In a few days, I’m meeting with six students in a MFA program for one-on-one sessions to talk about their writing. They have each turned in twenty pages of their novels-in-progress. I read the pages today and was struck by a few different things. First, the pieces were diverse. When I was in graduate school, everyone wanted to be Raymond Carver or Anne Beatty. Everyone was trying to write the same story. These students were all over the place: sci-fi, elliptical structure, parallel stories, confessional, absurdist and one I can’t describe. It was the stippling of a trout, a column of stacked clouds, a choppy sea dotted with grey-blue seals. They all seemed free.

What kind of writer are you?

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Buckled down this weekend and got some serious revision done. For me the key is putting the pages down for a week or so and looking at them fresh. Putting the pages down, stepping away from the car, is really hard. Losing a connection with your work is kind of terrifying. What if you can’t reconnect? What if, when you check in, it’s an unmitigated disaster? Some writers say it’s all about the revision.

What say you?

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Who’s still in therapy? Not me, but I need it more than ever. Here’s why I won’t go back: I’m tired of the moi. I see all the therapists of Christmas past dancing in front of my eyes, mocking me.  I see the couches and vacations in Turks and Cakes that I paid for. I think about all the pain that pools into an hour, the Persian  carpets whose threads I counted. I might as well start smoking and drinking again. Coke Zero. You have to stand up sometimes. Sometimes strength means asking for help.

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I cleaned my desk today and organized a desk drawer. That should give you some indication of the suck ass day I had trying to patch a few sentences together. Why am I alive? Why do I want to do this more than anything else? Why can’t I ever be happy? I wish I went by Elizabeth. Betsy Barrett Browning. Betsy Harwick. Betsy Bishop. Betsy Gaskell. I wish I went to Nova Scotia after grad school and married a potter. I actually separated large from small paper clips. I threw away pens that dried up and pencils that went stale.

How be you?

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Big front page article about how much reading means to President Obama. As if it didn’t already hurt enough that this beautiful man was leaving office. This man who loves Shakespeare, and Emerson and Toni Morrison. He invited five writers to the White House: Colson Whitehead, Barbara Kingsolver, Dave Eggers, Zadie Smith and Junot Diaz. I have to admit I was a little disappointed in the list and not just because it didn’t include me. I feel like the list could have been a little more provocative, different genres, or just weird.

What five writers would you invite to the White House?

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it’s very hard for me to fall in love with books anymore. sadly, i just read them from a writer’s perspective–check for structure, tone, voice. i hate it but i do it. –rea

Thank you, Rea, for this topic. Reading for “pleasure” is almost impossible for most writers. You are either learning, studying, dissecting, or competing. You are either impressed, depressed, inspired or humbled. Who is the person staring out from the back flap, who did she fuck to get those quotes? What I want is a book that has its own language, that makes me sit up straight, that insists I pay attention. I want similes that are sublime. I want STRUCTURE, not and then and then and then. I want to be either hyper aware of the narrator or completely unaware. I honestly think that writers should only read classics. It’s like playing tennis with the pro.

How do you read?

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The whole thing about being an agent is discovering a writer or project that excites you so much all you want to do is tell people about it. It’s like New Year’s eve in When Harry Met Sally when Billy Crystal realizes he loves Meg Ryan that he runs through the streets of New York to find Meg Ryan at a party to say “I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”If my heart doesn’t quicken, if I can’t envision how I would pitch, I generally step aside. It may not be the most scientific method, but it’s reliable. I sometimes feel like the fully dressed guy on the beach with the metal detector.

What was the last book you were massively excited about?

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I’m jacked up on Benadryl tonight. What about you?

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Spent the day writing, she said feeling saintly, superior, and suddenly sad. It’s truly a drug this writing business. Editing is a contact high. It’s when the words and sentences are your own, when you find a simile that makes sense on three dimensions. I know this blog is generally a clusterfuck of complaining because for every victory there are 10,000 failures. If I think I wrote well today, I’ll see the delusion tomorrow, and yet and yet. We need the eggs. This year I want to wear glitter and sit up straight. I want to wear it or throw it out.

Can you describe your best writing day?

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Today, a little better. Work is the only tonic/balm/antidote to negativity. And I did good work today with  a writer on the cusp of finishing a book. Loose threads were sewn up, extraneous details dropped, transitions sharpened, part titles materialized out of thick air. People, we have to write. We have to fight. We have to fuck all. When you call a sentence into being it is as real as a moth hanging on a stalk in a forgotten forest.

Why do you write?

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