June 2010
13 posts
You Destroyed Everything
92y:
Our parents were young, loaded, and deep into their careers in international finance, as well as their self-absorbed storybook romance. My father, American with a mother from France, and my mother, French Canadian, had met in business school in Montreal, married quickly, and planted their shallow roots. When they were barely thirty, Anaïs and I happened accidentally, but our births didn’t...
Do You Hear What I Hear?
If I’ve learned one thing about myself this week, I’ve learned I have self-control. I may still be unnerved as sin and without sleep, but I haven’t been sending my agent daily emails or bringing anyone else into my madness (minus my admittedly sort of anti-social nature as of late).
Since Tuesday, I haven’t been able to get the image of Ellis’s packed Barnes &...
Tonight, I told Bret Easton Ellis my story, and asked him if there was something he wished he’d known twenty-five years ago when he was in his early twenties and on the verge of publishing. First, he congratulated me. Then, he told me he used to be nervous when he was young, too. He said I needed to sleep, and to drink a glass of wine every night. ”But it’s out of your hands,...
When You Give Up Life For Fiction
I’m excited that the next couple of days will offer me a distraction from emails about editors and publishers and the subsequent emotions. (Of course, my BlackBerry is still a third arm. But that’s neither here nor there for the sake of this post.) Bret Easton Ellis is spending two days reading in New York.
A step back: Those who’ve followed me (or, hell, had a single...
Excerpts from “How Modern Literary Genius Is Constructed and Perpetuated,” a series of gchat conversations between Anna Deem and Meredith Turits:
me: okay, so she’d go to New York because a) she knows Christian is there from the lawyer (I am not sure when she makes the call but I left it open ended in the other MS so I could play) b) because she feels stupid turning around and...
Unintentional Carnival Rides
For those ever considering writing a novel and then trying to get it published, I urge you to find some unassuming psychopharmacologist willing to prescribe you copious anti-anxiety medication.
Accordingly, let’s take a foray into the writer’s head at this stage in the process, in which manuscript is out to confidential number of ridiculously amazing editors at confidential...
A Movie About Us
It’s about ten p.m. on Monday, June 14—roughly two hours before Imperial Bedrooms comes out. You know, not that I am counting down nor looking forward to it so much I might puke.
Naturally, the one day since March that I have to leave for work before nine a.m. (read: when the Barnes & Noble across the street opens) is tomorrow. Overcome with quiet, five foot tall girl rage and my...
Touch Tank
Right. So, remember when I said everything was happening so fast that I hadn’t yet had time to process it (i.e. Wednesday)? Well, yes, that’s still relevant in some ways. The fact that I went from zero to agent to submittable manuscript in basically two weeks has still given me a kind of reality whiplash from which I haven’t yet recovered. However, yesterday, when I was given...
I’ve had people say things to me such as, “X has all happened so fast, I’ve barely had time to process it or feel anything.” And I’ve always thought to myself, “Well, that’s simply unrealistic. If something significant and exciting happens to you, you’re filled with feeling instantly. That’s the way it works.”
Lately, everything has...
No Gravity Training
I’ve spent the weekend turning myself into as close to a machine as I possibly can. My agent had given me clear-cut goals to address in this revise, which in actuality were quite small and manageable, and until about the tenth of the month to get them done. But I’ve been so motivated to get this out, so excited to get back into Christian’s voice (and stunned by the ease with...
We Are The Energy That Floods Your Memories
I said big things were going to happen to me in this new apartment. I just didn’t know they’d be happening so fast.
Yesterday, I signed with an agent. My very first choice agent. An agent whose reputation and sheer dynamism caused me to laugh at myself for thinking she’d even acknowledge me. Who said such incredible things about the piece of work into which I’ve poured...
Something happens when you’re in a place like New York—no, when you’re in New York—and you start seeing the same faces on Manhattan streets. Identity and anonymity have a precarious relationship here, and there’s something rich in knowing that in the same way you can ride your dreams, you can also slip away, almost disappear if you want to. So when you start...
PSA to World RE: Things That Are Not As Easy As They Look
Re-titling your book.
I’m floating somewhere between brain dead and stark raving mad.