Personal inspiration and practical advice from an expert in the field who delivers. A Kansas City Star Best Book of the Year
A Finalist for Books for a Better Life First Book Award
Who knows the mind, the motives, and the mistakes of a writer better than his or her editor? Betsy Lerner—in addition to being a prize-winning poet and an author's agent—has spent years editing for major New York houses. In this unusual and compelling book, she shares the wisdom and insights she's gained from that work. Far more than a how-to manual, this book offers inspiration, inside views, and a colorful, anecdotal look at the publishing world—all delivered in the smart, funny, unpretentious voice that has helped to make Lerner one of the most prominent names in the business.
When I entered the business, I believed that writers were exalted beings. How else could they capture in a single phrase the emotional truth of a lifetime or render a scene that seemed more lifelike than life? How else could they risk their lives and livelihood on a string of sentences, baring their souls in a world ever more hostile to artists and art? I was in awe of all writers, even those with less perfectly realized works. They had broken through, and somewhere books existed with their names on them. Of course, it didn’t take long for those pedestals to crumble.
As an editor, I was both privy to and subjected to every aspect of my authors’ lives. And the more I worked with writers, the more I found myself thinking about the characteristics that contributed to any given writer’s success or failure. I saw mediocre writers who were brilliant at networking and superb writers who couldn’t part with their pages. Some seemed blessed with the confidence of entitlement, others cursed with paralyzing insecurities. I saw their defenses and fears, their hopes and ambitions. Very soon I was able to recognize which writers would hunker down for the long haul, revising their texts over and over, and which felt that simply producing a manuscript should be enough to secure a publishing contract. I also began to understand the cyclical nature of the publishing business, the brutality of the media, and the vagaries of the marketplace. But more than anything else, I grew close to my authors and saw firsthand how they soldiered on in their lonely work.
Before I entered publishing, I believed, like most people, that the life of a writer was to be envied. As one of my heroes, Truman Capote, wrote, “When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip.” Now I understand that writers are a breed apart, their gifts and their whips inextricably linked. The writer’s psychology is by its very nature one of extreme duality. The writer labors in isolation, yet all that intensive, lonely work is in the service of communicating, is an attempt to reach another person. It isn’t surprising, then, that many writers are ambivalent, if not altogether neurotic, about bringing their work forward. For in so doing, a writer must face down that which he most fears: rejection. There is no stage of the writing process that doesn’t challenge every aspect of a writer’s personality. How well writers deal with those challenges can be critical to their survival.
Editors, like shrinks, have a privileged and exclusive view into a writer’s psyche, from the ecstasy of acquisition to the agony of the remainder table. Some editors limit their concern to the challenges on the page, but in my experience the challenges on the page and the challenges in the person go hand in hand. While editors are most certainly concerned with matters of style, structure, voice, and flow, they are often faced with extratextual problems-keeping the writer motivated, seeing the bigger picture, finding the patterns and rhythms, subtexts and operating metaphors that may elude an author drowning in research or blocked midstream. In the most productive author-editor relationship, the editor, like a good dance partner who neither leads nor follows but anticipates and trusts, can help the writer find her way back into the work, can cajole another revision, contemplate the deeper themes, or supply the seamless transition, the telling detail.
This is not a book about how to write. There are dozens of excellent books about writing, be it fiction or nonfiction, from the most technical to the most esoteric. Rather, I hope to help you if you can’t start or finish a project, or can’t figure out what you should be writing. I offer advice to writers whose neuroses seem to get in their way, those who sabotage their efforts, those who have met with some success but are stalled between projects. I promise not to repeat the most common piece of writing advice: Write what you know. As far as I’m concerned, writers have very little choice in what they write (though I do have some advice for those who can’t figure out their form). Nor will I Strunk you over the head with rules about style. Instead, I present ideas about how a writer’s styles on and off the page work in tandem. Is your neurotic behavior part of your creative process or just…neurotic behavior? Do you expose too much in your writing? Or are you protecting yourself or someone else with silence? Are you an effective self-promoter or a self-saboteur? Have you bought into certain myths about the writing life that aren’t helping your career?
--Reprinted from The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner by permission of Riverhead, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright © 2001 by Betsy Lerner. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Introduction
Part I. Writing
Chapter 1: The Ambivalent Writer
Chapter 2: The Natural
Chapter 3: The Wicked Child
Chapter 4: The Self-Promoter
Chapter 5: The Neurotic
Chapter 6: Touching Fire
Part II. Publishing
Chapter 7: Making Contact: Seeking Agents and Publication
Chapter 8: Rejection
Chapter 9: What Editors Want
Chapter 10: What Authors Want
Chapter 11: The Book
Chapter 12: Publication
Bibliography
"With an early promise not to 'Strunk you over the head with rules about style," Lerner, a former editor in New York's top publishing houses, provides inspiring, uncondescending advice for writers." -Entertainment Weekl
"[Lerner] doesn't preach on how to write a book but rather tries to help writers and would-be authors cope with such problems as being 'alone with it.' It's a survival course. She wants to help the writer who cannot get started embark, the writer stalled between projects ignite. She wants you to be an effective 'self-promoter' and not a 'self-saboteur.' The book is also an affirmation that late bloomers can become successful writers."-The New York Times
"[Lerner] has a wicked sense of humor. But don't think that means her book isn't brilliant. It is. Cleverly disguised as a sensible reference work, [this] is in fact a riveting safari through the wilds of the writer's brain, as well as an honest and unpatronizing guide to publishing from every angle. Its tone is singularly authoritative, compassionate, irreverent and unafraid."-Newsday
"Lerner describes the self-promoter, the natural, the wicked child, and the downright mentally ill. She explains the ambivalence that almost every writer feels about writing for oneself versus writing for the public…Her beautifully written book of observations and advice seems to be coming from a friend." -Columbia Journalism Review
"Betsy Lerner's style is economical and witty. The Forest for the Trees should become a permanent part of any writer's or editor's personal library." -The Seattle Times
"Remarkably generous about inviting writers behind the editorial curtain, she sings like a canary the trade secrets of editors and agents, offering solid, insider advice on every step of the publishing process. With this book, Betsy Lerner becomes what every writer hopes for-a friend in the business." -Chicago Tribune
"Definitely not a 'how-to' book or a style manual, this chatty, informal volume is anecdotal and encouraging to the novice or amateur writer…[a] unique approach."-Library Journal
"Written with insight, humor, and no small amount of common sense, Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees is the best survival kit for writers I know of. Lerner understands every psychological strategy writers have available to them, and knows the brute realities of the publishing world from the inside out. For those who occasionally lose their courage or waver in their inspiration-or for those who simply yearn for someone to talk to during the lonely business of writing-this is an indispensable book."-Daphne Merkin, author of Enchantment and Dreaming of Hitler
"Lerner, a literary agent who was most recently executive editor at Doubleday, assumes the posture of the writer's sympathetic friend, coach and psychotherapist all rolled into one…Lerner candidly draws on her experience working both sides of the fence, as poet and teacher of writing workshops as well as editor and agent. She offers hard-nosed advice on topics often overlooked, such as the dynamics of author/editor and author/agent relations; struggles against the temptations of alcohol and drugs; the testing of book titles for marketability; acrimony over jacket art…The book's real value, however, lies in compelling the ambivalent writer to confront his or her inner dreams, demons and strengths, and Lerner illuminates this task with a nonstop barrage of anecdotes and apt observations on writing drawn from Dickens, Orwell, Whitman, Updike, Nabokov, Vidal, Mailer, Grisham, Sontag, Philip Roth and many more."-Publishers Weekly
"As an editor Betsy Lerner is a writer's dream come true. The generosity and respect she shows for her authors is unparalleled. She is unnervingly intelligent, authoritative yet gentle in her judgments, has a keen sense of story and an equally keen sense of the myriad difficulties and delusions a writer faces. She is, furthermore, gifted with wit, originality, and just the right degree of wickedness."-Rosemary Mahoney, author of Whoredom in Kimmage and A Likely Story
