With the rise of the Internet, average people no longer need an elusive book deal to share their story

By April Rueb

Maya (left) and Eliza Koplowitz

When Marya Hornbacher’s memoir, “Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia,” was published in 1998, it was the only way for her to share her story with the public. More than ten years later, the Internet has opened the doors of the once-exclusive publishing industry to anyone with a computer. For writers today, sharing their story is as easy as creating a free account on one of the numerous blog sites, such as WordPress and Blogger. So are blogs the future of books? Of course not; however, blogs may be the future of memoir.

Memoir, as a literary genre, is unique. Professional and undeniably talented writers, such as Joan Didion, have written successful memoirs, however, so have recovering drug addicts. Successful memoirs are a combination of writing ability and experience. But especially in the post-James Frey era, it’s not always easy for the average person to get a book deal with Random House and as it turns out, it may not be necessary.

For people who write memoirs, the catalyst to share their story is often twofold: to help in their own recovery or healing process and to assist others in theirs. Instead of journaling, some people find that writing with an audience in mind and hearing the feedback of others is different than writing in a diary only seen by the underside of a mattress. Prior to the Internet, only the lucky few, such as Hornbacher, would be afforded such an opportunity. Today, a quick Google search will produce thousands of blogs written by women and men just like Hornbacher.

Meet Eliza and Maya Koplowitz, 19-year-old twin sisters who have both been battling Anorexia Nervosa for about the last five years. For the past year and a half, the girls have written almost daily updates of their recovery from the illness on their blogs: “Nourishing Mornings” for Eliza and “Pistachios and Rainbows” for Maya. Maya’s blog gets about 1,000 hits a day and each new post receives, on average, about 20 comments. Like Hornbacher, Maya includes the gritty details of her disorder with her readers. On April 2, she wrote about going to visit relatives and how her grandfather told her she looked like a holocaust victim. “I want to look normal, even though, normal to me just sounds like fat, unnoticeable,” wrote Maya. Later in the evening, Eliza had to be taken to the emergency room because her hands turned blue. Maya wrote, “I really honestly believe if she didn’t go to the hospital Tuesday night, she would not have woken up in the morning.” Maya could have written about the night in her journal, but she said she blogs for “the feedback from others and the sense of being in a community where others understand how I feel.”

The similarities between the sisters’ blogs and other recovery blogs to Hornbacher’s “Wasted” are unquestionable. Using the definition that a memoir covers a certain period or aspect of one’s life, recovery blogs seem to fit into the same category as memoir. But Juliette Borda, 42, an aspiring memoirist who attended the free Gotham Writers’ Workshop in Brooklyn last month and who does not blog, wrote in an e-mail, “Isn’t blogging an endless event? A book or story has a definitive beginning and end.”  Borda brings up a valid point: published memoirs don’t come with a backspace button. Sometimes though, the end of a published memoir may not be the end of the writer’s story. Almost ten years after the release of “Wasted,” Hornbacher released a second memoir, “Madness: A Bipolar Life.” Hornbacher said she wrote a second memoir, “Because there was more story to tell.”

But blogs and memoirs do differ, and this difference is found in the tense of the writing. The Koplowitz sisters post at least once a week, giving them at most seven days to reflect on the experiences that they are writing about. Hornbacher and other memoirists don’t have a deadline when writing, and an audience who worries when they miss a day or two of posting. Jerry Waxler is the creator of the Memory Writers Network Web site, which offers tips, articles and encouragement to aspiring memoirists. Blogs and memoirs differ, Waxler said, because “There’s a difference between walking along the beach and admiring what you see, and picking up things on the beach and organizing them within a frame.” Bloggers like the Koplowitz sisters don’t have enough time to organize their thoughts within the entire frame of their recovery process.

Of course, bloggers could just update less frequently and write more thought-out posts; however, making blog readers wait contradicts with the instant nature of the Internet. Recently, the Koplowitz sisters decided to stop posting daily, without telling their readers first. After one day without a post, they both received numerous messages asking them what was wrong. The barrage of e-mails and comments solidified for the girls that there was too much pressure to post every day.

The longer time span between their posts now allows the Koplowitz sisters to write more reflectively, more like memoirists. So are “Nourishing Mornings” and “Pistachios and Rainbows” the next “Wasted?” Possibly. These blogs, like other recovery blogs, lack the editing and reflection found in published memoirs. But what bloggers and memoirists have in common, according to Peter Birkenhead, author of the memoir “Gonville,” is “A kind of fearlessness and a willingness to be vulnerable and put yourself out there.” Recovery bloggers have already made the difficult decision to share their experiences and emotions with others, opening themselves up for criticism. Even though it can make her the victim of harsh comments, Maya said, “I am not one to shy away and hide the fact that I struggle.” If Maya ever does write a memoir, which she has considered, her blog will not only provide her with ample content, but it will have also prepared her to share the most personal details of her life with anyone who wants to read them.