Because I am lonely and feel misunderstood. Because I am a ham, a showoff, a classic middle child. Because I can’t do anything else. Because I want to stand at the podium and blather. Because I want my mother’s love and admiration. Because I want to get invited to parties. I want everyone who didn’t believe in me to suck it. I want the dream. Because nothing compares to a book. Because I like being alone. Because I hate and love myself in equal measure. Because someone said you are good but you are hiding. Because someone here said they spit their coffee on the computer.
Why do you write?
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What is your narrative of your writing life? Were you singled out as the most talented writer in High School, voted most likely to get published? Were you the hot shot of your MFA program, whispered about with jealousy and contempt. Did you publish the first story you ever sent out and then never again? Did you slink away from a writer’s conference without a single friend or contact? Did you never send anything out? Are you getting up a dawn, or, like Mary Higgins Clark, typing away on the fire escape after all the kids are asleep? Are you a starter who never finishes? Do you get up at dawn and feel saintly or stay up all night and smoke? Are you frail, intrepid, Quixotic or cautious. Are you proud or ashamed?
Over the weekend, a cousin I only see once a year asked me if I was writing. We were standing in front of the Gravitron at a makeshift carnival on the north fork of Long Island. Parents were mulling about while their kids went on rides.THe smell of zepoles and sausage stirring the still air. In the distance fire crackers exploded. Babies screamed. Couples held hands, carrying a stuffed dog or panda from a carnival game. The barkers in the background: win a prize for your lady, only three dollars, everyone’s a winner. I said kinda, mostly screenplays, quite convinced I won’t get anywhere. Ha ha. La-di-da. Let’s face it, saying you’re writing screenplays is about as absurd as saying you’re running away with your podiatrist, or you’re seagulling, or taking flossing to the next level.
It’s that time again: HATE LIST.
In the current issue of Poets & Writers, there is a section called “Critical Links,” and it charts how the author found the agent found the editor. Just as I always like to know how couples first met, I love to know how writers hook up with their agents, and how their agents in turn get them placed with publishers. It’s a form of matchmaking, and since I’m probably more interested in relationships than anything else I could read about these hook ups all night. For me, most of my clients come from referrals, from other writers, from editors. Some were friends from graduate school. Some queried me and I just liked the sound of their letter or project. And some I stalked.
You are the captain of your own ship. My grandmother used to say that when I was young and I would actually see myself as a child in grown up clothes, Naval dress, standing in the prow of a ship, a large hat swimming on my head, long pant legs cascading over my feet. A sort of Wes Anderson tableau. As I got older, I saw myself as more of a wayfarer in the middle of the ocean, more daring, more beautiful, thinner, and with lustrous brown hair clipped back in a tortoise shell barrette. Now, there is no image, just this clarion call, this fierce reminder in one’s ability to chart the course of her life. Why do I bring it up tonight? Perhaps to remind myself to hang in, that not knowing how to revise or what the next step is doesn’t render me finished, that all is not lost when you put another script in a casket and dig a six foot hole and when the first shovel of dirt is your own. Or when your new “idea” is only that or less than that because the execution evades you, or when you start to doubt the whole endeavor, when you fondly think back to high school and college when you were the queen of bagging groceries (winner of the cleanest station of the week 14 weeks in a row) or serving quiche at a pretentious cafe, or decorating the whale room in the Natural History Museum with a thousand neon green and blue streamers. An underwater diorama. Kissing a boy you had a crush on in that stream of crepe anemone. Remember this: Don’t give up the ship.
This morning I wrote an essay inspired by the deaths of Whitney Houston and Mary Kennedy. I had been thinking about them, but hadn’t plan to write anything and certainly not this morning when I had two editorial letters to write and a half dozen manuscripts to read. When I looked up, I had six pages and two hours had gone by. Blip. The question is: is the piece any good? WHen something comes out in a rush of energy, it’s easy to get carried away, think it’s better than it is. I guess the real test would be to send it out. Are rejections and acceptances the only gauge? What about personal satisfaction. What about those two hours spent so happily in Neverland. Does that count?
Tonight I went to hear some music that is part of an annual series called “Arts & Ideas.” It’s festival that brings in a palette of international performers, musicians, artists, etc. It’s really quite impressive and I feel like a petulant child to say that it makes my skin crawl. I’m not sure if it’s the arts or the ideas, or the way it’s all served up on a bed of bright lettuce, or maybe it’s just the word “festival” that makes me want to wear velvet slippers with tiny jingle bells. I hated the concert tonight so much that I leaned over and whispered to my husband that I wanted to go He mouthed back, “what?” I leaned in to say it again when the man in back of us tapped my shoulder and said, “would you stop talking.” THere is some dispute as to whether he said “stop talking” or “PLEASE stop talking.” Whatever. I wanted to die and then I wanted to kill him. I spent the balance of the performance fantasizing about how I was going to turn around and say: why don’t you shut the fuck up. Or, what the fuck is it to you? Or, you really wanna fuck with me mother fucker. But instead I just slumped down and tried to drown out the concert, and stop thinking about how badly I wanted fro-yo.
Betsy Lerner 