word? Do you want to make people laugh? Stay up past their bedtime? Afraid to turn off the lights? Are you a healer, a preacher, a teacher, a showman, a scholar? Are you storyteller?
Away for holiday weekend. In laws, then my husband’s old friends from college newspaper. I am always a bit nostalgic around these people, that is if you can be nostalgic for something you didn’t have. In my case, that would be college friends. I did have some, but I blew through them pretty quickly mostly because I didn’t have a clue who I was, and basically walked up to people like the little bird in the P.D. Eastman 
Yesterday, I asked people what they did to escape. I think red wine was a front runner. But this remark from Shanna is the subject of today’s post, “It used to be books but I’ve hit a rough patch with reading escapism since I started writing. Which, by the way, makes me really sad.”
How is it that my brilliant 30 page screenplay outline has turned into a piece of shit, aka a turd, a poop, a dump, a steamer, a crap? How? I didn’t even touch it. I deliberately didn’t touch it. I am of the Capote school which says to put all first drafts away for a month. You all know what I’m talking about; the disease has a name: literary vertigo. One day, you’re Leo. The next day, you’re shit.
People always seem surprised when they ask me what I’m working on and I say screenplays. Is it that I fail to give off a Hollywood vibe (size 0, painted hair, pilates abs, Balenciaga handbag, etc). Or is it that I can’t figure out how to use my Bluetooth? Or that I’m entering a decade you are not allowed to even whisper in that town. People are also always astonished that I love LA. Not just like it, but love it. Is this because I fit more easily into the Woody Allen neurotic Jew jello mold of life? Or perhaps it’s because the ship of my life has sailed, only no one told me.
Today ‘s comments reminded me of a book I always wanted someone to write. The working title: The Ring of Truth. In my mind it would explain why one sentence rings true and another false. Why certain aesthetics seem cheesy and others authentic. Why some people have multiple orgasms at poetry readings while others roll their eyes. And why we return to a certain poem or quote, over and over throughout our lives.
Betsy Lerner 