She cites Thurber who never quite knew when he was or wasn’t at it, ‘Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, “Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.”‘ For ‘natural’, maybe one should read ‘persistent’. Or is that the myth of not realising that hard writing makes easy reading? Lerner’s definition of the ‘natural’ is one who is always writing. The Natural Writer is the one for whom writing appears to come easily. The Ambivalent Writer is one who can’t commit to a one idea for a story from the many possibles and who does not realise that writing is 90 per cent sheer sticking power. In The Forest for the Trees she identifies five ‘writer types’, all of them familiar. She writes with style, empathy, wit, realism, and above all humanity. Betsy Lerner has a wealth of experience, from her youthful beginnings at Simon & Schuster to becoming executive editor at Doubleday and now as a literary agent. Even those who think they know all about writing and the publishing process will find fresh ideas and perceptive insights. Advice to writers – from an experienced editorĪll authors, editors and publishers should read this book.
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