Well, that rumor isn’t true; Random House says they won’t refund your money for the book. You should return it to your bookstore and they’ll do it.

Still….

If you liked the book, why wouldn’t you just keep it?

Did you see James on Larry King? Maybe he just got caught up. Kind of like a freewriting, when you do all one sentence, how the sentence starts carrying you along with it, picking up speed, and you’re letting it rip, letting the words pour out and you don’t even know where they came from.

Maybe that’s what happened.

As he said to Larry, it’s only a few pages–something like 20 out of 400-something–that are in question. Should those 20 pages serve to ream the guy? Would anyone want to ream him if his book were failing instead of wildly succeeding? Was he being whiny, talking out of the side of his mouth? Once a lying addict, always a lying addict??

I dunno….

Larry did seem to go pretty soft on the guy. Barbara Walters would have made him cry. (Does she even still do interviews?)

Here’s a transcript of the show. Oprah called in. Scan to almost the end of the transcript.

You’re all so quiet out there. What do you think?

Here’s more in the The New York Times on James Frey.

And if you want to listen to my interview with James, click here.

Is memoir different from journalism? Do you get to make things up in memoir? These are the questions, among others, that I hear these days.

In memoir, it’s agreed that you can make some things up: dialogue you didn’t actually write down but sort of remember, or want to approximate. Summary–instead of listing event after event. In other words, if you’ve had five marriages you might sum them up instead of reeling out each one. Didn’t Mary Karr in The Liar’s Club embellish beyond the beyond? When I heard that, I didn’t want to read her book even more. I want to know that a memoir is basically true. Embellishments are okay. Lies aren’t. Fabrications aren’t.

And if someone says, “Is this all true?” and you say yes, it had better be true. Otherwise, you say, “I embellished, for the sake of the writing.” If someone says, “Were you in jail for such and such?” you had better have been in jail for such and such. And don’t say you expunged records, for whatever reason.

If you have a thought on all this, let it rip.

Oh, dear. Right now I’d hate to be in James Frey’s shoes. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. The man is bright, though. When he was on my show, he was smart and witty and compassionate. He sounded honest. Wouldn’t he figure that any lies would be uncovered at some point? I don’t get it. Oy vey.

….if you have a laptop, or a notebook, you can still write.

We’re in the squall here, a few blocks from the beach in Orange County, and when the power went out, the laptop stayed on and I kept working. But then Travis got up and I heard sirens and decided I should shower and get dressed, just in case. In case of what, I don’t know. So I did. Made some calls to find out info about the outage. There was none, except for across town Debra’s power came back on. Waited some more. No power. So I went outside with a flat pillow on my head to prevent my hair from soaking (of course the umbrellas are in Bry’s car and Travis’ poncho went bye-bye long ago–no rain, who needs a poncho!). So I’m out there with a flat pillow designed in browns and oranges and blues, and yellow rubber gloves, and I’m moving wood that’s still dry from our woodpile that’s–where else?–in the rain to a place under the eaves that’s not getting rained on, and I’m out there for 15 minutes, doing this, feeling like we’ll at least have heat for a while if the power stays off. I come in, wash my hands, and a few minutes later the power comes back on. Of course!

Hope you’re staying dry and safe, wherever you are.

I wouldn’t exactly call this a resolution, but I will tell you what I’ve started in the last week.

My husband and son bought me a couple of Moleskines

A writer who read my Writer’s Digest article wrote to me with questions. I thought some of you might benefit, as well, from the answers.

How do you keep track of all the notes and pieces of paper and such? she asked.

Keeping track…well, I used to just have a box I threw everything in, all the notes and pieces of paper and cocktail napkins. Then I started carrying notebooks with me wherever I went—the Moleskines I so lovingly discuss and a reporter’s notebook—and now I make notes in them, instead of on shards of paper. That helps. I have filing systems I never refer to, that I really should purge (it being the new year, and all).

I’m paid to write, but it doesn’t often feel like fun. How do you keep it fun?

Fun. Freewriting makes it fun for me, and if I have a bit of that in my life, then I’m okay. And writing fiction makes it fun. Something to look forward to. I love writing in my Moleskines (they cast a spell, I swear) and if I can mix up fun with work, I’m okay. I, too, labor over deadlines. I have two deadlines right now for articles for PAGES magazine. Freewriting in my Moleskines keeps the spark alive. In the past, when my interest has flagged, inspirational writing books helped get that spark going again.

How do you know when you have an idea that will sustain you for 200 pages and keep the reader turning the page?

As for ideas that keep nipping at your heels and how to make them long, well, some ideas are teensy and some aren’t. For me, I ponder: Will I be interested in this topic years from now? Since that’s how long it can take to write a book. There are some projects I began as book proposals that I thought I would stay with, and then didn’t. Others—like my book, PEN ON FIRE—kept me long after I thought they would. I’ve written novels that I later abandoned because I just wasn’t interested enough in to revise and do what it takes to sell them. If you’re fascinated with your idea, that’s the main thing, and the main way to keep readers turning the page. The author Chris Bohjalian said when he’s involved in a book project, he will abandon it even at page 150 if he’s bored with it, because if he’s bored, his readers will be bored.

Platform: when do you know if your platform is big enough?

Good question! I can say that a regional platform can be appealing, and if you’re writing a book that connects to your regional platform, it may be enough. Yet, if your platform is, say, cooking, and you’re doing a book on connecting with adoptive parents, I would think your platform will mean little. If you know an agent, I’d ask her/him. If you don’t know any, I’d find a conference (of which there are a ton—the ASJA conference is in April in NYC—www.asja.org–and is great at making contacts with editors and agents. Take a meeting and ask them. They are great at being blunt and will tell you how it is.

….
Now, visuals help writing,help break up long blocks of text, yes? So here is what I saw one day high on the wall adjacent to where I work. The sun through the window created such gorgeous shadows.

Have a great New Year, full of creative energy, great ideas and lots of stamina to keep your butt in the chair!