I was out for two weeks taking care of my mom (yes, Sabitha, I do have a heart). I returned to two enormous stacks of mail. All of the query letters were about dysfunctional families, addiction, mental illness, etc. Is it like I have a sign over my head? Couldn’t just once someone send me a book about the history of jam, or Jews in Ireland, or the true story of Karen Carpenter? I want zombies, vampires, NFL champions who dance.  I’ll take Harry Potter’s ugly cousin. Two Shades of Gray. I want books that fly or compute. My Kingdom for a book about depression that isn’t upbeat in the end. I want Daniel Day Louis pre-Lincoln. I want a book about gold leaf. About golden pears. About Benjamin Franklin’s theory of trees. About pigeon holes and whack-a-moles and Spanish sauce and moss.

What do you want to read?

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THE RESULTS ARE IN from  TRACY KIDDER AND RICHARD TODD for the best non-fiction advice:

The awards go to….

1. Sherry Stanfa-Stanley for her excellent miniature anthology of cautions. One feels the force of these especially just after publishing a book—in all its awful finality—as you think of feelings you may have hurt or dares you failed to take. (On the other hand one could find a certain comfort in rea’s citation of Jeffrey Eugenides: “Write like you were dead.”)
2. Scott Atkinson  for his jiu jitsu metaphor restating ancient wisdom of east and west: revise, revise, revise.
3. The comedy team of Kyler and August  for their dialogue on the eternal contradiction of publishing, the quest for the book that’s entirely unique but very like lots of others.

 And special mention to Vivian Swift for the wise quotation from The Forest for the Trees,  advice with which the judges wholeheartedly agree but struck from the competition for fear of seeming corrupt; and actually, now that the judges think about it, isn’t the problem not that “people like vanilla ice cream” but that they like Chocolate Mocha Oreo Supreme?

Hey all you winners: CONGRATS. Please email me your addresses to askbetsylerner@gmail.com to collect your prizes. THANKS to everyone who participated and to our esteemed judges Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd, authors of GOOD PROSE, a book with the most superb writing advice of all.  

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Guys, if you can only buy one book about writing, it’s gotta be THe Forest For THe Trees, duh. If you have cash for two, or a library nearby, please get yourself a copy of GOOD PROSE by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd. Todd is one of the best editors in the business (and my beloved client) and Kidder is one of the four gods of non-fiction carved into the granite face of  Mount Rushmore. Also for an online conversation with Todd and Kidder, click here.

Three prizes for the best piece of non-fiction writing advice you’ve ever received (except WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW) and win a copy of Good Prose. As always, I am the judge, unless I can convince Kidder and Todd to judge. That would be cool.

“Legendary literary journalist Kidder and his longtime editor trade war stories and advice for the ambitious nonfiction writer . . . an entertaining handbook on matters of reporting (do lots of it, much more than you think you need) and style (simpler is better) . . . Other writing guides have more nuts-and-bolts advice, but few combine the verve and plainspokenness of this book, which exemplifies its title.”—Kirkus Reviews(starred review)

“A comprehensive, practical look at the best practices of professional nonfiction writers and editors . . . anecdotes and close readings throughout the text are an excellent resource for would-be writers of any prose genre.”—Publishers Weekly

“[Kidder and Todd] share their dedication to“good prose” and expertise in creating it with warmth, zest, and wit in this well-structured, to-the-point, genuinely useful, and fun-to-read guide to writing narrative nonfiction, essays, and memoir … [they] also offer some of the most lucid, specific, and tested guidance available about technical essentials, from determining what makes a good nonfiction story to choosing a point of view to achieving accuracy and clarity … Kidder and Todd’s book about strong writing is crisp, informative, and mind-expanding.”—Booklist 

“Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction takes us into the back room behind the shop, where strong, effective, even beautiful sentences are crafted. Tracy Kidder and his longtime editor, Richard Todd, offer lots of useful advice, and, still more, they offer insight into the painstaking collaboration, thoughtfulness, and hard work that create the masterful illusion of effortless clarity.”—Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

“Good Prose offers consummate guidance from one of our finest writers and his longtime editor. Explaining that ‘the techniques of fiction never belonged exclusively to fiction,’ Kidder and Todd make a persuasive case that ‘no techniques of storytelling are prohibited to the nonfiction writer, only the attempt to pass off invention as facts.’ Writers of all stripes, from fledgling journalists to essayists of the highest rank, stand to benefit from this engrossing manual.”—Jon Krakauer, author of Into the Wild

“What a pleasure to read a book about good prose written in such good prose! It will make many of its readers better writers (though none as good as Tracy Kidder, who sets an impossible standard), and it will make all of them wish they could hire Richard Todd to work his editorial magic on their words.”—Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

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Aloha from the Nutmeg State! How the fuck are you? I know this is obscenely soon to check back in after my Oz-like disappearance from the internet, but holy shit on rye I finished my fucking screenplay and I owe it all to you. Well, first some august readers have to weigh in, but I finished the fucker. Do you feel me? Now I get to submit it to agents, producers, pimps and prostitutes. And be taken down a peg or two or three or four million. Courage Lerner! Courage Five Pumpkins in a Belly! Courage Wipeass!

And I finally figured out what I want to do next. And, yes, I am on my meds.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? Anybody home?

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One last question for 2012: How are you going to spend more time writing? Rise early? Work late? Get off the internet? Turn off the phone? Write long hand? Keep a notebook with you at all times? Throw away old projects that are never going to work. Really, get rid of them. Go to a writer’s conference. Quit TV. Read more. Two pages a day. Join or form a writer’s group. Start smoking. Read poems! Get therapy! Get meds! Take a walk!

Thank you all again for joining me at the Lerner Bar & Grill these past four years. I already miss you. And, with only a few exceptions like the guy who wanted to kill me with a pitchfork, I love you all. Happy and healthy new year. Now FTF. xxoo, Betsy

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Dearest Darling Readers of This Blog:

I didn’t quite mean to let the cat out of the bag last week when I said I had blogger’s block. But I have been thinking about stopping or at least slowing down. I’m completely addicted to all of you and the community who gather here to let their freak flags fly along with mine. It has been exhilarating for me to write my dispatches from the world of publishing, the agony of writing, and the oceanic despair that travels through me and to be totally understood.

Over Thanksgiving, a bunch of us went bowling. We did much better than we imagined, Strikes and spares, scores over 100. When everyone was tired and ready to go home, four of us, cocky from our performance, decided to play another game. Naturally, we sucked. We could barely knock down a pin. It was then I remembered my father’s very good advice, which he mainly used in business and playing cards: get out while you’re ahead.

I love all of you very much. I will check in from time to time, and I hope you will let me know when your book is coming out or any good news from your creative life (askbetsylerner@gmail.com). I expect greatness from all of you, either that or die trying.

Love, Betsy

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Hi Guys: It’s finally happening after four years: blogger’s block. I don’t want to write about Random buying Penguin, I don’t want to write about e-books, or having lunch with editors no matter how wonderful they are. I don’t want to write about rejection. We eat it for fuck’s sake. I don’t want to write about my screenplay and the nausea at the back of my throat. I don’t want to write about Amazon, or my mother, or therapy, or solitude, or holidays and  how John CHeever started drinking at nine in the morning. I don’t care about facebook, twitter, tumbler, instagram, and anyone else I’m not including. I don’t care if this little ship goes down so long as for some amount of time something happened that might have gone unnoticed but produced a small change in a person who, like me, was stuck.

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Do you ever introduce yourself as: a poet, a novelist, a writer, a scribe, a journalist, an essayist, an ink man, a doodler, a sailor, a puppet, a cheerleader, a spy. ANd what do you do for a living? I torment people. I type. I scratch. I hope. I’m a screenwriter; would you like to touch my Oscar? Yes, it’s heavier than you think. Yes, I could kill you by bashing it into your stupid skull. From this you make a living? WHat do you think he makes? After taxes and commissions? How much of your home office do you write off? Do you get your agent a Christmas present? I write press releases and THEY ARE GREAT. I write grant proposals and would rather hang myself in a half-filled yard. I write jingles. Text books. Holiday cards. Recipes. I’ve written over four hundred love letters to a man who doesn’t love me. I text. I twat. I instagram. I tumblr. I love. I eat. I snow. I can’t stop crying and I don’t really want to. I am an artist. A prophet. A season in hell. I myself am hell. I am an agent.

How do you describe what you do?

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My daughter and I saw a young man perform his music tonight. It was an incredible night watching this performer give all of himself, surrounded by like minded musicians who collectively filled the space with their passionate music and voices. The young man was full of energy, intensity, was emotionally open, and whose voice had its own unique sound, an extraordinary range full of soul, jazz and pop. Later, my daughter asked me if I thought he would make it. I thought about myself at twenty feverishly putting my poetry collection together, all I lived for. Two years later, I was working a conventional job, health benefits (for the shrink) and a 401K.  What’s the moral of the story: if opting out is an option take it. If opting out isn’t an option, you are prepared to sacrifice. You have a fierce work ethic. You have a freeway in your brain. You might explode. It’s cliche by now, but you have no choice. And that’s just your starting point.

Was there a fork in your road?

for M.B.

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