In a recent New York Magazine story about Michael Lewis called “It’s Good to Be Michael Lewis,” he is quoted as saying, “When I sit down to write, I like to think everybody’s going to love me,” he adds. “Or at least I don’t think anybody’s going to hate me. It’s pronoia, right, is that the word? Everybody’s out to love me, not everybody’s out to hate me? I think basically that way as I move through the world.”
I think you all know me well enough to know where this is going. ANd by the way, I love Michael Lewis. If I were a boy scout, I’d wear a Michael Lewis badge.
Here’s the point: when I sit down to write, I don’t care who hates me because no one can do a number on me better than I can do on myself. No one could ever, ever loathe me as much as I loathe myself. Not even close. Anything you can hate, I can hate better. And I do not think pronoia is a word.
What do you like to think when you sit down to write?
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America has voted. The most popular opening line: 
Dudes, you really know how to throw down the first sentences. You are one big group of generous motherfuckers and I love you all. But enough of that. As anyone who reads my blog and then submits work to me knows: there is Betsy the Blogger, full of sunshine and light, and there is Betsy the Agent, cruel taskmaster. And as an agent, these are the sentences that most interested me (not in any ranking), and that made me want to read more. I want to say that I’m not necessarily prone to simple sentences, though all of these are simple on the surface. Each of these openers set a stage through tone, voice, detail, mood. They make a statement. That’s what I’m looking for. I want a first sentence to take me somewhere.
I went to the Pumpkin Bowl at my daughter’s school today. The kids were decked out in their costumes and totally pumped. WHenever I go to any school event, I always feel weirdly fragile and often on the verge of tears. It’s hard to locate the feeling exactly. I think it’s from some combination of seeing so much joy and of watching people participate so fully that I can’t take it in, as if all that life were a tidal wave threatening my shore. I think it’s also because I couldn’t partake when I was young, and in part because I still can’t. Then they played this game.
Hello,
Partner lunch today. I know, it conjures images of a dark paneled conference room, glass pitchers of ice water quietly sweating, legal pads and interns that stepped out of the J. Crew catalogue. But here at DCL Agency, partner’s lunch is a tuna melt (with swiss on rye) at a neighborhood diner where the pickles are fat and the slaw is sweet. I gotta say I’m the luckiest motherfucker in the world with my partners. With all of my colleagues. It’s hard to explain because it’s not like we’re all Googly with po-mo offices and free grilled salmon and cous-cous lunches every day . It’s not like we play ping pong in the office and go on retreats where we reflect on e-book pricing and the fate of memoirs, or how to read a royalty statement. We don’t finish each other’s sentences, complete each other, or begin where the other ends.
I went to a publishing party tonight hosted by Macmillan. I rarely attend these sort of functions any more because I live in Alaska. But I felt it I should fly the company colors, see and be seen, prove for once and for all that I am not pressing my hand into a disc of clay and spray painting it gold, or making a macaroni picture of a toucan or setting sun. What did I wear? How was my hair? How many business cards exchanged? Glasses of Chardonnay? I was hoping to drop in the fact that I represent an NBA finalist into a few conversations, but the conversational segue proved elusive. I did my best not to monopolize one person for fear of never finding another person to talk to. A lot of people dye their hair. I still I wish I were a man and could wear a suit and tie. I had fun. Nobody died.
Hello Betsy!
I get through the revision of my screenplay this weekend. I am high for about ten minutes, take the dog for a walk. Pass a house with deluxe Halloween decorations, a spider’s web over the entire front entry way and porch, lights strung through trees, grave stones littering the lawn. Who has the energy let alone the cash for that crap? Then I think about dinner and wonder if the brussels sprouts have gone bad. Turning a corner, a family of four moves slowly up the block. Two small children on bright bikes wearing helmets that dwarf their heads scrape their way along the pavement. The parents hold hands and I don’t feel my usual disdain. I realize that I have not changed the script enough. New tires but the same engine. I look down the street and see the pretty houses, lawns neat, the tyranny of shrubbery. Why do I feel like sobbing? A man rolls his recycling bin out to the sidewalk. Is anyone waiting inside, is the kettle is on? Why can’t I turn my eyes on my own work the way I do for the writers I work with?
Betsy Lerner 