The Writing Center

This weekend I discovered FreeRice.com, which has proven itself to be yet another wonderful way to escape the blank page. It’s a fun little word game (rather like the SATs, only without the pressure) in which you guess the correct meaning of a word, and the program will adjust to make subsequent words harder or easier, depending on how you do. It’s good news all around: Free Rice will help you improve your vocabulary (if you’re ignoring your writing, you may as well be doing something that will enhance it) and, best of all, will donate rice through the UN World Food Program for every word you get right (okay, so there’s a little pressure). But you can play as long as you like, learning new words and helping combat world hunger. I’m hooked.

When the Los Angeles Times published my short story, “Aftershock,” in its Sunday magazine, it was fact checked. In fact, I was contacted because one of the story’s lines — “She’d never felt the earth shake until she moved to California, even though she’d grown up near the largest earthquake ever recorded, the one that sent the Mississippi flowing backward, that cracked chimneys in Washington, D.C., that made church bells ring in Boston–all from its epicenter in New Madrid” — was not technically accurate. The New Madrid earthquake is, in fact, ranked sixth or seventh on the list of most powerful quakes, and despite the folklore, there is no evidence that the Mississippi River actually flowed backward or that it cracked chimneys in D.C. (I hadn’t checked — this is supposed to be one of the benefits of writing fiction.)

But I was impressed. After all, this was a piece of fiction, and yet it had been checked for accuracy as if it were nonfiction. (We revised the line to read “one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded” and allowed that we could leave the rest alone, as it reflected the character’s perception of those events.) This sort of attention to detail shows a great deal of respect for the reader; it suggests that someone out there, even knowing he or she is reading fiction, might just be sharp enough to catch this inaccuracy. And the problem was resolved in two emails.

If only the New York Times, before publishing its feature on Margaret Jones, aka Peggy Seltzer, had asked fact checkers to send out a few emails, or make a few calls. Instead (see previous blog) the paper ended up publishing an embarrassing follow-up story about how she fabricated her entire memoir.

And now, with more and more memoirs being outed as fiction, it seems that publishers, too, might have to start adding fact checkers to their staffs.

In case you missed the feature “A Refugee from Gangland” in last week’s New York Times, about “a heart-wrenching memoir” written by “a single mother who spent her youth as a foster child and gang member” — well, not to worry. As it turns out — in yet another baffling case of memoir posing as fiction — that the entire book was fabricated, according to this update.

Last week, the Times called the memoir, Love and Consequences, “an intimate, visceral portrait of the gangland drug trade of Los Angeles as seen through the life of one household: a stern but loving black grandmother working two jobs; her two grandsons who quit school and became Bloods at ages 12 and 13; her two granddaughters, both born addicted to crack cocaine; and the author, a mixed-race white and Native American foster child who at age 8 came to live with them in their mostly black community.”

Now, the paper reports that Jones is all white and grew up in the San Fernando Valley with her biological family, where she went to private school. Her story is entirely false, down to the smallest details (her author bio states that she’s an alumna of the University of Oregon, yet she never graduated; her real name is Peggy Seltzer). And it was the original New York Times article that eventually outed her — the author’s sister, Cynthia Seltzer Hoffman, read the story and called the publisher, Riverhead, to tell them that the whole thing had been made up.

The author said she got the idea for her “memoir” after meeting people who were working to end gang violence and “thought it was my opportunity to put a voice to people who people don’t listen to.” However, for some reason, she had always written about these experiences as her own, and when someone gave her pages to an agent, she continued the charade. Which begs the question: What’s so wrong with writing a novel?

When the James Frey controversy broke out, similar questions were tossed around — and among the answers are that memoir is a hotter genre these days, that people are more interested in true stories. The problem is, fewer and fewer of these memoirs appear to be true. So why bother? Dave Eggers, with his novel What Is the What, about a young refugee from southern Sudan, gave voice to the Lost Boys without attempting to pass off his book as something it’s not. It can be done, and done well.

It’s very amusing to read the first NYT article after learning the truth about this book. The author really got into her role, offering such quotes as “One of the first things I did once I started making drug money was to buy a burial plot” and “The reason I wanted to write the book is that all the time, people would say to me, you’re not what I imagine someone from South L.A. would be like.” She also claims she’s still a gang member (”Once a Blood, always a Blood.”). With this sort of creativity and imagination, she really should be a novelist. But now, she’s not likely to have a promising career as a writer in any genre.

…Charles Bock and Random House are offering his novel, Beautiful Children, for free online — you can download the PDF here for the next two days.

I can certainly see why authors and publishers find this a good move — any free content draws both publicity and readers, and I imagine that most readers who like the book would buy a traditional copy anyway, especially those who want it signed (let’s hope readers don’t show up at Bock’s signings with printouts of the PDF).

Granted, this is an author who doesn’t need any publicity — he’s gotten tons of pre-publication buzz, and his book is already on the NYT bestseller list. But it’ll be interesting to see if his ranking goes up or down, thanks to the giveaway.

Authors who are thinking of starting a blog might want to check out this post on BookSquare in which Kassia Krozser writes, “I believe that most authors should not blog, especially if they’re accepting the messy diarist definition of blogging.”

This may come as a surprise to authors (and publishers) who are counting on blogs, in part, to draw interest toward their books. But as Krozser notes, “Sad truth: most people are not good at writing about daily trials and tribulations with wit, verve, and voice. It’s hard work, and for many authors, it’s the opposite of what they prefer to write. Good blogging is good writing, but not everyone can or should do it.”

She makes a very good point (and I’m becoming quite self-conscious myself as I write this post). But for those authors who simply must blog, I wouldn’t go far as to say you need to give it up (and neither does Krozser) — but if you’re worried about cringing readers, try keeping it short (note how short some of these Writing Center posts are; enough said).

An even better idea is Krozser’s suggestion that authors should use everything that blogging systems have to offer, not just the ability to publish words: “Stop thinking of blogs as this one thing and start thinking of blogs as the tool you need to accomplish your goals. It’s your career, you know, and you have the power to make sure you’re creating the right impression when people seek and find you.”

Offering a book free online has proven (so far) that books aren’t yet going the way of the VHS — this AP story about Suze Orman’s book Women & Money, which Oprah made available on her web site, notes that while more than 1.1 million copies of the book were downloaded free, the traditional version is still selling — and it’s selling very well.

As Norton publisher Drake McFeely indicated, an Oprah endorsement would likely make publishers agreeable to offering free content; otherwise, they’re still wary of the free stuff hurting traditional book sales. But while it’s nice to get things for free, there’s nothing like having a real book to curl up with. (This is coming from someone who actually still has a VHS — but that’s another story.) Here’s better proof: As the AP reports, Orman’s book ranked No. 6 on Amazon.com as of Saturday, and the paper edition of “The 9-11 Commission Report,” published by Norton in 2004, spent months on the bestseller list.

I’ve been neglecting The Writing Center lately — but only because I’ve been spending my time reading and chatting away at San Diego Writers Online. So whenever our Writing Center gets a little quiet, visit this online forum hosted by San Diego Writers, Ink, where you can read about all things local and literary — from a discussion on whether winning contests can help you get published, to how important it is to be “media-genic,” to how to choose what to read during your three minutes at SDWI’s First Friday.

Enjoy.

When it comes to selling books these days, it’s all about the Internet. Forbes’ Best of the Web features a few literary blogs that have gotten the attention of readers and have had “an impact on the way books are talked about and sold like never before.” Probably among the best features of such sites (like the popular Bookslut) are their informal styles and the fact that they discuss books not reviewed in the New York Times (yes, these books do exist, and are worth reading).

And today’s New York Times features a story about the launch of a web-based book show by documentary filmmakers and a former Random House executive and New Yorker editor. The show, called “Titlepage,” is designed to “let people listen in on the kind of conversation they might like to have themselves if there were a group of three or four people in a room,” says host Daniel Menaker. Its premiere episode will air in March, with the second to follow two weeks later.

This doesn’t mean we’ll stop paying attention to Oprah or the NY Times — but the more places for people (and especially authors) to discuss books, the better.

This Emerging Writers Network blog is, refreshingly, geared specifically toward writers new to the marketplace. The site’s host, Dan Wickett, is out there for the Everywriter, claiming no qualifications other than “a long history of reading literary fiction, in large volumes, and the dedication to passing along my views on such, at as rapid a pace as I can, until the writers of such fiction get more recognition.” It’s well worth a visit, with links to author web sites, literary blogs, and literary magazines — plus news and contests.

Another fun site is 52stories, a site that features a new photo every week to serve as a writing prompt…a great way to overcome writer’s block as well as see your work online — 52stories will publish the stories received by its Friday evening deadline.

And, saving the best for last, San Diego Writers Online is now live! Stop by and join — this new forum will connect writers looking for read-and-critique groups, book clubs, reading and writing events around town, and lively online discussions.

This article by Mike Shatzkin in Publishers Weekly forecasts fifteen trends in the publishing industry, among them more e-books and author branding (that’s marketing, not literal branding), as well as paltry sales and lower advances for writers.

If that sounds depressing … well, it is.

But it’s not all bad news. E-books are expected to comprise less than 2 percent of overall book sales, so bookstores aren’t going anywhere just yet. And if you like the idea of self-publishing, you’re in luck — there’s lots of room for customized books for new as well as established writers (Shatzkin predicts, “Look for a self-publishing effort by a major author; it’s been too long—eight years—since Stephen King’s Riding the Bullet project”).

Shatzkin has dubbed 2008 the Year of the Experiment, defining experiment as “as a commercial effort undertaken without any real conviction as to how it will work out, and with the expectation that learning from failure is a more likely benefit than success.” This doesn’t seem to be unique to 2008, but it will be interesting to see what this year’s experiments bring.