Yesterday, a client sent me a note that nearly made me cry. She said that if I ever questioned why I do this work, I shouldn’t. She went on to say how much I helped her, especially in organizing her thoughts for a future book. Others have said it. One writer amused me once by saying with surprise, “You’re good at this.” But yesterday, those words really lifted me because I do, from time to time (and by that I mean always) struggle with my desire to write and my work. I’ve always been more devoted to my work because I need to be connected to the earth the way a Thanksgiving Day balloon is tethered by so many cables. First as an editor, and now as an agent, my work with writers has saved me. Work has saved me. The rest of life I don’t know what to say much of except of course my daughter, my half scratched diaries, the shoeboxes filled with letters, clippings, ticket stubs and brightly colored candy wrappers. A game of Uno with drunken friends, sex in a Tanglewood parking lot, a long slow cruise down the Nile reading Faulkner.
What saves you. Or what kills you?
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I loved the writing. The writing is fantastic. She’s such a wonderful writer. What exactly do you mean when you say that? It’s like saying a person is a good lover. Yes? And? What moves are we taking about? What makes you good? Or, she’s an amazing cook. Pies? Roasts? THat carrot cake? Donna is great friend! Does this mean she’s a great listener or has an unending supply of Percocet? Saying the writing is great is like saying sex is great or food is great or Donna is great. For me, if I have to say one thing (and I don’t because it’s my fucking blog), it is the feeling that I am in the hands of someone who is in control, who knows what they are doing.
In the fifth grade, I mispronounced the word “breast” as “breest” while reading an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem aloud to the class. I also pronounced the name Reggie from the Archie Comics as if it rhymed with Peggy. ANd while we’re at it, I mistook the Rolling Stones song “Angie” for “I Inject.” My favorite example comes from a bookseller who told me about a woman who came into his store looking for a copy of Tequila Mockingbird.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Structure, structure, structure. We’ve talked about it before and for fuck’s sake we are going to talk about it again. When there is a problem with a manuscript, when it’s “not working,” when the material is good but the flakes don’t fly, it’s usually because the structure is flawed and by that I mean it’s fucked. What is structure, asks the simple son? First, slice a seedless rye in even slices. Butter every other one. Thematic? Chronological? A dovetail of the two? How good are you? How many plates in the air can you successfully spin? How devout are you? How unpredictable? If you have no idea what I’m talking about, mark up your favorite book and track the changes, the breaks, clock the way time moves. Pick a tense and stick with it unless you know how to drive a stick. Yo, what up? Is structure organic or something you apply to a work, asks the silent son, silently. For me, it’s organic. I subscribe to the idea that the choices you make in the first pages are more than clues, they are the dead sea scrolls, the shroud, the grail. You set the tone, style, syntax, pace, point of view, etc. It doesn’t mean you can’t make adjustments. It doesn’t mean you can’t turn it on its head. And sometimes it isn’t until you get to the end that you see the beginning. And that is the place to start.
A lot of people fuck off between Thanksgiving and New Year. Writing routines, diets, exercise, sending work out, etc. It all gets subsumed by the holiday, by family, by suicidal ideation. It’s really difficult to stay on track, to keep getting up at five and cracking a few pages out of your ass. Is anyone out there? Does anyone care? Who am I writing for? Myself? Philip Roth? Moshe Pipick? You have to be your own hole. You have to wonder how Mick Jagger does it? You have to attack attack attack. You can not rest, can not let this moment result in the sad realization that you suck. Take the brief case. Take the hammer. Take the lost tribe Ireland. Do not let people laugh at you. Do not be deterred. Do not quit. Not now. Not yet.
Holiday schmaliday. Who really gives a shit? For most writers spending time with families is hell. One year, I went on strike and didn’t go home. I went to the movies and ate entire baguette with sweet butter in my apartment. I watched the parade and I cried. This deep streak of sentimentality really scares me. I can start bawling at the first sight of a chubby majorette in white vinyl cowboy boots swinging a baton with confidence. So much joy just destroys me. So please, pick a fight with a relative and park yourself in some grown kid’s room turned into a den. Stretch out on the corduroy covered bed with matching bumpers and take a nap.
Betsy Lerner 