MFA Bitch

Dear Lisa,

All I want to write about today is baby stuff.  What he’s eating not eating when he’s napping not napping how long for how much what to do when he doesn’t and is this normal.  I’m boring myself to death.  Not literally, but close.

To make matters worse, there is the election drama to which I’m totally addicted, the economic crisis which has crippled my imagination, and this:

That’s right.  Bitch magazine is about to go under if we don’t do something.

I must get a hundred e-mails a day asking me to DO something.  SAVE something.  HELP someone.  And I want to do it all.  I want to save everything and help everyone and do everything I can.  But instead I’m glued to CNN, feeling a sort of purposeful helplessness, while I try to entertain an infant who has a very low tolerance for silly baby bullshit.

The most writing I’ve gotten done in the midst of this existential drama is typing one sentence ideas into the Notes section of my cell phone.  Short stories.  That’s all I know.

To top it all off, I’ve started working out with a personal trainer.  She makes all my old gym teachers look like the Sit and Be Fit lady.  Seriously, the woman prides herself on being mean.  She punishes me if I’m late (That’s thirty seconds on the wall!) ridicules me if I’m weak (People with tattoos are supposed to be tougher than this!) and actually told me I need to do cardio every day to burn that fat.

I’m basically paying her to abuse me.

And of course the whole time I’m thinking This is gonna make a great story.

Yours in masochism,

Jessica

Dear Jessica,

Don’t get me wrong I’m no snob. I mean, I like Gossip Girl- (the show). I like Lifetime Movies. I like Fluffernutter sandwiches. I like State Fairs. I like Rock of Love. But, I have to draw the line somewhere.

Books are where I draw the line. Books should be where everyone draws the line. You can get all the crap you want on TV, the internet and in movies, please, please leave books alone.

I know the publishers need to make money too. I get it. It’s a business.

But, when you consider what great works of fiction generations from now will be reading and studying, I doubt think Lauren Conrad’s tomes will be included; or Nicole Ritchie’s, or Tori Spelling’s, or Pamela Anderson’s.

Once at an agent panel some angry young man who had just written the Great American Novel asked why agents supported books published by famous people, who it seemed to him had no talent other than being famous. He was talking about Pamela Anderson, her first book had just come out and the agent said, “because people want to buy their books.”

It was as simple as that, and it is as simple as that, for simple people in this simple world.

I may have to change my mind about Pamela Anderson’s writing talent though, as she was just quoted as saying of Sarah Palin, “I can’t stand her. She can suck it!”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

“Suck it” Lauren Conrad!

Lisa

Dear Lisa,

A confession:  I have a tab on my google homepage titled “Entertainment”.  Clicking on this tab loads a page filled with celebrity news blog links.  While I’m not proud of it, there are times when it actually informs me of something newsworthy (besides Sarah Jessica’s favorite Starbucks drink or what stupid pro-Republican crap that woman on The View is spouting this week.)

So, the good news, it’s not Bristol Palin.

PopSugar: Lauren Conrad Adds Author to Her List of Titles

The bad news, it’s a THREE book contract.

So my first question, think it’ll be the next Oprah bookclub pick?  And second, how long until someone from your bookclub suggests reading it?

And lastly, how hard is it to get a reality show these days?

See you in L.A.,

Jessica

Dear Jessica,

I’m the writer in my family too. This information is used by my mother to tell people at her gym that I am like “Steven King” or “that woman who writes the books about kids who do magic.”

So there’s that.

This Memoir your mom wants you to write sounds like the Golden Girls meets Thelma and Louise meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets the scenes in Italy from the Godfather. You can use that in your marketing materials if you would like.

So did I tell you I’m trying to start a book club? Only problem is everyone wants to read crap. Books about women who knit on Friday nights- no offense; who join book clubs about Jane Austen and anything that Oprah liked. Listen, I can read crap on my own time- if I’m going to have a book club- let’s at least read some literature. Let’s at least read something that has Cliff’s Notes.

I suppose I shouldn’t talk. I would be thrilled if someone read my book, in a book club, on Friday nights, while they were knitting, talking about Jane Austen and watching Oprah.

It’s not like I thought I would be famous by now, but I thought I would be something.

So there’s that.

Remember when I was searching for spirituality in a strip-aerobics class, well I’ve realized I’m searching for it every where: in a writing group, in a book club, in my own work. I haven’t found it yet.

So there’s that.

Happy Monday,

Lisa

PS… If Bristol Palin gets a book contract, please kill me in my sleep.

Dear Lisa,

Listen, not only have you written a novel, you’re working on your second.  Even if you never get published, I’m already jealous as hell.  All the books I’ve started are unhappily residing in a little folder on my desktop marked “In Progress”.  In progress = I worked on it in the last three years.  What’s worse, half of them are memoirs.  Seriously, I can’t think of anything to write? About myself?

My mother wants me to write a book about the trip she took to Italy ten years ago with my three aunts and my grandmother.  Everything that happened is just too funny, or so I’ve been told.  Repeatedly.  For the last ten years.

As you can imagine, the story I would write about them is not the one they envision.  Take your mother’s Polish comment, times five, and set it in a foreign country.  Hilarity would ensue, right?  Except, it would need a sarcastic commentator to really put a spotlight on all that coming-of-middle-age absurdity.  And the holy hell I would bring on myself, of being that sarcastic commentator, wouldn’t be worth the effort.

Unless, of course, I could guarantee the book would get published.  Then I’d say, bring on all the holy hell you can muster, ladies.  I wrote the damn book and it’s gonna be at Barnes, Noble, and all the rest.  For everyone to read.  [I don't encourage inserting a maniacal laugh here, but if it seems appropriate, go ahead.]

(And as a side note: Isn’t there a way to do that?  I mean, write a proposal and sell it off before the book is actually written?  And to whom would I send it?  And aren’t you impressed I just used “and to whom”?)

So as annoying as it is to be asked to write someone else’s story, I get a little thrill about being known as “the writer in the family”. They don’t care that I have minimal publishing credits to my name.  I’m the writer.  When things need writing, I do it.  Not that much has ever needed writing in my family, but nonetheless.  I’m the one.

Yay me.

-Jessica