I’ve often wondered what it’s like to be an actor and go out on auditions. Standing on a stage, a few deep breaths, a monologue. Someone calling out, “Thank you, next.” I’ve wondered what it’s like to be a dress shirt on a dry cleaning carousel. Or to be taller than everyone in the room, to have a cashier’s love for change, or to find a tiny monkey carved from a peach pit under the stage. Is this my imagination?  Or the last thing I will ever write?  No, sweet love, this is just a small child’s forehead waiting, in the dark, for a kiss goodnight.

What is more important than writing?

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The reason for the lateness of this post: I was at a real live book party. Hosted by a big glossy magazine. Filled with people who used to be people, people who want to be people, and people who are someone (as in, isn’t that someone?). Waiters circulated with silver trays of risotto balls. It was the kind of party where you could reasonably expect to be dissed a few times. First, by someone who pretends not to recognize you. Then by someone who recognizes you but doesn’t say hello. By someone you used to work with. And finally by the waiter with the risotto balls.

Parties are less frequent nowadays because publishers claim they don’t help sell books. Many other good reasons to have a party, such as celebrating, marking an accomplishment, gathering friends, creating opportunities in which you can be snubbed. What I like to do when I go to a party is: have a panic attack, have a glass of white wine, monopolize someone for a half hour. Say hi to one or two other people, try a risotto ball and leave.

How do you do parties?

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Tomorrow it begins. The parade of meetings that lead up to the Frankfurt book fair in October. Editors from all over the world come to New York in their hunt for new books. During these meetings, we schmooze about publishing, we find out what books are working in their countries, and we pitch our clients, hoping to find a British, German, Japanese, etc. sale. We have a rights guide that we’ve created with a description of the book, jacket, and author bio.

I’ve always loved meeting foreign publishers and editors. In the first place, they usually have really great glasses and rings, lot of index finger and thumb rings in particular. Sometimes enormous stones of lapis or onyx. Next, the women usually wear great wool tights, and the men usually wear smart suits that fit well. Then, there’s remarkable perspective they offer….on us. Why some American books travel and others don’t. What books are popular in various countries and how they are marketed. I love the feeling that all over the world, editors are basically doing the same thing, that the number of people is small, and the industry intimate.

Last, there is nothing quite as satisfying for a writer than seeing his or her work in translation. Or for the lucky few to have a whole shelf of foreign editions. I once dated a writer who framed all the jackets of his foreign editions.

Would you find that fetching or obnoxious?

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I spent most of the weekend reading. Lots of clients delivered manuscripts they had been working on this summer. And some prospective clients have surfaced. I’ve been blown away by a few revisions. THere is nothing more impressive to me than a writer who isn’t afraid to junk some material in favor of  a fresh start, or who can really crack open a piece instead of just moving the mashed potatoes around the plate. One of my great pet peeves has always been when a writer returns a manuscript  a little too quickly, claiming a full revision, only to find a work that has been tweaked like a hem raised a quarter inch. But then, another writer will go away, burrow in a for a while, and eventually return with a revision that inspires you all over again, and produces in you that feeling that got you hooked on this work in the first place.

I tend to  think that writers generally overestimate how much they revise their work — am I wrong?

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“We should do something fun and healthy, like run the marathon in Paris.”

“I know this weekend is going to be something, even if it’s not the something I expect. You know what I mean?”

“I lost my shoe this morning and had to find a store at eight this morning that had flip flops. My apartment is so small, I don’t even know how I could lose it. Sheesh.”

“Have you eaten there?”

It’s easier than ever to listen in on other people’s conversations because everyone is walking around and talking on their fucking  phones. I’ve always loved eavesdropping, especially in restaurants. Sometimes I even have to be snapped back to attention from the diners I’m with because I’m too focused on the conversation in the next booth. I especially love it when things get heated and might possibly turn ugly. It’s almost orgasmic for me.

What’s this post about? Dialogue. That’s what I’m getting at. Do you really listen to how people speak? It sure ain’t in full sentences or even sentences that follow one another. How do you create effective dialogue in your books? It’s obviously different for non-fiction and fiction. So for the purposes of this blog, let’s talk about fiction since I trust all the non-fiction writers would never make up dialogue. How in fiction do you make people sound real? I was once told that dialogue should never advance the plot, only enhance it. Any thoughts, wisdom?

Better yet, if you leave a comment, what was the best dialogue you overheard today?

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Hi there,
My daughter and I have a very interesting story to tell about our lives and I’m wondering what my next steps should be to turn our story into a book. Since neither one of us are writers, do I contact a publishing company directly? A ghost writer perhaps? 

Thank you so much for any advice you can share.

Dear Mommy Dearest:

This is probably the most frequently asked question I get and yet somehow it always makes me apoplectic. Your story is not interesting, or not inherently interesting. Great writing and great storytelling is the only thing that is interesting. Can you hire a ghost writer to get your story down. Yes, someone will take your money. Hell, how much have you got?

I’m sorry. You seem really nice. The thing is, if you’re famous, people will want to read your story. If you’re not famous, nobody cares. How do you get them to care? Get a local reporter to write a story about you. Better yet, get People magazine to do one of their regular people pieces about you? Find a way to get your story out there (radio, tv, blogosphere) that will interest a publisher, agent, writer.  Or do your research and find a ghost, book doctor, or editor who will work with you to shape a proposal. Or buy a lottery ticket.

Can anyone step in?

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Larkin Lerner

Sylvia Lerner

Of all the things I might have picked up on in today’s newspaper:  the tide of 9/11 books entering a soft market,  the Yanks gaining a two game lead over the Red Sox, or the MichiRave  in the NYT, (a term I’m hoping to coin) about The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Of all this, and what am I fixated on? The tiny print next to Chad Harbach’s author photo with the name of the photographer: Beowulf Sheehan. Beowulf?

Okay, I know some kids with funky, literary names like Dante (I actually know two Dantes), and Demian, and I know a bunch of Emily’s named for Emily Dickinson, which doesn’t count because it doesn’t give anybody pause.  I know a Maud for Maud Gonne. I know a Whitman. I once met Miranda Updike named for the daughter in the Tempest.  But BEOWULF? This is bold.  I clearly blew it with my kid. She could have been Trollope Lerner, or Grisham Lerner, or Doris Kearns Goodwin Lerner. Or Janet Malcom Lerner.  Fuck it.

What would you rename your literary self? Or offspring?

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I didn’t write as much as I wanted to. I didn’t read as much as I wanted to. I didn’t sleep as much as I wanted to. I ate more than I wanted to. I obsessed about work  more than I wanted to. I had more catastrophe fantasies than usual, and I have a half dozen at least on an average day.

I also did something that I don’t think we’ve ever talked about. I wrote in my head. I didn’t stop dreaming up great first lines. I didn’t stop coming up with witty dialogue and pithy rejoinders. I started poems, stories, novels, epics. I wrote War and  Peace IN MY FUCKING HEAD. What is all that writing that goes on in the head? Is it figuring out stuff? Part of the so-called process? Is it fall out from too much acid? Is it the necessary obsession with your work, the so-called immersion. Or the early onset of a degenerative illness? Grandiosity of the lowest order? Or a common suspect, much beloved narcissism?

Or is it just not writing? What do you make of the static?

Anyone still out there?

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As of tomorrow, I’m doing it: I’m unplugging. No blog, no email, no vibrator. I’m taking off until Labor Day. I’m giving myself two writing weeks to revise my screenplay and turn it into the perfect vehicle for Marisa Tomei and Andrew Garfield. I will miss our nightly lovemaking, but I hope everyone hunkers down with their writing as well. Or, does something really fun like go to the beach or roast corn or see the new Planet of the Apes movie. 

If anyone’s up for it, let’s see if we can write something here like the car game where you start with a sentence and everyone adds one sentence at a time, and you see how long you can keep it going. So, the first line, which I’m lifting from Joan Didion’s The White Album, is:

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

P.S. I miss you already and I’ll see you Sept. 5.

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