People always ask how many clients I have. Fifty-nine. Okay? Is that a lot? A little? Or just right? Fifty-nine, but they’re not all active. No, not sexually active. They’re not all writing. Some wrote one book and that’s all she wrote. Some take years on a single book. Some are AWOL. And by that I mean they’ve stopped responding to emails and phone calls. Some have been seduced by industry or Hollywood. Some are stuck. Some depressed. SOme have stage fright. Some lick their wounds and come back fighting. Some reinvent themselves. Some reliably deliver a book every 18 months. And some go crying wee wee wee home.
Who are you?
Filed under: Uncategorized | 68 Comments »
Manuscript fatigue. It’s a fairly widespread condition. Symptoms: you can’t look at your manuscript anymore. You start to hate it, turn on it, call it names such as “that fucking manuscript,” “that motherfuckingcocksucking manuscript,” “my shit eating novel,” or “my douchy poem.” You start to cut like a depressed high school girl. You gain or lose five or ten pounds. You snap at the dry cleaner. You scream your answers at an automated voice system. You forget to take your meds or you take them twice. You can’t read anything. You alienate the people you love the most. You alienate people you barely know. You’re terrified if you leave it you’ll never go back. You fear if you go back you’ll make it worse. Why are you looking at me? I’m not a doctor.
One topic I have avoided over three years of blogging is self publishing. Here is a link to the 
For me it was under the stairs. With a satin-edged blanket, a chenille throw pillow, and an abandoned lamp with a makeshift shade. I first stole away from the world to write in that crawlspace beneath the stairs in a faux leather diary with gold stamping and a small lock. I mostly recorded things I hated: mustard, hebrew school, my friend Carolyn’s father, sharing a bedroom with my sister etc. From there I went on to headier subjects like my love of hotdogs or to recount the latest advance or retreat in the acorn wars against the Frankel brothers. For some reason that I couldn’t begin to understand, I needed to write stuff down. And needed to keep secret.
I’m in Miami and I’ve been skateboarding all day in my silver lyrcra unitard, so forgive me if this post is brief but I’m really tired. I went up and down the beach and people are reading. They’re reading Steve Jobs bio and Girl in a Dragon Hairdo. I love watching people read. If I had bigger balls, I’d go up to each one and ask what they are reading and why. And I would assemble the most amazing body of research that helped explain why it is that people need stories so desperately and why certain stories draw them in.
Hi, I’m Jeremiah Walton. I am 16 and live and in New England. I am manager of Nostrovia! Poetry (
Free fall. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Finishing something and getting first reads. I’ve given my script to the young turk from my film class, my literary agent, my writing partner and bff, and a former film executive. What’s that on my shirt? Oh, did I throw up? What is the biggest fear? It sucks. Duh. But more than that it’s the strong possibility that people will see things about me that are humiliating and that I thought I had successfully concealed or transformed. I think that’s why I was drawn to poetry as a depressed teenager. I thought that writing things that people couldn’t understand would protect me and allow me to express yourself at the same time.
Saw my psychopharmacologist today for my tune-up. He actually referred to himself as a mechanic, said he looks under hoods all day. I can forgive the crappy metaphor given that he’s the only medical professional to correctly rewire my engine. Of all the chapters in The Forest for the Trees, the one people never talk about or write to me about is the one called “Touching Fire,” about depression, alcoholism, drug addiction and bi-polar illness in writers. THe chapter is largely drawn from Kay Redfield Jamison’s brilliant book on mental illness in writers in which she documents a disproportionately high rate of bi-polar illness in writers, in people with an artistic temperament. THough I struggled for the better part of fifteen years with manic depression, the last twenty years have been depression-free, free of manic episodes. The floor and the ceiling have remained fixed. I’m too smart to say I miss it.
When you sit down to write, to start something new, have you made a host of decisions such as point of view, tense, style, etc. or do you start writing and see what happens, see how it comes out? After all you can always revise. Do you plan your story, outline it, make index cards, jot notes on napkins, or do you set out into the forest and see what you find, hope for crumbs. Is the creative process enhanced or compromised by planning.
Betsy Lerner 