An Instant Shrink for Writers

The Ambivalent Writer, The Natural, The Wicked Child, The Self-Promoter, The Neurotic: which are you?

These are the first five chapter titles of Betsy Lerner’s (agent, writer, editor) book, The Forest for the Trees. I’m not sure when I first bought it, but I’ve probably read it yearly since. (Note picture of the worn book reflecting clutching, bathtub reading, and talismanic lifting to heart, kissing, and offering to God)

Lerner’s book remains on my constantly changing top ten writing books list. Not because it teaches one better way to write, not because it teaches one how to navigate the shoals of publishing, and not because it will teach you a guaranteed way to get an agent (though it will help with all the above) but because it takes you to the other side of the desk and holds up a mirror.

An unflinching mirror held in a sympathetically lit room.

Lerner holds your hand; she interprets your dreams (and the meaning of query responses) and scolds when needed. In other words, you’ll get a writer’s shrink for the cost of a trade paperback.

Along with her no-nonsense therapeutic advice is Lerner’s writing. Clear as water, cool as the same, and welcome as a brownie to a food addict, her words entertain, teach, and soothe.

For this writer, The Forest for the Trees is self-prescribed in two ways: 1) take as needed. 2) Minimum dosage: once per year.

And having recently finished my newest manuscript, I think the time has come—and, to appease the Karmic God of Bookery, I just bought Lerner’s book again—this time as an eBook.

And when the audio comes out, sign me up.

(PS: I can’t leave without a plug for all of Betsy Lerner’s books—I think I may owe my barely stable existence to her, with a special shout-out to Food and Loathing: A Life Measured Out in Calories).