Betsy Lerner's Blog, page 19

I Want to Live Forever

Hey Y’all, check it out. Another patient from the Betsy Lerner Insane Asylum has a book published. You know her as Bobbi French, though I’ve always been convinced it’s a pseudonym for Bella Abzug or Florence Pugh. Bobbi is one of those stealth writers. She doesn’t complain a lot, no matter how much I encourage a steady stream of complaints. She gets up every morning at five a.m. and makes the magic happen. I think she also walks three miles a day and does or doesn’t eat gluten. Bobbi? She is also a former psychiatrist; she left the field to write. Talk about nuts! Please read these wonderful reviews and BUY the book. And join me in a huge congratulations to our author.

“An engaging novel with an unforgettable main character. Frances Delaney has lived a “small” life, but as she responds to a devastating diagnosis, her rich and moving story unfolds. We learn the secrets of Frances’s past and how she makes peace with those secrets, and we also see how that past shaped the woman she has become. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, this is one of the most sensitive fictional portrayals of the end of life that I’ve ever read.”  — — Trudy Morgan-Cole, author of By the Rivers of Brooklyn, Most Anything You Please, A Roll of the Bones, and other Newfoundland historical fiction

“Good Women of Safe Harbour will break your heart and mend it back together again. In this novel, set beside the changeable Newfoundland sea, Frances Delaney reckons with the question of how to make life worth living even as she nears the end of hers. With the help of her long-lost best friend, Annie and the irrepressible teenager, Edie, Frances emerges from a self-imposed loneliness to learn that the only thing that truly endures is the unabiding love they hold for each other. Bobbi French is a master storyteller, as she gently leads us to Frances’ final lesson with humour, compassion and grace.”  — Carrianne Leung, author of That Time I Loved You

“An absolutely soul-comforting meditation on what’s possible when there’s nothing left to lose. Rich, lively, surprising, warm, and wise, the voice of Frances Delaney won me wholly. I couldn’t put this book down, and its message of embodied healing will stay with me. A cathartic and uplifting story about friendship, forgiveness, and healing.” — Carrie Snyder, author of Girl Runner

“Bobbi French brings an authentic eye to a tender truth: whatever our woes, it is never too late to lay down what we are carrying. A poignant, deeply arresting, and often funny portrayal of female friendships, even those that get lost, for a time, somewhere along the way.” — Christine Higdon, author of The Very Marrow of Our Bones

“Bobbi French has created an unforgettable character in Frances Delaney. Facing the premature end of her solitary life, Frances chooses to die on her own terms, assisted by two good women – her childhood friend Annie, with whom she has recently reconciled, and the savvy teenaged Edie. The final revelation in this deeply moving debut will leave you stunned, satisfied, and reaching for a box of tissues.”  — Damhnait Monaghan, internationally published author of New Girl in Little Cove

“So vividly imagined, it was as if I carried the characters’ worries and hopes in my own heart. Set in an unforgettable landscape, brimming with insights, Bobbi French’s warm, honest prose makes even the most tragic secrets and events shimmer and lift.”    — Kelly Simmons, international selling author of six novels, including One More Day

“In turns moving and funny, The Good Women of Safe Harbour is a heartfelt story of a woman who is determined to live what life she has left as if it is only beginning. Whether for the tears or laughter, you’ll want to keep a Kleenex box handy for this one. In lyrical prose and with a character voice that sings, Bobbi French offers a story that’s all about forgiveness and the power of friendship between women. But this novel is also a call to reawaken the wonder found in the everyday world all around us. As Frances Delaney swims through her memories and surfaces reborn, she learns to make even the smallest experience count in her final days. In sharing that journey with her, you’ll feel more alive and so much more here, in this precious, shining moment. This novel is a reminder to pay attention as we move through our day, to phone a friend or sister, to find connection and touch and meaning in our ordinary routines. Because life is made of these moments.” — Gail Anderson-Dargatz, author of The Almost Wife

“The Good Women of Safe Harbour lets you meet Frances Delaney gently, almost formally. That’s a kindness. None of that prepares you for a book that, as it quickly reaches take-off speed, quite simply won’t let you go.”
— Russell Wangersky, author of The Path of Most Resistance

About the Author

BOBBI FRENCH was born and raised in Newfoundland and Labrador. A former psychiatrist, she is the author of Finding Me in France, a memoir chronicling the year following her decision to leave medicine to pursue writing. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

When I was a young editor, before I was medicated, I had tremendous bursts of energy/focus/ intensity. My boss said I had two heads. I bought an orange silk blouse with a purple collar. I went to London for four days and emptied my bank account. i slept with two different men on the same day at the national book conference. What I liked best about mania was how my mind generated ideas. I couldn’t walk a block without getting a new idea. I still have tons of ideas, but they arrive in napkins instead of flames. Today, my YouTube trainer said, “I love intensity, but I worship consistency.” Amen.

What do you worship?

My boyfriend’s back and you’re gonna be in trouble

I’m like a bad boyfriend. I think about you but I don’t call. I love you but I don’t show it. I’m totally wrapped up in myself and my work. I figure you’ll always be there. I had the shittiest boyfriends on earth. They weren’t even boyfriends, they were platonic friends I not so secretly loved, three night stands, broken divorced men, bicycle messengers and moths.

What does this have to do with writing?

God Only Knows What I’d Be Without You

Something I’ve noticed a lot of writers do is what I call stepping on their own lines. It’s when you write a sentence or two more than necessary at the end of a paragraph or chapter end. It’s as if you’ve glued the thing down and then you have the urge to throw a nail in on top of it. It’s bad for a few a reasons: a) you don’t trust your reader. b) you don’t trust yourself. c) you forfeit the beauty of understatement d) you lose the moment. Every time I start overwriting an ending, I try to remember to dial it back. It almost always works.

How do you find your endings?

Give Me Your Answer Do

So I found a fuck buddy. And by that I mean a writer who I trust and with whom I’m exchanging pages. Thirty a month. The first of the month, like the rent and electric. I wasn’t exactly looking for it, but through the blog, yes this decade-old screed from my heart, brought the baby Moses in a basket to my door, or was he still clinging to the reeds of a river, or before that when cuneiform figures were pressed into tablets of warm clay. It’s exhilarating and scary and good to have a cross in the snow where better men than me have searched the tundra and were buried. Good to have a furry hood. We’ve only exchanged once so far so but it was hugely encouraging and helpful. And while I’ve always believed in the solitary, solipsistic, narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, glorious solitude of writing, this is nice.

Do you have a writing buddy? If not, can you find one?

I Walked 47 Miles on Barbed Wire

I love people, but I prefer being alone. I am my own puppet show. Strings, puppets, stage, Geppetto. The sound of air clanging in the pipes. An ambulance horn wailing in the night. Have you met my ribbon box? I am madly in love with myself. I have everything I want. I have nothing I want. You look up and three hours have passed. Sentences. Paragraphs. Days. Years. I once had a young writer tell me that she didn’t work on spec. Everything I’ve ever done I’ve done on spec. I am not going to lie.

Who do you love?

You Just Might Find You Get What You Need

I recently cleaned out my desk at work and came upon a file I started when I became an agent 16 or so years ago titled “Asshole File.” Yes, the subtlety is overwhelming. I had never been on the rejection end of things and found it a bit hard to take. Don’t love it, not right for our list, not our cup of tea, not our cut of brisket. Thanks for sending your big fat stupid novel which we would never publish even if it were the last manuscript on earth. And your kid is ugly. I put the letters in the asshole file. Thus filed, they couldn’t hurt me. I’m rubber, you’re glue. Eventually, I found I could take it. Selling lots of books didn’t hurt. But in some ways those rejections made me more resolute in my beliefs. I’m not saying what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’ve always believed that what doesn’t kill you usually hobbles you.

How do you handle rejection?

Hello, It’s Me, I’ve Thought About Us for a Long, Long While

Dearly Beloved, I kept meaning to write but I’m on a wild jag. Getting up at 5:00, sometimes 4:30 and writing as if my ass were on fire. It started with our 30/30 and by the end of the experiment I had the base of something and from there it’s been a pinball game in my mind. Scattershot, lit. This forced locked down has also helped. The four hours I spent commuting is now time with my keyboard. I’m not saying I’m in favor of variants but time is time. I always did my writing on the margins of my day job, on the train, in a car, in the light, in the dark. It’s as if all the journals I scribbled in for all the years have appeared as sheet music. All I want to do is shed my office of pictures and trinkets. The holy trinity: coffee, keyboard, computer.

What have you been up to? Everyone okay?

You Are the Light of the World

How is everyone doing? Did you fall a cliff? Ride into the sunset? Are you playing musical chairs or clanging your cup on your prison bars? My writing schedule has gotten a little lumpy. More here, less there. I’m going to try to go back to the thirty minutes because I achieved consistency and consistency is a golden medal with a striped ribbon of blue and green. It’s enough to know you’re alive. We have until the end of the year to write a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter.

What’s it going to be?

Put Your Hands Up Playing My Song Butterflies Fly Away

Dearest Community of Writers, Thieves, Scoundrels and Cons: YOU MADE IT! WE MADE IT! Thirty minutes of pecking for thirty days. Tap, tap, tap. Scratch, scratch, scratch. We slung some sentences together and turned ourselves around. The feedback has been great: some started something new, some breathed life into something old, some found the daily task helped them find a groove. Some missed a day or two but got back in the saddle. I’m going to propose a weekly check in until the end of the year. My goal is to reach 100 pages and work on story. One question hangs in the air: why do we make ourselves write.

Leave it here: what is your goal for the end of the year? Commit! Commit!