This is a big one. A big lie. And whenever a writer tells me this, I think long and hard before taking him on. Can you guess what it is? Okay, stand back, here it is: I don’t need a lot of handholding. LIE. LIE. LIE. Sans truth. That’s like a guy saying he doesn’t like blow jobs. Or a gal saying she doesn’t like Bosch appliances. Look, anyone who thinks they don’t need handholding through the fun-loving process of getting published is kidding himself. But it’s worse than that because invariably the person who makes this pronouncement is the one who needs far more than hand holding. He needs pep talks, commiseration conversations, babysitting, spoon feeding and diaper changing.
I don’t mind hand holding, in fact I’ve sort of built my reputation on it. But the fact still remains that a client who makes me laugh, who takes his lumps and comes back fighting, or who just works incredibly hard, that writer will continue to inspire me (both to hand hold when needed, but more important to keep me working hard for him). The worst is when a client calls and you groan before picking up the phone because you know a litany of complaints will follow. THe complaints, of course, are valid. News flash: publishing isn’t democratic or fair. Neither is the fact that I didn’t get asked to my prom. Or that the medication I take to make me stable makes me heavy. Or that I can’t hold a tune. Look: Tell me you need a little hand holding. Tell me you need a lot. Tell me that there aren’t enough hands in the world to hold what ails you. Just don’t lie to me.
Come clean. How much do you need?
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Sometimes, there comes a moment in the writing of a book when a writer tells me, in hushed tones, that he needs a studio, an office, a yurt, just some other place to go and write. He is emphatic. He can no longer get his work done — only a move can save him. Often writers work from home and suffer a certain lack of solitude, privacy, quiet. They need a place to sprawl out, to leave their papers and books about. They need a place to think. I get all that. Writers need to get away from the kids, the phone, the UPS man. Still, there’s Mary Higgins Clark who dragged her typewriter on to the fire escape every night after she got the dishes washed and put her kids to bed. Or Ray Bradbury who deposited dimes into the typewriters at the public library to bang out his fiction. And many like them. When you have to write, when you are at the beginning of your career, you’d write on the roof of your mouth if you had to. Is it just me or does a room of one’s own sound more like a place to jack off and smoke dope? Yes, of course you need a corner of your own, but not mid-book. When you want to find a new place mid-project you’re looking for a geographical cure, and like most geographical cures they usually turn out to be short-lived and expensive. The minute you think something like a new space can save you, you’re a goner.
Whenever a writer tells me that he has had a realization, a break-through, an epiphany, I always have the same reaction: dread. Call me cynical, but I’d much prefer a writer tell me that he has taken a few baby steps, has slightly moved the needle, or figured out some small piece of the puzzle. Am I being too Jewish? Can you achieve greatness if you don’t behold the world and exalt its grandeur? What am I even saying? Is it possible to figure out your work if you can’t figure out your life? Or is your art a key to your life, or to life? And does it stick? Stay? Can you hold on to a catharsis? What would it look like? For me, a structure as beautiful as DNA, or an Escher print, or field of corn in late August sun.
I take a pill for my moods. I take a pill to boost the pill I take for my moods. I take a pill for my thyroid, and a pill to help the thyroid pill. I take a pill to sleep and a pill to wake. I take a pill for dreams and a pill for nightmares. I take a pill to crap, and a pill not to crap. I take an iron pill. And magnesium. I take a pill to help me write. A pill to help me read. I take a pill for memory and a pill for forgetting. I take a pill for nosebleeds and sexual tension. A pill to help me drive at night, to reduce the effect of bad manners, and to get the waiter’s attention. I take a pill to pitch books, handle rejection, conduct auctions, and parlay offers. Infrequently, I have to take a pill to let an author down when his book doesn’t sell. That is a bitter pill.
If you prefer the highbrow literary repartee that characterizes this erudite blog, don’t read any further. Tonight, I am compelled to compare and contrast two of the latest additions to the beloved film category known as the rom-com. I’m talking about No Strings Attached and Friends with Benefits, of course. Both movies ask the age-old question: can two people fuck without any further involvement? It’s been quite a while since Harry met Sally, but if you ask me nothing has ever topped that movie in the what happens when friends fuck department. I wish that Billy Crystal had been played by someone with a little more sex appeal, like Mr. Magoo or Fred Mertz, but so be it.
Moore AND has more twitter followers than Obama. It’s the big guy who breaks, who wants MORE from the relationship FIRST, gets all sad and weepy. Talk about a crazy twist! Natalie has intimacy and workaholic issues like lots of us career gals. It’s douchy, but isn’t that the point? Bonus points: Natalie looks terrific in scrubs and the lamp posts outside LACMA are immortalized.
What does it mean to be afraid of success? Does it mean you would rather live your life in the tenth row of a movie theater watching other couples kiss. Or watching families greet and part at the airport? Packs of identically dressed teenagers looking for something just outside their realm of experience? Or the walleyed toll taker on I-95? Does fear of failure show up like a dance? Like a velvet curtain? Or a small stitch in a torn pant? Are those my shoes? Can my lips tilt up to yours? Was that a poem no one read? Are you in line for the audition? Did you get her number? You can not stay there forever. There is no big picture. You can’t see it. The world will never end.
While I was on vacation, I read a few screenplays. Reading screenplays for me is like taking a watch apart. I love figuring out how it all fits together. I love tracking the movement of the three acts. I scrutinize every description. Every action. Weirdly, the dialogue is the least of it. Or rather the least interesting to analyze. I don’t just read these motherfuckers, I get my gloves on and reach into the chest cavity. I used to do this with poems, but now I find I can enjoy them, sip or drink deeply. I think it comes from years of study, a certain comfort level with the form, and the fact that I no longer write poems. But these screenplays, they have me by the short hairs. And I love it. Every move, every lick, a screenwriter makes that reveals his craft blows me away. The concision, which reminds me of poetry, is like some brilliant morse code to me.
I call them orphans. Books you wanted, bought, and then remained unread. Migrated from the bed table to the floor where it gathers the great dust bowls of the prairies. The spine sneers at you, winks at you, wonders why you abandoned him. And you have no good answer. You become the guy who fucks you and never calls back. Why? Why?
When I was fifteen, my mother told me she didn’t like me. I refused to doubt that she loved me, though, so I decided that the two things were entirely distinct. ‘Love’ was over here, ‘like’ was over there.
I think I became an agent today. On a cellular level. After a decade of wingeing about being an editor in agent’s clothes, or pining for marketing meetings, or confessing how much I loved sale conference, something in me snapped. I’m on vacation (yes, that’s a euphemism for rehab), when I idiotically checked my blackberry between 12 step meetings. I see that one of my writers who had been promised his check on Monday still hadn’t received it because of a “glitch” at the publishers. Now, it would be another two weeks before they could cut a check. Yes, that was the sound of my head exploding. When I got to make my one phone call, I called my husband (who happens to be a publisher), and I railed against publishers, screaming that the artist is always the last one to get paid. And how there wouldn’t be any publishers without writers, etc. You sound like an agent, he said. So. Be. It.
Betsy Lerner 