THE FOREST FOR THE TREES is about writing, publishing and what makes writers tick. This blog is dedicated to the self loathing that afflicts most writers. A community of like-minded malcontents gather here. I post less frequently now, but hopefully with as much vitriol. Please join in! Gluttons for punishment can scroll through the archives.
If I’ve learned one thing about writers, it’s this: we really are all alone. Thanks for reading. Love, Betsy
I’m gonna say something really unpopular. Getting published sucks. It’s like running around the town square with a paper bag on your head and your pants pulled down for as fast as you can for 2-6 weeks and then it’s over. And that’s if all goes well. You have this dream of getting published. You believe the angels will sing meaning people show up your reading, reviews praise your prose, you have a meaningful conversation with an NPR host and some jaunty repartee with Steven Colbert or Bill Maher. There’s no handbook, no counseling, no support group of people in a circle of folding chairs admitting they are powerless over words and their lives had become unmanageable.
I went to the 110th anniversary of Poetry Magazine over the last two days. An incredible line up of 11 poets were awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. I was not an honoree in case you jumped to that conclusion. I was there a sturdy Plus One to my great friend Patti Smith. Just want to say, if you need a Plus One think of me. I’m really good at it. Sandra Cisneros was there. Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, and Rita Dove. Respect! I thought a lot about why I stopped writing poetry when I finished graduate school. I’ve never come up with a satisfactory answer. Though being in close proximity to those poets made me see something of what they have that I don’t beside a penchant for flamboyant style. They do more than write poetry, they live it.
A doctor asked me what keeps me up and I said, me. I keep me up. I do email and tiktok and instagram and facebook. Before that I watched late night TV. And movies in black and white. And before that I made wild passionate love all night. And before that I wrote in my diary, pages and pages about being lonely in one form or another. Poetry & before that I braided my hair. I bought a green jacket with blue piping with a silk lining and tiny daisies. And before that I cried in my crib. Inconsolable. Same difference.
Much gratitude for all the good wishes. Could I have done it without you? Probably. But this little blog, which I started in December, 2008 has been a lifeline, a needle in the vein, a poke in the eye, a kick in the pajamas, it’s been friendship, inspiration, irritation, and a guilty mess. It’s a lot of bad grammar and typos and dangling martinis. I can’t tell y’all what y’all mean to me. I found my voice here, or a voice, a persona that looks like me at seven in other words adorable and chubby in all the right ways. Yes, body acceptance begins where? I wrote when I couldn’t write. And that, I think, has made all the difference.
Donna Everhart, you minx. Well, now that you’ve hinted at my big news, I’ll come clean. All this time I’ve been in my office gnawing at my limbs, splitting my hairs, scouring my face like the surface of Mars. In other words, I’ve been writing. Remember when we did thirty minutes for thirty days of writing. Well, that tapped something in me and by the next month I was writing for an hour, then two, then five until my fingers cramped up. I think part of the experience was the newfound freedom of fiction. After all the non-fiction I was free to make shit up, no more quadruple fact checking, reading abstracts over and over to comprehend one thing. Interviewing people for hours to get one nugget. I was having…fun. The voice came to me first and then the story. My greatest joy: making similes, which I rank because all similes are not created equal (not for today). Anyway, I finished the fucker and am so proud and delighted and humbled to have the book accepted by Grove Press with one of the world’s best fiction editors.
Guys, I have to flex. Two of my clients’ books are on the New York Times Bestseller List, which of course is all that matters in the entire world or so it feels when you work in publishing. What makes this so sweet is that I’ve worked with both Neil de Grasse Tyson and Temple Grandin for more than 25 years. We have literally grown AARP together. Congrats to these two incredible people who continue to inspire me and the world.
The #1 nonfiction book on the New York Times Bestseller list for a couple of months is I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy. Ballsy title. Perfect for the Mommy Dearest Crowd, could alienate the Hallmark crowd. I hadn’t heard of the actress or the show she was on for years as a kid. I read it because I was genuinely curious why it was a #1 bestseller and because I like to stay current with the genre. Mama drama. Friends, I devoured it.I didn’t realize that the A story describes a lifelong struggle with bulimia, largely due to McCurdy’s stage mother who taught her how to keep her body from developing so she’d land more kids’ parts. It’s also a story about an over the top stage mother. Visceral, acerbic wit, honest, real. Finally, it’s about the struggle for self-acceptance. At 62, I’m not even close.
I got a letter today from a writer I haven’t heard from in over a decade, maybe longer. We didn’t end on a bad note, we just ended or so I thought. Are agents and clients supposed to mate for life? Some break ups are as bad as marriages and I know I’ve handled my fair share badly. Never purposefully, but I didn’t have the poise, the skill, the courage to say what I felt or needed. I know an agent who broke up with clients by not returning their calls and emails. “Eventually,” she said, “they take the hint.” The goal is to stay together, to keep inspiring and enjoying the mutual admiration society of two, to feel that we are in this rat fuck together.
Two words: Colleen Hoover. You’ve probably noticed that she has six books on the bestseller list. I’ve been meaning to take a look into the phenomenon because I’m nothing if not an old man with drool on my chin at OTB trying to game the races. Today, the NYT put her on the front page and ran a long article about how she was making $9 an hour as a social worker and living in a trailer when a fairy godmother called Amazon dropped in and she self-published her first book, SLAMMED, a YA about a misfit poetry girl who does slam. According to the article, her books (now 20 of them) have sold over 20M copies. My favorite part of the story is that she put her work out there and according to the article, first six, then sixty people bought it. Does the word mushroom mean anything to you? She now has more that 2.4 billion views (plus one more because I just checked out her TikTok). She didn’t have an agent or a publisher (those came later). She had readers who loved her book. Unlike most novelists who stick to a genre, she’s all over it with thriller, domestic drama, romance, etc. What I love about her is her fatalism, (“Still in my head I’m like this is going to end tomorrow,”) which is why she is always welcome here at the Lerner Sanatorium for Writers and Convalescents.
My kid sister Gail Lerner wrote a middle grade novel, The Big Dreams of Small Creatures, and it went on sale this week. I’m so insanely proud of her. She’s a big deal Hollywood writer and director, but her dream was always to write a novel for kids. It’s smart, funny, and deeply moving. I like to take credit for all of her successes but I was just a tremendous role model. My work ethic, my many books, my publishing acumen, my abundant creativity, my joy. Sending out lots of love to my Gaily, my turtle, my otter, my sister. Check out her book or better yet get a copy for the coolest kid you know.
You got sibs?
“In the delightful new book The Big Dreams of Small Creatures by Gail Lerner, a young girl named Eden Evans discovers she can speak Wasp: Yes, she can actually speak to them, with the help of a kazoo, but I digress. From that miraculous discovery to the thrilling roller coaster ending, Eden and August, who is terrified of insects and wants to destroy them, find conflict and adventure and a whole new world in the coexistence between humans and insects. What an enchanting and wondrous book for young readers.” —Jamie Lee Curtis, actress and bestselling children’s book author
“From fumbling fourth-grader August to introspective, independence-loving Eden and their friends, both human and insect, Gail Lerner’s characters are a delight, full of heart and humor. The Big Dreams of Small Creatures is a whimsical adventure highlighting the wonders of the natural world—and our sometimes complicated relationship with it—and the importance of kindness, compassion, and seeing things through another’s eyes.” —Robert Beatty, author of the bestselling Serafina series and Willa series
No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.
It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Ollie has no breaks. Amy can't get her life started. Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet coming of age story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental illness, boundaries, loss and the limits of love.
Betsy Lerner 