Betsy Lerner

Those School Girl Days of Telling Tales

betsylerner — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:20:08 +0000

As a young college girl, I took a course on comedy with the late and great Charles Ludlam, founder and creative director of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company. I also worked backstage on two productions. I learned so much from him, about timing, about timing, did I mention timing? And once, when he sent me and a techie to fetch costumes from storage, we dressed up and made love in a coffin. When Charles was asked how he was so prolific, he responded that he never faced a blank page. He always stopped mid-page so that when he returned to his typewriter the next day there was something in progress. And I freely pass that smart advice to you my darling readers.

What advice have you got? For me. For us.

You Are the Song That the Morning Brings

betsylerner — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:41:37 +0000

Dear Betsy,

I am a huge fan and I rarely like many people sooo that’s how much I value your presence through your blog. My question: Do you recommend getting “away” for writers?

My book is two thirds of the way through the first draft. For the final push and second draft, I was thinking I really need to get away from my family for a week or two. Am I kidding myself? Will this help or should I be able to write anywhere?

Thanks a million, NAME WITHHELD

Dear Escape Artist:

This is a fantastic question. I’ve always been dubious of writers who need to sequester themselves to get their work done, and I’ve equated doing so with the “geographic cure” popular among drug addicts and alcoholics. Or, to use my mother’s words, you take your problems with you. Or you can’t run away from them. Or, if you can’t write at your own desk, you probably won’t be able to write on a deserted beach.

But you’re talking about making that final push. Yeah, if you can afford it, I think it’s a great idea if you’re temperamentally suited to isolation. I also believe that being quiet for long stretches when you are deeply focusing on your work is ideal.

When you no longer have to serve up the tater tots, or decline brochures from the witnesses, or spread pet friendly rock salt on the drive, or Woolite your teenager’s lace bando, or worry about the dog’s glands, or make conversation with the dry cleaner’s wife; when all you have to do is pull a robe around lumpy body and write, take a long walk and figure out how to make a transition that’s been vexing, when you can eat a sandwich over the sink so as not to dirty a dish, when you only have so much time and you are old enough to know how to use it, then, yes, it’s a great idea. But if all you think you’ll do is eat Ranch Doritos and surf porn, you really ought stay home.

Where do you go and what do you do?

And Every One Of Them Words Rang True

betsylerner — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:11:44 +0000

Twenty-six years ago on a freezing day in late January, I checked myself into a hospital. All I had with me to read was a Robert Frost poem folded into my pocket, given to me by Richard Howard, my beloved poetry teacher. I was long out of the practice of memorizing poems, but I memorized this one as I waited the long and terrifying hours until I was admitted. And I read it over and over again. In the hospital library I would find three other books that would keep me company during my long stay: Don Quixote, Middlemarch, and August. But it was that poem that kept me alive.

THE MOST OF IT

He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree–hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder–broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter–love, original response.
And nothing ever came of what he cried
Unless it was the embodiment that crashed
In the cliff’s talus on the other side,
And then in the far distant water splashed,
But after a time allowed for it to swim,
Instead of proving human when it neared
And someone else additional to him,
As a great buck it powerfully appeared,
Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,
And landed pouring like a waterfall,
And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,
And forced the underbrush—and that was all.

Has a book or poem ever saved your life?

On The Day That YOu Were Born THe Angels Got Together

betsylerner — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:59:59 +0000

A very wise and generous person read my script and had the following insight about my so called unlikeable main character. He said that it wasn’t really his story and that the emphasis was misguided. In fact, I had started the movie with him and it’s really about the female lead. Start with her. He thought the character was fine, he needed to be minimized, co-opted differently. In all my years of editing authors, I had never proposed an insight like this. It was a lightening bolt and I’ve been re-writing like a mother fucker ever since. I’m talking like the old days getting up at five and keeping at it until my back cries for mercy. Other readers helped me kiss good bye some awful flashbacks, and quash some really stupid scenes. And I’m told Goth is out. Good to know.

I’m almost finished now and I just can’t believe how that one key unlocked the whole mother fucking thing for me. I’m not going to say it’s like giving birth because writing is so much harder than popping out a cherub. Anyway, dear kind sir and friends, thank you. May the lord bless everyone with astute and generous readers.

What is the worst piece of feedback you ever received?

I Hate To Turn Up Out Of the Blue, Uninvited

betsylerner — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:57:06 +0000

Do you read the Garnet Hill catalogue and think your life might be nice if you were the one really pretty teacher in a large public school? Are you lying to yourself about your desire for fame? Did you remember your father’s birthday, now seven years gone? Are you constantly hungry? Do you think you saw Paul Mckenna and realized it wasn’t Paul McKenna and tried to recall what did or didn’t happen with Paul all those years ago. A Lean Cuisine and a wank. And always the city with her anonymous embrace. All the faces you can’t recall, and then a line of young children in bright puffy jackets holding on to loops on a rope so as not to get lost. Cue danger. Stop crying. This is your brain not on drugs. This is your beautiful house. Do not write this down unless you want to forget.

Tell me one thing.

Hey, Hey, Mama, Said the Way You Move, Gonna Make You Sweat, Gonna Make You Groove.

betsylerner — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:35:51 +0000

I feel like saying something that might be unpopular, but I don’t believe that “characters write themselves,” that they “have minds of their own,” that they “do things you didn’t expect,” etc. To me that’s like saying a marionette moves his own strings, that an onion peels its own layers, or a nose picks itself. Writers say things like this to me all the time and I struggle to understand. For me the whole joy of writing is being the great and mighty Oz. It is true that sometimes, in the writing, aspects of story or character reveal themselves. But to my mind that’s from years of practice like developing the ability to see many chess moves ahead, or playing a riff like Jimmy Page.

Do your characters act on their own volition?

Just A Memory Without Anywhere to Stay

betsylerner — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:11:16 +0000

Got another query letter from prison today. It comes stamped on the back with a notice about what to do if you are receiving unwanted correspondence from an inmate. This particular prisoner quoted some of the best bits in The Forest For The Trees to impress upon me why I might like his work. Many writers have done this, but when it comes from the incarcerated it is unbelievably touching and a little scary. The letter was also hand written in the neatest imaginable block letters. Maybe I’ve seen Dead Man Walking too many times, but it amazes me to think that my book has found its way into a prison and a person there who wants or needs to write connected with it. I once read that a prisoner who was denied pencil and paper wrote sentences on the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

Did everybody write today? And if not, why not?

The First Cut is the Deepest

betsylerner — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:36:38 +0000

My submission strategy appears to be largely unsuccessful, though appearances can be deceiving. A small press has recently accepted one of my books for publication. This will be my first published book. --Tetman

Come on everybody, give it up for Tetman. One of our tribe just got a book deal. Come on, Tetman, tell us all about your first time. HOw old were when you lost your publishing virginity? Is it everything you imagined, are you all look both ways before crossing the street or have you already figured out how you will be discovered as a fraud? How many submissions did it take? What would you differently? Will it be a book book, ebook, or droid implanted in my thigh. What’s it about? Tetfuckingman! I am so happy for you.

What was your first time like, book or whatever.

Let’s Go All the Way Tonight NO Regrets Just Love

betsylerner — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:13:46 +0000

Dear Ms. Lerner,

If you offer a literary agent an exclusive submission without a deadline/end date, how long should a writer wait before submitting elsewhere? Should the submitter notify the agent? The agent and author have no previous contact or professional connections.

Many thanks, NAME WITHHELD

Dear Exclusive:

What is wrong with this picture? You are assuming that the agent cares that you made an exclusive submission. If the agent asked you for an exclusive or makes exclusivity a condition of submission then he or she should get back to you in a timely fashion. What is a timely fashion? This is up for debate. I would say 3-6 weeks or a full length manuscript. But if there is no relationship between you and the agent, then there is no need to make the submission exclusive, or to think that by making it exclusive the manuscript will be attended to more quickly. This should be filed under magical thinking. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: make multiple submissions. Some writers get nervous and ask what happens if more than one agent wants it. What happens is you get to choose.

What is your submission strategy?

I’m Not One Of Those Who Can Easily Hide

betsylerner — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:02:22 +0000

I am on empty.

I am getting in bed with Blood Meridian and calling it a day after I put on my creams.

How do you refuel?