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.
It’s always unsettling when the first few responses to a submission are negative. Suddenly, there is a metallic taste in the air. You smell the milk, unsure if it’s turned. You reread your cover letter, maybe the first chapter. And the client smells it, the blood in the water. No matter what happens, I’m very grateful. Just sell the book, bitch!
I’ll tell you when to panic. It’s too soon to panic. I’ll tell you when the last few sands are caroming down the hour glass. When it’s the 18th hole and your skirt is stained. When you’re near dead in a nursing home with no one to pluck the final hairs from your chin. When the recurring dream involves a white wall and a man who betrayed you. When you leave something on your plate. When you carry your shoes in a brown bag. When the clown swallows the ball.
When do you give up?
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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.
Okay, so not only am I not pulling down bank, I had to pay $10.81 for internet access tonight from the fabulous Doubletree to post what might be the most explosive blog ever ripped from the annals of agenting. So I’m walking my dog this morning and I run into a vague acquaintance who stops to chat, and leads with: so are books dead? Friends, remember, I was walking my dog. I had a plastic bag filled with warm shit. In other words, I was armed and dangerous. Are books dead? Bernard Malamud said book will be dead when the penis is dead.
Hello,
I want to vomit on myself. In a sense, I already have. I’m referring of course to my screenplay, completed last night, reread this morning. What am I a fucking lonely goat herd? A refrigerator mom, a Skinner box? What am I doing? This is my fourth fucking one and they are getting worse. What am I, an organ grinder, an amino acid, a straw dog, a felt beret? What am I doing with these stumps? Wasn’t I happier for the twelve years when I stopped writing entirely? YES. Wasn’t I thinner? YES. Was able to do seventy five push ups? YES, YES, YES. Do I embrace life? No. Do I believe in love? Somewhat? What the fuck is writing anyway? What am I, a Mack truck? A pair of gold sandals? A forest full of trees? A baby carrot? Two buckets of blood?
While we’re on the subject of money, there was an 
The envelope from Penguin arrived today with the light blue sleeve. Royalties! Writing is great and all, but there is nothing like a royalty check to make the heart go thump. I can not tell you how gratifying it is to know that some number of persons found my book, stood in a line at a cashier or clicked through, and brought it home and left it on a side table, a shelf, the can. Thank you so much! I am in a good mood, dear readers! I’m going to use the money to pay for my daughter’s camp, not the jewels and blow of yesteryear, but still.
When I was a young girl, maybe ten, my grandfather called me farbisn, which is Yiddish for stubborn, bitter, truculent, dogged, and grim. This is what makes me a great agent. I am girded for this line of work. Bring it on: rejection, silence, lies, manipulation, disappointment, heartbreak, heartache, psoriasis, insult, injury, insecurity, douchery, failure, abandonment, revenge, pettiness, gossip, mind games, schadenfreude, back stabbing, pain, suffering and free-floating unhappiness. You can’t break my heart, my spirit, my determination because I am a bitter old man in an aluminum chair, a transistor radio plugged into my ear, with two days of white stubble and a borscht stain on my button down, window pane shirt and tan cardigan. Do you read me?
Last night, I met one of my 
Betsy Lerner 