Every now and then you have one of those days when BAM you have three new book ideas. Not saying they’re good ideas. Not even saying they’re actually ideas. In all likelihood, nothing more than a derivative half thought based on nothing more than a phrase or silent fart. Still, it’s better than walking around like the living dead, which is about as close an approximation of how I amble though my life. But today I had a whole flounder of ideas and we both know that I’m not going to write any of them, that come morning I won’t even remember them, but you can’t take away that popping feeling I had crossing Tower Parkway on the way to dinner.

What do you do with your brilliant ideas?

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Today, a client asked me why I like the Emmy’s. Get to know me. I live in a perpetual award show. Have you ever seen me in an elevator? I don’t just like award ceremonies, I am an award’s speech aficionado. I came of age during you like me you really like me era. I understand what it is to spend most of your life in therapy. To want love and greatness and appreciation and spotlight. Double-sided tape and jumbo shrimp. I want to congratulate all other nominees in the category. It is such an honor. 

Who are you going to thank?

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Where do you go for feedback? Who is your best reader? Is it the person who likes your work the most or the one who gets up in your grill? Are the comments you hate the ones that are the most important to heed? (Hint: YES) Why is that most writers I know feel like arsenic has been thrown in their face when met with criticism. It’s a little like telling a parent his or her child is ugly. Of course some comments are off base, but when someone doesn’t get what’s going on it’s incumbent on you to address it.

Or what?

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I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole. I’m a genius. I’m an asshole.

How was your day?

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Finished a draft of the fucker before labor day. Now, she and I are giving each other the cold shoulder. I’m a firm believer of leaving your shit alone for at least a few weeks, become detached, even cold, before looking at it again. My husband asked me what I liked best about it and I said setting up stuff and knocking it down. Thirty five years ago at an alternative summer camp I got into a fight with a guy I had a crush on. He insisted that feeling was all that mattered. I was insisting structure. I guess I haven’t changed.

What do you do when you finish a piece?

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It’s one short mostly inconsequential scene and yet it takes all day, two days, three. Keep going back to it. More, less, add, chip. Why is it there. Delete. Replace, Delete. Now, it’s more a contest of wills. Will this little piece of shit scene win? Vanquish you and your lands. Oh, lord, let it go, move on, you are not the youngest person in the room. Maybe the scene is key or is it just setting something up and if that’s the case isn’t it, by it’s very nature, a golf tee?

What’s your favorite sports metaphor for writing?

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Do you think writers, by nature, are loners? And by loner I mean someone who generally feels alone, even at a party, especially at a party.  A person who can’t stand more than a few hours of togetherness, who prefers and relishes time alone. It’s taken me a long to time to understand that while I have the loner in me, I also like to be of the world. I’ve always felt these two parts of myself were in conflict, but I’m beginning to realize that they feed each other. I’m really happy to say that this week I’m burrowing in my mole hole.  I hope to see no one and no daylight. I plan to wear the same thing, eat the same food, do my back exercises and finish the fucker.

What are you getting done by the end of the summer?

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The good news: Keanu Reeves has become a book publisher. The bad news: he doesn’t accept submissions from agents.

Why is life so unfair?

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Yesterday, I gave an informational interview to a young man in search of employment in the publishing industry. I didn’t really want to take the time, but then I reflected on my own post graduate days when I idiotically bought cream paper to type my cover letters on and could not find cream White-out. I was a horrible typist, which also explains why I didn’t get any publishing jobs at that time, but worse I spent those hot summer days desperately trying not to make mistakes on my portable two-tone Smith-Corona, lest I have to retype the letter all over again. To Whom It May Concern. For Whom the Bell Tolls. All of which explains how I became the Corporate File Coordinator for two years in the Morgan Stanley Library, where I learned to retrieve documents from the SEC, print documents off microfiche, file documents in dossiers, shag bicycle messengers in the supply closet, buy joints on 10th Avenue and eat two Chipwiches for lunch, from different vendors, so no one would suspect. So when the young man asks me what my usual day like a literary agent is like, well, it’s mind blowing.

What was your first job?

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Today, on the down staircase, I was behind a young man whose t-shirt said, “Love your haters. They are your biggest fans.” Which means I am my biggest fan because I am my biggest hater. Go me! Do you think that your haters are your biggest fans because hating takes so much energy, impressive energy. I know I’m totally enthralled with the people I hate. I probably think about them more than the people I love. I hate myself for saying that.  My mother once told me not to waste my energy hating. That it hurts me more than it hurts them. Yes! Yes! Hating and self-loathing meet like the two rivers that flow into an estuary. And I hate myself for saying estuary.

What do you hate?

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