Dearest Readers of this Blog: I want to thank the people who comment and the undertow of lurkers for putting up with my peri-meno posts of the last few weeks, whinging about my screenplay and general douchification. I’m beginning to see a way back in. And I really want to thank the person who said make it darker instead of lighter. And while that may not be the way to go, it was good to have someone remind me that the daughter of darkness is not a pussy. Anyway, I just want to say that the wheels are turning, thank you for the pep talks and the wrist slaps alike; I’m not going to use this “platform” to dirty any more diapers.
Here’s what I want to talk about tonight. Solitude. I never actually feel alone when I’m writing. It’s every other fucking minute of the day. What about you?
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Why do I get so grossed out when writers talk about their craft, their process, or worst of all: their art. In part, it sounds phoney to me, as if you could qualify, quantify, codify how you work. You’re a lucky bastard if you’re any good at all and that’s all you need to know. Do we really give a shit if you write long hand or on a computer, or god forbid a Olivetti 400. These aren’t cars. I also think that writing is completely mysterious; you never know when the hell you’re going to make a break-through or when the words will dry up and float away like new year’s paper. My process is I smear shit on the walls and watch it dry. My process is I jerk off then I write. Sometimes twice. I take Haldol and Immodium and compose. I starve myself for three days. I talk to my dogs. I do a full body groom. Who cares how many drafts you wrote as if writing more drafts makes you better, when, in fact, it might mean you’ve still got your training wheels on. Who cares if you shifted from first to third. Who’s on first? Who cares if you cut half your pages. Double down! I’d rather look inside your sock drawer, your medicine cabinet, your bank account. I’d like to see the condiments you keep. Then I might have a clue about how you write.
I completely forgot about the “Ask Betsy” part of the blog. It goes to a separate email account, which I checked tonight. There were a ton of emails, mostly for penis enlargement and Viagra, which is handy because I need both desperately. There were two blasts from my past. And if you know anything about my past, that is generally not welcome. There were lots of questions not worth posting because we’ve been over them a zillion times: Is it okay to make multiple submissions? YES. What if my agent stops returning my calls and email? MOVE ON. Do I have to finish my novel before I submit it? YES. Do I need an agent? PROBS. Should I Tweet? IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO.
Okay, it’s no secret, I’m in free fall. If you’re looking for a little inspiration, click the hell out of here. I’m going through the motions of my life but I am lost. Though I only showed my screenplay to one person, it became completely clear that I had swung wide and missed. The feedback for the screenplay and the tv pilot are basically the same: drop the drama and push the comedy. In grad school, I tried some humor in some of my poems and Richard Howard asked me if I wanted to be the Fran Liebowitz of the poetry world. I’d rather be the Chris Rock, but whatever. The stars are organizing themselves in a constellation and it looks like Groucho Marx. Why do I resist the Borscht Belt in my DNA? Why do I want to write about the drain and its inexorable pull downward? Why do I wet myself watching America’s Funniest Home Videos? Why do I want to write about men and their scratchy balls, about betrayals small and large, and hurts and misfirings, and pettiness writ large. Why does death cling so dearly? Why can’t I keep it light?
The New Yorker’s blog is asking 
The great paradox of being an agent, or at least being me as an agent, is that I can ask for anything for my clients. I can rise to occasions and sink to new depths, I can plead, beg, cajole, nudge, charm. I can stroke, joke, whisper, clash. I can smash my fucking head through a plate glass window and tap dance. But what I can’t do is ask for myself. I can’t even speak up for myself when a person cuts me. If they can’t cut in front of me, who can they cut? I am so fucking tired of catching more bees with honey. I am so tired of the foxtrot. Tommy, can you feel me?
A client called the other day to say that whether his book sold or not, he was very grateful for all I had done. This is a Code Red. This is when the machine hooked up to the patient starts to flat line. These, my friends, are the words of a dying man. Get the paddles! Some agents may take those words at face value and appreciate the sentiment, but not this pig. I told my client to take it back. It wasn’t time to sign the DNR.
Spent a few days in Ann Arbor to help raise money for Dave Eggers 826 volunteer tutoring organization. Given my crush on The Eggman, I had to say yes. I gave two talks, signed some books, did a q&a and had Mojitos with some of the staff and writers, including our own beloved Sherry Stanfa-Stanley. It was good to know that a) commenters are real people and not a figment of my overactive imagination, and b) SSS is a great person. Seriously great.
Tonight something remarkable happened. A rag tag group of writers with seemingly nothing in common came together and became greater than the sum of the parts. I’ve taught at a lot of conferences and I usually walk away quasi-suicidal. But tonight I felt wonderful. Tonight I saw each person transform in front of me, either in their ability to comment on another writer’s work or their ability to see their own. One woman seemed to have stepped out of a Roz Chast cartoon, had only written in her head thus far, but was adorable and no-nonsense in her feedback. One man, probably the smartest about writing in the group, was as shy as a blanket, but eventually made great observations. But the biggest surprise came from the woman who read her work last. We’d been listening to everyone’s work over the three hours. Now, we were tired and ready to get home (or in my case hoping to make a late movie). That’s when it happened. From her first sentence we were all transfixed. The quality and the power of the writing and story was undeniable. I welled up with tears. The room had shivers. And in her victory, we were all lifted up a little.
Betsy Lerner 