An editor recently rejected a project. He was apologetic because he really liked the book; he just couldn’t get in-house support. Then, he allowed that it might have been different had the author been younger. I pretended not to hear it because had I heard it, my head would have exploded. Look, I’m a realist. Everyone knows that the world loves an ingenue, a hayseed, a bright eyed and bushy-tailed, or PYT. But for fuck’s sake, this is writing. Experience used to be an asset. Oh, boo hoo. Great writing but the author wears Depends. Terrific prose, but her dentures were slipping in the meeting. La-de-da. My nursing home fantasy has always been the same: read all my diaries and letters and smoke cartons of Marlboros. Then I would turn to the Russians. Hopefully find a couple of gals to play Bananagrams with, watch the Oscars.

Is writing a young man’s game?

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Truman Capote said when god hands you a gift he also hands you a whip. I think I got two whips. Suddenly, the word “whip” looks ridiculous. You know how that happens when you worry a word? I sit at a table and meet with writer after writer and try to find one helpful thing to say, one moment of connection. But all I’m really thinking about are the stacks of Mike N’ Ike boxes in the concession stand. Concession? That’s a loaded word. Driving home from PA, I tried to visualize my screenplay as a live action movie. I try to see every scene. Sometimes I’d lose track and think about all the  men who have been mean to me, every humiliation I subjected myself to (yes, Lena Dunham, you may be the voice of your generation but you’re no Allen Ginsberg, and you didn’t invent shame, not by a long shot). I get an email from a woman I spoke with, she says I turned it all around for her, saw the forest for the trees, she is totally inspired to attack her book with the shift in emphasis I recommended.  I haven’t even showered today.

Today’s topic is low grade depression and professional envy. Discuss.

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I met  with a bunch of writers this weekend at a memoir writing conference. I usually feel quasi-suicidal after these conferences, but I was truly inspired by some of the people I met. Each one looking for a way to tell their story. Some already quite sophisticated about the challenges. Others fantastically naive. One man, an admitted beginner, had one question on his mind: how long will it take from the day he starts writing to when a publisher will accept it. The more I tried to hedge, the more he pressed. Finally, I gave him an answer: five years minimum. On the way home, I got lost and went inside a bar to ask directions. It was a smokey dive. All the men wore caps and smoked Marlboros. I felt as if I had walked inside a Richard Russo novel. I thought of pulling up a stool and staying there for the rest of my life.

What’s the best pick-up line you ever heard or used?

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I received  an email recently from a guy who wanted to know why I didn’t respond to the comments left on the blog, specifically when questions are directly posed to me. I think he found it rather…ungenerous.

My mother never said it, but I knew she loved me. Or did I? Okay, not really. Especially when she was systematically shredding my self-esteem.  I mean I know she felt something, but it could have been gas. I was always a pain in her ass, never satisfied with her evasions, always wanting to know THE TRUTH. Here’s the truth, Life isn’t Fair. That was one of her cheery mottos

I don’t get mixed up in the comments because I only have two eyes and one mouth. Because I don’t know what to say. Because I’m afraid of the rabbit hole. Because all I can do it post the bloody paragraph and get back to my strict diet of self-loathing and late night television.  I’m sorry, sir, if you are not happy with the level of audience participation. I’m not happy with the static in my brain, with the degree to which justice is only an idea, and how it is that no matter how comfortable they feel in the store, every shoe I bring home bites into my foot.

I love you all. A lot. For reading and contributing to this great big whiny vaginey conversation known as Betsylerner.com Hilarious. That’s my comment.

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I did something today that I thought I’d never do — I used the “D” word. And I’m not talking about douche, douche bag, or douchiness. I wrote a press release for a recent sale and I referred to the book as a “debut.”  I hang my head in shame. I don’t know when “first novel” got supplanted by “debut novel,” but it sickens me. And it’s ubiquitous. There are no more first novels, only debuts. Debut this, debut that. Is it a debut?  Debut novelist so-and-so. Debut blah blah. And it’s not just debut. There are no more presentations, only power points. A simple price has become a price point. Back in the day. 24/7. And my most despised: game change.

Why does this make me crazy?

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What kind of money do you expect or hope to make from your writing? What do you feel when you hear about a writer getting a seven figure deal? Have you ever cashed a royalty check? How do you feel about paying your agent 15%? Would you spend your advance before you finished writing your book? Would you take out a second mortgage to finance your writing career? Would you only write for money? Is an advance “symbolic?”  Was Samuel Johnson right? Dorothy Parker? Jonathan Franzen? Keith Richards? Are you thinking about money when you write? Or sex?

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Dear Friends of the Blog:

Bobbi has always claimed to be a psychiatrist who decided to pack it all in and move to FRANCE. I’ve always suspected that she’s ducking some kind of crazy whack malpractice suit or trying to outshine Elizabeth Gilbert with whom she attended high school and was roundly beaten out for the  editor in chief position of their school literary magazine. It may also be that Bobbi has given me the best psychological insights in my life, a sure sign that she slept with the attending physician during her psychiatric rounds on his shrink couch and lived to tell. Wet wipes? Bobbi, whoever you are: Love and congratulations on the publication of your book. I love you. http://www.findingmeinfrance.com/blook/

P.S. Beloved commenter aka Monumental Cupcakes is in some kind of crazy race in Boston to be the top cup cake. Let’s put her or him over the top. Someone is going to get to lick the spoon. Vote here, and scroll down if you don’t see Monumental. http://www.boston.com/thingstodo/gallery/cupcakespots?pg=14

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Do you have to be a selfish bastard to be a writer? Take no prisoners? No apologies, no excuses. GIve up your good citizen badge. Insist on your time alone, your writing retreats, your get out of jail free card, jail being every fucking family function, dinner party, and pot luck or bake sale at your kid’s school. Every time someone tells me how nice and helpful I am, I want to hang myself. Yes, that was me baking three dozen chocolate chip cookies last night. Yes, that was me chatting amicably in the parking lot. Me talking to my mother’s bridge lady’s daughter’s husband about his book on adult circumcision.

What takes you away from your writing?

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Today’s post is in honor of one of my very first clients, Stacy Horn, who had me at  meow, and I hate cats. Sorry Stacy. Her memoir, Waiting for My Cats to Die, is an hilarious and bittersweet memoir about mid-life and its discontents (with cats). It has just been published as an e-book. Here’s a q&a with Stacy and an unforgettable YouTube about, yes, pilling cats. – Who is your agent and how much do you love her?

Once a year I ask my agent, Betsy Lerner, to marry me, and once a year the detective who comes to my door says, “You know the restraining order is still in effect, right?”  We always  laugh at that.  Then we commiserate about how we all can’t be married to Betsy Lerner, before heading out to a bar together to drown our sorrows.

– Describe your writing “process”.

Feed the cats, give them their medication, wash up, sit down with a cup of coffee and write.  Almost everything about writing is a pleasure to me, especially the research.  I love getting to work. The only bad parts are waiting for feedback, getting negative feedback, and that period where I wonder if I have it in me to fix something that isn’t working.  My initial reaction is always the same.  I think, ‘If I had it in me I would have made it better in the first place.  Therefore I must suck, and no one will ever pay me to write another word ever again, plus I’m ugly, my cats are going to die someday, then me, and man I wish the research for my last book had turned up something more hopeful.’

– Which of your book is closest to your heart and why?

It has to be Waiting For My Cats to Die, because it was about the things closest to my heart.  I still can’t believe I got to write it.  Imagine getting paid to indulge all your obsessions and write about them.  I was traipsing through forgotten graveyards, drumming along the Hudson River, and trying to uncover the identity of the ghost all my friends said they sensed (or saw) in my apartment.

I recently read in an introduction to a novel that said the artist’s job (or compulsion) is to bear witness.  If I were to sum up my own compulsion, it would be to recover. I always want to bring back what was lost or forgotten.  I always feel the most alive, and the most happy, when I’m resurrecting some forgotten story or person.

– What is your new book about?

Another obsession, singing!  But I also got to recover.  While researching the history and science of singing I found all these forgotten singers and composers, and their wonderful, moving, sometimes sad stories.  For instance, while researching this composer I’m sure no one has heard of, I came across a black composer who dedicated his life to reclaiming and transforming spirituals that had evolved during the period of slavery in America.  Although he’s largely forgotten today, one of his songs was sung as Barack Obama made his way to the Capitol to be inaugurated.  The son of a slave, who lived and wrote in a state that practiced segregation, if only he could have known this day would come and that he would be a part of it

– What is Echo and what are your observations about social media today?

Echo is what is now called a social network, but I called it an online community.  It was one of the first in New York, I started it in 1989, and it’s still around!  I am absolutely ecstatic about social media today.  It has evolved a lot quicker than I thought it would, and I love all the new toys and tools, and the endless creativity and imagination from all over the world that I can tap into at any moment.  Seriously, this is a much bigger question than I can realistically answer here, but every day, many times a day, I am blown away; by a tweet, a video, something that came about as a result of an online collaboration, a work of art, etc., etc, etc.

– What is the worst part about being an author?

It’s a toss-up between that period of insecurity which I will soon be in.  When you’re just finishing up one book, but you haven’t started and sold your next.  And bad reviews.   Apparently I don’t have a thick enough skin.

– The best?

When a publisher first buys my book.  There is nothing better than the feelings from knowing that I’ve got a few years ahead of me to immerse myself in something I can’t wait to learn and write about.

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