Lipstick Jungle
I went and saw Candace Bushnell last night for a book reading for her new book, Lipstick Jungle. While I’ve never read any of her novels, and never caught her column Sex and the City in the Observer, she’s a writer that I admire- not only for her success but her fabulous fashion sense as well.She showed up 25 minutes late wearing a red silk dress that looked more like she was ready for cocktail hour not talking about her book. It was a fancy affair, high to the neck with pleats above the empire waist that was cinched in the front with a bow. I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed. Where was the Narciso Rodriguez?! Where was the Dior?! She is, after all, missing Fashion Week in New York to be in Coolidge Corner signing books, she should be wearing some minimalist Michael Kors. Regardless, she of course had on a pair of Manolo's which she went on to say were, "Very comfortable to walk in, but after twelve hours...eek!" she said making a shrieking noise and shaking her hands in front of her like she was throttling a small child.
She was loud and obnoxious and totally elitist and I loved her. Her voice is deep and raspy due to years of smoking, and now, going on 46, she said she’s in a place in her life where everything makes sense.
She read from her book for about five minutes, basically because her book is trash and she knows it’s trash and she knows she’s fabulous- so the rest of the time was dedicated to q&a, in which she talked about how she showed up in Manhattan when she was 19 with a cowboy hat on a $20 in her pocket desperate to write. For some reason I don't believe her. She's from CT and went to acting school in NYC, so I have a feeling she was getting a little help along the way. I think she likes for people to believe she definitely didn't have anything at all and really climbed up from the bottom of the pit before reaching super stardom in order to really encapsulate and prove that the New York City dream really does come true.
The whole time she walked and talked like a motivational speaker, her blonde hair an unmoving helmet on her head, her waif-life arms gesticulating wildly, and I wanted to be her. She gets up at 4, sometimes 6AM to write for 8 hours a day and produces roughly 10 pages a day. She says her first drafts of novels are 400 pages, and then she goes back and re-writes the whole thing. She says she loved writing her column in the Daily Observer in her early thirties, but hated the pressure to have to go out every night and stay out until 4am.
She remembered one night a girlfriend (apparently all her real friends are like Samantha, which she mentioned when someone asked what her friends are like), called her at midnight from a party in Midtown and said "You gotta get down to this party! I just had sex with an NFL player in a cedar closet! It smelled amazing! If you haven’t ever had sex in a cedar closet you have to get down here!" Candace didn't go.
The last question asked was what advice does she have for those young women aspiring to be writers, much like herself. To which Candace stared thoughtfully at her heels for a moment before responding, "You're not gonna like the answer, but the reality is, you have to give everything up. You have to be willing to give up money, and marriage and children and commit yourself to it." Some of the women were somewhat taken aback by her candid response, I felt strangely invigorated by it. She has a drive and passion that is missing from so many people, and it made me want to run home and write. I loved her for being driven and dedicated to being a writer, that when, at 32, her friends told her to give up and get an office job, a real job, she said no, that she wasn't going to give up.
She said Manhattan is a place you go to when you want to write. You feel like you're part of the city's plan. That perhaps you're nobody when you get there, but living there holds the promise, that one day, you'll be somebody.
In other news, when I got home last night after having had too many vodka sodas at a bar on the Hill, I received another submission rejection letter, from yet another magazine.
Even a rejected writer knows good irony when she sees it.
posted by Victoria Comella @ 8:48 AM
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