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
Beginning, middle and end. Pick your poison. For me starting is always the best. The moment I get a title or a first line in my head, I feel like a racehorse at the starting line. It’s this infusion of adrenaline and excitement. Most of the time, I don’t get far, but for the few moments before the idea fizzles, I’m my most happy. Writing is a brilliant cocktail of ego, narcissism, and the rush of making something out of nothing. It’s like a hunk of clay moving beneath your hands, a climbing wall, a pool table with balls racked. It’s a cigarette slowly burning, an empty swing with a violent back story, a pair of shoes, a bit of wind
To know what I think. To know what I feel. To amuse myself. To unspool myself. To keep secrets, truths, lies. To try on hats. To wrestle the world. To wrestle myself. To build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. Bran muffin, mail box, magnets, mole hills, chutes, ladders, left turns, dead ends, tables set with ceramic tureens in the shape of cabbages. Details whether god is in them or not.
It’s time to talk about it. I haven’t said anything for a long time, but the truth is I do it a lot. LIke every day. I’m talking about podcasts. I listen when I’m doing the dishes, walking the dog, folding laundry. I’m pretty promiscuous. I listen to The Daily, to Ezra Klein and Still Processing. Two personal favorites are Tell Me About Your Father and Sounds like a Cult. The Powers that Be. Sway. The Dating Game Killer. Lots of crime. I didn’t want to let them into my life, but now it looks like they are here to stay. I find them very entertaining. Sometimes informative. But what I really like is that they crowd out all the constant spinning in my head.
My writing partner, apart from being generous, astute, and insightful, is a master at calling out stinkers. Again and again, every line, paragraph, and idea that is either slightly off or completely off, she gently says, “maybe this could come out. Not sure. What do you think?” Oh, gentle lady! If you have someone in your life with a dowsing rod, aka, a stinker meter, don’t let them go. This begs another question, why don’t we know ourselves when we’ve besmirched the page?
When I was in grad school, the world was divided into two camps: fiction writers and poets. Dogs and cats. Mice and men. It was unheard of for anyone to cross genres. I was a so-called poet and it never occurred to me to write a single line of prose. I was after line breaks. I was looking for images that obscured what I was feeling. A poem was a painting, a grove, a hideout, a cave. I was also trying to be funny. I wrote a sestina called Calories and Other Counts. I called my collection, Venus Envy. A professor I revered compared me to Fran Leibowitz and it wasn’t a compliment. I never wrote another poem after I left graduates school. Ten years later I wrote an advice book. How did that happen?
How do you protect your time to write? How do you make boundaries? Does a long weekend mean more time to write, or more time to feel guilty, or more barbecues, family, scrolling? Are you the kind of writer who needs uninterrupted time? Or will you grab what you can get? Is your writing time sacrosanct? Precious? Elusive? Do you fritter your time away? Are you always reaching or burrowing in? Do you prioritize your work. Do you have a schedule? A niche?
I started three different books over the weekend and couldn’t commit to any. Is it me or is it Memorex? I think I mentioned that I went off of all social media and was hoping for an instantaneous return of memory and attention span. I think now I have to knock off the Melatonin gummies. I feel like sludge in the morning. I am listening to an horrific story on Audible that is riveting. I’m going to keep going with Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House. I’ll be honest, I was never that kid reading under my covers with a flashlight. I was never that into Harriet the Sky and couldn’t stand Little House on the Prairie. For me, the first book I read that jolted me awake and didn’t let go was In Cold Blood. I read it when I was fourteen. Scarred forever. Bitten, too.
Do you use outlines, do you use notecards, do you keep a notebook, a timeline, a chronology, a map, a blue print, a ledger, an excel spreadsheet? How do you keep it all in your head, keep track, the passage of time, the meting out of information. How, when you walk deep into a forest, do you find your way out? I’m an index card girl. Or was that obvious?
The other day, a Youtube fitness instructor said, “I love intensity, but I worship consistency.” She was talking about working out but I knew it was going to be my new writing mantra. Meaning do it even when you don’t want to, meaning work through the rough patches, meaning do this every day. I’m firmly in the camp that you can’t wait for inspiration. Just keep writing and writing and writing. You will get better and better and better. I mean it may get worse, but probably not.
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 