James Frey on his writing style: "I also never really read my own writing, so I try to make it perfect the first time through." [WP]
James Frey on his writing style: "I also never really read my own writing, so I try to make it perfect the first time through." [WP]
5:39 PM on Tue May 20 2008
By Hamilton Nolan
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14 comments
Comments
I edit my Gawker posts - Does that make me a better writer than Frey? Book deal! NOW!
I really wish you hadn't done that.
Everyone who read A Million Little Pieces is nodding knowingly, in unison, right now.
Such humility!!! Time for another beating from Oprah, methinks ...
Once a bullshit artist, still a bullshit artist. I bet he drafts 40 times.
@Miss-Pringle: Maybe. Some people just edit as they go. Maybe that's what he means.
But whatever. Controversy doesn't hurt book sales does it, JimmyFrey?
@Pope John Peeps II: would LOVE to hear from his copyeditors on this one.
Huh. I never really read his writing either. Who knew we had something in common after all?
What a perfectly crafted, almost lovely sentence. I bet Jimmy Frey took a week to write -- and rewrite -- it, until he knew it was just perfectly revealing. I believe nothing this man says or does.
the world makes sense now.
Frey got his ass vaguely handed to him in the latest New Yorker ('Briefly Noted'). The word "banal" was used. From what I can tell, his book belongs to the Brooklyn School of sentimental pap, and it will probably make him some kind of literary fixture for the next four weeks or so. There seems to be the possibility of an Oprah rapprochement. The thing that puzzles me is that it took him two years to write this, whereas it would seem to take most people at least two years of hard drinking and therapy to get over the public shaming of being outed as a false memoirist by our living Statue of Liberty, Oprah.
How could he have time? He has to go out and not have real experiences, which he then has to chronicle and not read in order to go not do more fake things. That shit takes time.
That sentence just sums up the amount of respect he has for his writing and the craft of writing in general. To think he can so casually insult his fans, not to mention his "editors," and enjoy absolutely no repercussions just blows your mind. There is no accountability anymore.
I think my next project is going to be to learn how to type words with my asshole. My asshole will try and make it perfect the first time so there won't be any editing needed. I'm thinking of calling it, "My Starfish Adventure."
James Frey is the kind of published novelist that makes those of us who edit, rewrite, re-edit and rewrite our work and keep getting rejection letters, proud to be unpublished.
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