D’Agata defends his factual “errors” by claiming that he is an essayist, not a nonfiction writer. But what is the difference? That is what Grottoites heatedly disputed over tuna sandwiches and tofu stir fries last week—the distinction between fact and fiction, between essays and nonfiction, and whether there should be a new category altogether, one for stories that are 98% true. (If all the facts in a story are true except for the details about the weather, the color of a car that was parked in front of a train station, and the name of one of the characters, should the story still be labeled fiction?)

In one camp are the journalists who believe that no work should be labeled nonfiction unless it is 100% factual. That includes calling a red car red and not blue. The assumption is that an essay—unless stated otherwise—is nonfiction. In the other camp are the memoirists, who, having learned that it is nearly impossible to write an autobiography that is dramatic enough to sell without fudging some of the details, are a little more lenient about the “truth.” One Grotto memoirist said she thinks it’s okay to say a conversation that took place on a telephone really took place in a restaurant (assuming that the location of the conversation bears no significance on the story and that the transfer of the conversation is merely to add some color.) Another writer disagreed, stating that that is taking too much literary license. Barring extreme cases like James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces and Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea, both of which fudged much more than details, most memoirists agree that is okay to:

1. Recreate dialogue to the best of your recollection

2. Fill in details that cannot be verified, like what clothes people were wearing, what the weather was like, and what color car drove past

3. Condense time. Many memoirs take a story that really took place over several years and condense them into fewer, so as not to bore the reader with the passing of too much time during which nothing significant happened.

4. Change the chronological order of events. The point of this is not to exaggerate events but simply to create a narrative that has a strong arc.

5. Disguise characters. In other to protect the privacy of friends and relatives, memoirists often disguise characters by changing their names, their physical characteristics and even their backgrounds or nationalities.

6. Combine characters. Not all memoirists agree on this point (or any of these points for that matter), but some authors combine similar minor characters into one. For example, in my own memoir, I dated several male models. In one scene, I combined two of them into one. Everything that happened is true, and combining the two men does nothing to change the truth of the scene or even to heighten the drama, it just allowed me to add a little more color.

The big difference between memoirs and essays? The disclaimer. Most memoirs have a disclaimer at the beginning stating that the author condensed time, changed the names of characters, or wrote the story “to the best of his/her recollection.” Essays do not. And that was the mistake of D’Agata—to pass off what may be “true” in the metaphorical sense as “fact” without adding a disclaimer. Jonathon Burnham, a senior vice-president at W. W. Norton, points out to NPR writer Travis Larchuk that, “The expectations are different for newspapers, magazines, literary journals and books.” The disclaimer is, according to Burnham, “an almost essential piece of qualifying information that alerts the reader to the fact that not every single word in this book is true.” Like Craig Silverman points out in an article on the Poynter website, newspapers used to use a phrase in the headlines of newspaper articles that weren’t verified: “Important if true.” Maybe it’s time we brought back.

What do you think? Should “truth” be limited to the “facts” in essays and memoirs? Is it okay to fudge details as long as a disclaimer is attached? Do you assume, when you read an essay, that every word is factual? Or do you think it’s okay for essayists, like memoirists, to take some literary license in order to create more colorful, dramatic pieces of writing?

Throughout the four years I’ve been a parent (to two children now), I’ve asked myself many times: When I look back later, what will I wish I had done differently? What will I regret? Until last week, I couldn’t think of anything. Because I ask myself this question frequently, I tend to feel that I am on the right parenting track—spending a lot of time with my kids while at same time maintaining a healthy balance of time to work on my career, getting their pictures taken at regular intervals, reading to them every night, taking lots of photos and videos of them, writing down cute things they say, etc.

Then, last week, it struck me that my two-year-old daughter’s two years of life are a blur. I can hardly remember her at 6 mos, at 12 mos, at 18 mos. I can picture her bald head, but I have trouble picturing her in the stroller as a baby, or my carrying her around in the Bjorn, or her first words. We’ve been so busy—rushing from play dates to swim class to preschool—that the details have already faded. During my son’s first year of preschool last year, I taped every art project he did on his bedroom wall. This year, my daughter’s first year, her artwork comes home and sits in a pile on the dining room table until I move it to a pile on my desk in the basement. I haven’t kept up her baby book (yet, but I plan to update it next month), and I’ve missed all three preschool parent events for her class.

Looking back at this blur that is my daughter’s life, I ask myself what my favorite memories are. The answer: The mornings and afternoons I sat on the floor with the kids and played: built train tracks, played musical instruments, did puzzles, played Bingo, put shapes into the shape sorter, etc. And the mornings and afternoons we’ve spent at the park—playing in the sand, playing soccer on the grass, and riding scooters/bikes. I’m proud that my kids understand French and Spanish. I love that they are good swimmers. I’m happy that they are social and well adjusted. But my favorite memories aren’t the ones of us driving in the car from this class to that event. They aren’t the ones of me cleaning the house while the kids play alone. They are the ones of me sitting on the floor doing a dinosaur floor puzzle, building Lego castles, and trying to make a train track around the living room that uses every tunnel, bridge, and piece of track we own. And I plan to do more of that starting now.

What about you? Looking back at your children’s younger years, is there anything you would do differently? What?

As someone who just finished the last revision of my manuscript Monday night (Hurray! I’m taking the day off to go to the hot springs tomorrow, my favorite reward), this rang true for me. I sent an earlier draft of my memoir, Paris On Less Than $10,000 A Day, out two years ago to five agents. All five requested fulls, and all five had positive feedback but ultimately turned the book down (No wait, there was a sixth, the fabulous Nathan Bransford, from whom I received a form rejection, but who hasn’t received a form rejection from Nathan?) Rather than send it to more agents, I spent the next two years rewriting the book. I don’t regret that decision because I think the book has greatly improved, but now, as I prepare to send it out again, I have one goal: No matter how many rejections I get (assuming I get some) I’m not allowed to revise my book again, unless an agent specifically requests that I do so.

I’m confident that my book is well-written and marketable. I’ve read enough publishing blogs to know not to take rejection personally. It’s an impossibly tough market, the business is incredibly subjective (It’s all about finding the right agent, the who will fall in love with my story), etc. etc. I know all that. And yet …

I also know myself. A month from now, after having received three or four rejections, I’ll begin to doubt myself. I’ll doubt my book and my writing in general. I’ll analyze rejection e-mails for clues as to what could be improved. I’ll kick myself for not having gotten my book out there sooner. I’ll wonder if having a bigger author platform would make a difference. I’ll tell myself that memoirs are a thing of the past (unless you’re a celebrity from the 80s), that modeling books are out, that the only chance I have of getting published is to sleep with Oprah’s hairdresser. I’ll wonder if my book is too serious. I’ll tell myself that if only chapters 1, 6, 9, and 18 were as funny as 2, 7, and 41, it would have sold by now. In other words, I’ll be plagued by self-doubt.

Back when I was rock climbing, I wanted to get my lead card at my local rock climbing gym. I’d heard from several people that no one passes the first time they take the lead test. Climbers often have to take it two or three times to get their cards because their lead has to be PERFECT—perfect clips, smooth, strong climbing on an overhanging 5.10B or 5.10C, and no stepping on or behind the rope. I passed on my first try. Not because I’m a great climber, but because I was so afraid to fail that I practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced long after any sane person would have taken the test. I would not take the test until I was confident that I could do it flawlessly. Why? Because I’m plagued by perfectionism, the cousin of self-doubt.

Perfectionism can be a good thing. It can lead to great accomplishments. But it can be damaging, too. It can slow us down, it can prevent us from putting ourselves out there, from taking risks. And in order to get published, we need to be willing to put ourselves out there. We need to take risks—in our writing and in our lives.

What about you? Are you plagued by perfectionism and/or self-doubt? Do you find that men are more confident than women when submitting their writing for publication? How do you remain positive in the face of rejection?

1. New York Times Modern Love—Start by reading a lot of Modern Love columns to get an idea of what they’re looking for. You may even want to buy this Modern Love collection. And don’t miss this article on Media Bistro on how to turn your Modern Love column into a book.

2. New York Times Lives—TheNew York Times Magazine Lives column is another great place to get published. The best way to submit to any large publication is to have someone put you in touch with the editor of the column. The rest of us can e-mail our essays to the Lives section at lives (at) nytimes (dot) com.

3. Newsweek My Turn—Start by reading “How To Get a My Turn Essay Published in Newsweek Magazine.” Then read some of the past essays that have been published to get a good idea of what they are looking for and what’s already been done.

4. Christian Science Monitor Home Forum—The Christian Science Monitor is a highly respected international newspaper and is not religious-based. It’s Home Forum page includes a personal essay that can run from 400 to 800 words. After you read the Monitor’s contributor guidelines, check out this article for advice on how to beat the odds of getting your essay published.

5. The Sun—A monthly magazine, The Sun pays from $300 to $2,000 for essays and interviews. They receive a thousand submissions (including fiction and poetry) for every issue, so don’t be surprised if you have to wait six months for a response.

6. The Smithsonian Magazine—The Last Page of The Smithsonian is a humor column running 500 to 650 words and pays $1000. For more information, read the submission guidelines.

7. Salon—From what I’ve read, the pay is low for Salon essays ($150?), but it’s better than nothing and a great way to get exposure. Check out this list, and then click around the different departments (Life, Sex, Poetry, etc.) to see what they’re publishing. Finally, see their submission guidelines, which aren’t all that helpful.

8. Slate—Slate publishes some essays, but I was so distracted by their targeted banner ads (Camping gear! Children’s outdoor play equipment!) that I gave up on my search before I got very far.

9. The Rumpus—An online culture magazine, The Rumpus “[tries] to maintain high standards even though we don’t have any money and can’t pay for writing.” For details on submitting essays or book reviews, see their writer’s guidelines.

10. 7×7—Another West Coast publication, 7×7 has an Urban Ledger column for which readers can pitch their personal essays. They pay $1 a word, and their essays run about 1000 words. For more information, contact the editorial department.

11. Skirt—An online women’s magazine, Skirt accepts submissions up to 1500 words, but—like most online publications—does not pay. For more info, read their contributor guidelines.

12. Granta—A British literary magazine, Granta publishes original memoir pieces between 3000 and 6000 words. They do not accept e-mail submissions. Read a few copies of the journal (you can find most journals at a library) and then read their guidelines.

13. Tin House—A literary journal, Tin House accepts essays as well as poetry and fiction from Sept. 1 to May 31. The suggested deadline for their Spring 2012 issue, themed Weird Science, is Oct. 1. The real deadline is Nov. 1. Click here for submission guidelines.

14. Zyzzyva—You have to live on the West Coast to publish in Zyzzyva, but it’s another literary journal that accepts personal essays. The best way to learn what any publication is looking for is to read several issues of that publication, and Zyzzyva is no exception. Start by buying a copy. Then read the submission guidelines.

15. Traveler’s Tales—Traveler’s Tales is currently accepting submissions in the women’s travel humor and travel humor categories. Visit their website for submission details. The deadline is TODAY (Sept. 21) for their Fifth Annual Solas Awards, so get it in fast if you have something ready. Otherwise, you can submit year-round and your submission will be held for the following competition.

16. Literary Mama—An online literary magazine “for the maternally inclined,” Literary Mama is looking for “revelation so stark that it hurts. Pathos can reveal, but so can humor and joy; superior craft (clarity, concrete details, strong narrative development); and ambiguity, complexity, depth, thoughtfulness, delicacy, humor, irreverence, lyricism, sincerity; the elegant and the raw.” View their submission guidelines for more info.

17. Brain, Child—The magazine for thinking mothers (as opposed to literary mamas), publishes essays between 800 and 4500 words, which are “the signature pieces of the magazine.” They pay “as much as we can, although our fees are still modest for now.” View their writers’ guidelines.

18. Chicken Soup for the Soul—It doesn’t seem like there’s anything left to publish in this series, but there is! There is! And here are the submission guidelines.

19. Seal Press Anthologies—Seal Press publishes books “By Women. For Women.” They aren’t currently accepting submissions, but check back periodically for upcoming books.

20. Adams Media books—Adams publishes nonfiction books, including some anthologies. Right now they’re taking parodies of Jane Austen writing for an anthology titled Bad Austen.

In addition to those listed above, there is a plethora of other literary journals that publish personal essays. NewPages.com provides an extensive list with descriptions. Writer’s Digest also has a great article called Tips to Help You Publish Your Personal Essays. They also publish the trusted Writer’s Market directory, which you can access online.

Do you have any publications to add to the list, or details/tips about any of those listed above?

So where does that leave us? We writers who share our short stories and book chapters in critique groups, at writers’ conferences, and in MFA programs—is our work safe? Since the copyright of unpublished work can be difficult to prove, and substantial portions have to be copied verbatim in order to claim copyright infringement, is there anything to prevent a fellow writer/student/colleague from stealing our ideas? The answer is no. Here’s an example:

This past February, I read the New York Times Book Review of a novel written by a former classmate of mine from my MFA program at Mills College. I was surprised when I came upon this quote: “[Elena] Shapiro has given her fictionalized Louise an extraordinarily sensual nature. She straddles a motorcycle with “thrilled and shivering limbs,” commits adultery (and possibly incest) to the rhythms of the Lord’s Prayer and, like every Frenchwoman I have ever observed, approaches food like a lyric courtesan.”

Strange, I thought. I also wrote about a character who had sex to the rhythms of the Lord’s Prayer in an Advanced Fiction Workshop I took at Mills, in which Shapiro was working on the novel quoted above. After reading the review, I bought Shapiro’s book, 13 rue Thérèse, and read it. When I arrived at the scene mentioned above, I was stunned at how closely it resembled my own scene, which is in the memoir I’m currently working on (I had submitted my memoir as fiction at Mills because I wanted to take Yiyun Li’s class). To be sure, I thumbed through my archive of MFA critiques, and there it was, the passage I had written and submitted in Li’s workshop with Shapiro’s critique and signature attached, dated October 5, 2005. In the scene (below), I have just had unprotected sex with a Frenchman and am now praying to God that I don’t get AIDS. The scene takes place in Paris in 1988. (I’ve added the bold to emphasize the similarities between the two passages):

“I swear I’ll pray every day for the rest of my life. I’ll start right now. Our father, who art in heaven … wait, I thought Pierre was asleep … hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come … oh, God, not again. Doesn’t he ever get tired? … thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day … what is he doing? I’m not a dog! … Our daily bread … oh, that actually feels pretty good … and forgive us our trespasses, as we … I’ve never tried this side scissor position before … forgive those who … oh, oh God, I think he’s coming again … trespass against us. Hail Mary, full of grace … oh don’t even bother, you’ll be there all night … the Lord is with thee. … Believe me, there’s no point … Blessed art thou amongst women and … oh God, oh God …
blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God … oh, oh,
oh shit! Shit! Shit! … pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death,
Amen.”

The scene from Shapiro’s book also takes place in Paris (1928). And, like in my scene, the chapter culminates with an orgasm followed by the word “Amen.”

I hesitate to quote the entire passage because I’m not familiar enough with fair use laws to know how much is “fair,” but here are a few lines from 13 rue Thérèse. Again, the bold is mine:

“Our Father who are in heaven, his beautiful mouth!—is on hers.”

“She can feel he is hard for her oh—forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us—the pure unrestrained joy of it.”

“He begins to nibble the side of her neck: she starts to squirm, letting out something that sounds like a little hiccup when she feels teeth— hallowed be Thy name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done—”

“When he finally penetrates her, she says thank you. Amen.”

The love scenes are different, but the trope (interspersing lines of the Lord’s prayer into a sex scene) is clearly the same. But, like Fowler states, “When caught in the act, almost all plagiarists, including Helen Keller, plead cryptomnesia” (unconscious plagiarism).

Shapiro’s response to my e-mail about the matter states: “[W]hen I wrote the scene for my book I had absolutely no recollection of that scene in your story. That prayer is a very familiar rhythm that everybody knows; I went to Catholic school so its French version was in the background of my entire childhood. I am sure it has flitted through many a head throughout history while making love, and my guess it that it has been used in sex scenes in other published works before because of its ubiquity and significance.”

Okay, first let’s take a poll. How many of you recite The Lord’s Prayer while having sex? Can I see a show of hands?

And here’s a little advice: One) Copyright your unpublished manuscripts. All original work is automatically copyrighted when it’s written, but you need written proof that you wrote it on a particular date to make, or fight, a copyright infringement case in court. One way to do this is through the United States Copyright Office. Another way, according to a professor at Mills with whom I spoke about this incident, is to send it to yourself via Certified Mail and DO NOT OPEN it. Just store it away in a safe place. Two) Think twice before sharing your work with others. Don’t be paranoid about it, and do participate in critique groups with people you trust, but if you have a novel idea or a turn of phrase of which you feel particularly proud, protect it—because, from what I understand after reading Fowler’s post, only the direct copying of substantial passages of text is actionable. Copying ideas is not. Writing similar passages is not. But it leaves you feeling like your best friend just slept with your boyfriend, and no one needs that.

What about you? Has anyone ever copied your work, inadvertently or intentionally? Have you ever plagiarized someone else without realizing it? How did you handle those situations?

I toyed with this dilemma the entire time I worked on this book. During my MFA program I faced mental blocks to writing scenes about my family because I was afraid of what they might think or say. My teacher told me not to worry about it, to just write the stuff now and worry about it later. But I did worry. How could I not? I knew that one day the time would come when my book was finished and ready to send off for publication, when someone in my family would say, “I don’t want you to publish your book.” I was SO relieved when my dad gave it the thumbs up. The other person I would have worried about was my mom, but she’s been dead for fourteen years. I toned those sentences down after my sister saw them, and I’ve written very little about my family despite advice from some readers that I should include more of them, not less. I’m happy with the result, and I think my sister will be, too, once she reads the whole book. But these aren’t easy decisions for a memoirist to make, and they can stifle a writer’s ability to write openly and honestly about her experiences. I admire memoirists who bare all, especially about themselves, like Bill Clegg in Portait of an Addict As a Young Man and so many other great memoirs I’ve read lately (All Over The Map by Laura Fraser, The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott). But it’s always easier if you’re estranged from the people you are writing about, if you don’t care about their feelings or how they will react. That’s not the case with me.

What about you? Have you written memoir or personal essays? Have you written about other people in your life? How did you strike the balance between telling the whole story and managing their feelings? Did you show them your work before you published it? And if you haven’t written memoir, what do you think you would do if one of your family members told you he didn’t want you to publish your book?

Next, I want to share a discussion I had with Roni Loren last week on her blog. Roni’s post “How Fast Do You Have To Write To Build a Successful Literary Career” struck a nerve with me. She stated that although the standard expectation of writers for decades has been to write one book a year, today writers are expected to write faster. In order to create her backlist and quit her day job, she said, “I KNOW I have got to be able to write more than 1-2 books a year.” She mentioned that romance author Maya Banks writes 8-10 books a year and that proof that her quality hasn’t suffered is that she hit the New York Times bestseller list last year.

In May, I wrote a post about social media books in which I quoted a story told by Robert Kiyosaki in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, a personal finance book I’m sure you’ve heard of. Kiyosaki told a reporter who had had trouble getting her novel published that she should take a marketing class. When the reporter appeared taken aback, Kiyosaki pointed out that the cover of his book read “bestselling author,” not “bestwriting author.” I used that anecdote to illustrate the importance of social media marketing. What I didn’t mention is that the best-writing part is equally as important. ONCE you’ve written your book as best you can, THEN you should worry about selling it and marketing it, but not at the expense of the quality of the writing. And just because a book hits a bestseller list, does not mean it is well written. It means that it has sold a lot of copies, for whatever reason. (Think of all the blockbuster movies that make gazillions of dollars but get terrible reviews.)

IF you are lucky enough to be one of those authors who can truly crank out two great books a year without letting the quality of your writing suffer, go for it. I am not one of those people. The first draft of my memoir was 520 pages, and I’ve spent the past four years revising it and editing it down. I’ve never heard that there is any expectation for writers to write more than a book a year. Most published authors I know spend 3-4 years on a book. (Samuel Park spent 3 years 9 mos on his). Roni’s rationale behind writing 2+ books per year is that she needs to create a backlist in order to make enough money from her writing to quit her day job.

The argument for a backlist is a good one. (The point being that if someone reads and likes one of your books, he can go out and buy the others.) It’s an argument to stop being so anal about your first book being a super-mega-bestseller and just GET IT OUT THERE because if people like your second book, they’ll go back and buy your first. That happened to Alice Siebold. After the runaway success of The Lovely Bones, people went out and bought her earlier memoir, Lucky, which hadn’t met great success when it was first published.

But why does a backlist have to be developed in six months? What’s wrong with publishing a book every two or three years? You’ll still create a backlist, just a little slower. Like slow blogging. If you blog once a week, you’ll still build a following, just a little slower. My argument that I’d rather see authors take time to write a really good book than to rush them to publication was countered with many comments by people arguing that more time writing does not necessarily equal a better book. Of course it doesn’t in all cases. But I bet if you piled all the books that took less than one year to write on the left side of a table and all the books that took more than one year to write on the right side, well, first the table would tip over. But I bet you’d see a greater number of high quality books—regardless of genre—on the right side. Now, there will be some great books on the left side. Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in nine days. There will be YA books and novellas that took little time because they are short. There will be books by experienced writers who have so much practice writing that they truly can crank out a good book in less than a year.

But I hope everyone doesn’t get into a two+ books a year frenzy. There are many ways to make a living as a writer. You can publish your books and earn money from your backlist, but you can also teach, edit, consult, speak, and publish shorter pieces like book reviews and magazine articles.

I think it’s wonderful that Roni is so motivated and that she has a clear goal for herself in mind. I think it’s wonderful that writers are mastering social media and how to market their work. But I think it’s even more wonderful when someone spends four years—or three years and nine months—on a book to create a truly wonderful book that will enlighten and entertain his or her readers.