Posted on December 1, 2010 by betsylerner
The problem with watching too much In Treatment is that you begin to take on Gabriel Byrne’s characteristics, his brooding mien, his Irish accent, his eye twitches that signal he gets it. You start telling people to get a good look at themselves, to find the connections among various life events, to pick up the almighty pattern. And then you try to offer a little hope, just a wee bit of salvation or redemption or revelation. You know: insight.
I’ve always fancied myself an armchair shrink, so it doesn’t take much for me to get into character. Though, I usually wind up feeling more like the patient. Of course, I love seeing Byrne with his shrink. You know, the doctor heal thyself crap. Sometimes when I stare at my shrink, I imagine her in the most banal situations, waiting for a mammogram, running back into the laundry room to throw a Bounce in the dryer, mindlessly playing with green beans on her square plate.
Therapy is to writing as writing is to ____________________________.
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Posted on November 29, 2010 by betsylerner
Over Thanksgiving holiday, my nephew (also my tech person and the smartest person in our family if Harvard admissions is any judge) suggested that I scrub up my blog if I ever wanted to apply for any job. This hit me like a ton of books. It’s not like I’m posting pictures of myself on Facebook wearing a tube top and throwing up at a backyard party, or doing bong hits in the ladies room of the Nassau Coliseum. I don’t even have a Facebook. I took umbrage at his remark; was I really that over the top, out of bounds, or to use the dread word: inappropriate. Was I eating dead babies? Smearing feces? Carving swastikas into my forehead. What was he talking about?
Thank god I work for myself, I thought. But then what if I did want to get a job? And where? Run Random House? HBO? Personal assistant to Jake Gyllenhaal? I could always bag groceries (I am amazing at this), organize Tupperware drawers (again, sorry for such unabashed self-praise, but I’m genius at this), I could teach pottery. I wonder if I could get a job at Google or Amazon, or is this what he is talking about? I started thinking about self-censorship and how, on this blog, I already engage in a fair amount of it. For instance, I never write negatively about clients or publishing colleagues. I never talk about projects that are in play. Is my nephew aware of how much self-control I actually muster night after night? I thought the blog was a resume enhancer. At the very least it makes me appear younger, right? And to all potential employers: fuck off and die.
What’s on your resume? Worst job? Besides being a writer that is.
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Posted on November 28, 2010 by betsylerner
My husband has been reading the Saul Bellow letters. Over the last few days, he read out parts to me. I am a huge Bellow fan and plan to read the letters myself. Part of me wants to tell him to stop, don’t ruin it for me. But I don’t. I love hearing the riffs and moments that catch John’s eye. I think the theme is the same: space. How much you allow yourself as a writer.
I saw an exhibit over the weekend by a young artist called Mark Bradford. I felt an immediate kinship with paintings. As I made my way through the exhibit, I learned that his mother had a beauty salon and he learned much there about making hair beautiful and the slow processes involved. Many of his works are collages that employ permanent paper from the salon. People try to call his work collage. He says they are paintings without using paint. He also talked about space and growing into larger canvases, about being nervous at first to take up too much space. At the end of the exhibit, his paintings took up entire walls and could barely contain their energy, the power of the idea, the painstaking execution.
How much space do you take up, your work?
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Posted on November 24, 2010 by betsylerner
I know I have a great deal to be grateful for, but I hate this fucking holiday. When people say, have a good holiday, shit, when I say have a good holiday, it always sounds like: try not to kill yourself. It’s funny, but I don’t think I’d be a writer if it weren’t for my family, by which I mean trying to get away from them. The crawl space under the stairs. The fort behind the house. The high school parking lot. The single in Tooting Bec. The little study painted in baby aspirin orange. The quarry in Rockport. And the fat raccoon who wished me well. Every twelve-plex. Every overcast sky. Every trail littered with leaf rot. Try not to kill yourself. And by that I mean, a happy and healthy to all of you wonderful malcontents and bitchin’ ass writers who show up here every day or from time to time. I am certainly grateful for you.
What are you NOT grateful for?
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Posted on November 23, 2010 by betsylerner
It’s that time of the year, Galleycat announces the Bad Sex in Fiction Finalists:
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/jonathan-franzen-tops-bad-sex-in-fiction-award-nominee-list_b17633#more-17633
After getting scorched by the NBA, Franzen’s got to feel good about being the list topper here. I mean anyone can write bad sex scenes, but writing the worst sex scenes that takes some doing. I actually read the Franzen and I think they must be referring to the sex between the married lady (name I no longer remember) and the musician friend (name I no longer remember). Just the way she joined him in bed was oogy to the max. Though I thought the married sex scene was sweetly done. Especially the way they rest when they are done. When I was single, there was no resting after sex. It was all James Franco chew your arm off time. Get dressed and get out. Rest on the subway if you know what I mean. But resting after married sex happens, as does laundry folding.
What have you read that gave you a bone or a wide? Best or worst sex in a book, watcha got?
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Posted on November 23, 2010 by betsylerner
Coming home from Miami last night, my daughter was reading Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea. A far cry from Are You There God, It’s Me Mags. And yes, I bought it for her. Look, she knows about periods. I’m a bad mother. But when I was thirteen I was sneaking Harold Robbins novels from my best friend Lisa Zimmerman’s mother. God, those books were fat and racy. You could feel yourself up reading them.
I was reading a revision of a novel that went from humming to singing. That turned a caterpillar into an ocelot, a cougar, a raven, a bat. I don’t think there’s anything more rewarding than seeing your editorial notes be received like a pint of blood. To see an author address your notes and hit the pile of cards hard. It’s a dance, a dip, a bow, a kiss It’s lightening in a bottle. It’s that feeling that you have understood and you have been understood. I am so inspired by writers who take a sad song and make it better.
What book did you sneak? And, for extra credit, how well do you take to notes for revision?
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Posted on November 21, 2010 by betsylerner
I have to go fast because this is a pay computer in a Sheraton in Miami Beach. I’m down here for the Miami Book Fair, which is a fantastically vibrant event with tons of booksellers, authors, street performers, sausages, you name it. After my agent panel, I signed books for a half hour or so. I was very moved by a few people who brought in old dog eared hardcovers and told me how much the book meant to them. One woman, with the beautiful face of a Mayan sculpture, told me that she never used to speak in her writing class or share her work. Her professor, sick of her oracular silence, insisted she write the last lines of her diary on the board. She wrote, “all I have left to do is die.” This woman then told me that he called her into his office and gave her a copy of my book. She told me read it ten times. I really didn’t know what to say. It was almost too much to take in. I silently hoped that he also gave her the name of the campus counseling service.
It’s hard to know what’s true in this world. Hard to know if the full moon over Miami wasn’t a stage prop, fat as a face. It’s hard to know if the laughter around the pool wasn’t forced, or the lamb chops cooked to perfection were fully appreciated by the dinner guests who floated above the calm water of a dark canal. Hadn’t we come to be wooed. Hadn’t we come to steal candy and laugh like children finding our way out of a strange labrynth of palm trees and howling dogs. Did I tell you I met Dave Eggers, my hero, CK Williams who is called Charlie, and Russell Banks, and Susan Cheever. Did I tell you that I cut myself off after two glasses of white wine because it was clear I was about to behave regrettably. And I’d like to be invited back.
For me, it was Ariel, the book that saved my life. What book saved you, or at least reminded you that you were not alone.
Filed under: Writers Conference | 69 Comments »
Posted on November 18, 2010 by betsylerner
I received over one hundred emails today — my inbox runneth over. I’ve heard from old bosses, booksellers, colleagues, friends, writers, beloved clients. I ‘ve heard from people I barely remember and people I slept with. I’ve heard from friends of the family, and family. I’ve heard from England, Holland, Italy, France, Korea, and Japan. I’ve heard from scouts, movie people, even other agents. I’ve heard from people I can’t stand who have treated me like crap and people who mentored me and helped me grow. I’ve heard from people I hate and people I love. But of all these friends and lovers, there is no one compares to you.
My mother congratulated me and then said, “why do you think it won?” And that, my friends, is all you really need to know about me.
What do we need to know about you?
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Posted on November 18, 2010 by betsylerner
Robert Mapplethorpe 1946-1989
“Many would not make it. Candy Darling died of cancer, Tinkerbelle and Andrea Whips took their lives. Others sacrificed themselves to drugs and misadventure. Taken down, the stardom they so desired just out of reach, tarnished stars falling from the sky. I feel no sense of vindication as one of the handfuls of survivors. I would rather have seen them all succeed, catch the brass ring. As it turned out, it was I who got one of the best horses.” Patti Smith, Just Kids, winner of the 2010 National Book Award
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Posted on November 17, 2010 by betsylerner
National Book Award reading tonight. This event lasted longer than the Academy Awards: Four hours from the welcome reception to the medal ceremony, to the reading (twenty authors, twenty!). Some of the authors were fantastic, a couple disappeared themselves, a few had that pronounced MFA way of reading where the breath comes at exactly the wrong beat in some sort of forced air way that is both counter-intuitive and not. I fell in love with the poet Terrance Hayes. Patti was wonderful. I sat in the audience as if watching my child’s first violin recital; prouder I could not have been.
So tomorrow’s the big night. I’m not the kind of person who says “whatever happens we’re all winners,” or “the journey is more important than the destination.” Even if it’s true it sounds so gross. Though I have to admit that the best part of tonight was hearing so many voices, and thinking about all the work it took for each writer to arrive at this moment in his or her life.
So give me your acceptance speech, the one you tuck into your pocket just in case.
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Betsy Lerner 