And by that, I basically mean lying.

To be fair, most writers (MFA-bound or not) have embraced or at least come to terms with the writing life—and the dedication to the art form it requires. Still, we aspiring writers are nothing if not tenacious, and ever more ambitious. While the names James Frey, Nasdijj, and JT LeRoy will surely go down as catchphrases for fabrication in the memoir genre, my growing fear is that those writers may only exist as the extreme cases among a generation (admittedly, my own generation) of writers who are tempted to dangerously and falsely exoticize their identities for the purpose of promoting themselves to agents and editors. As more and more emerging writers are warned—often before pen has even hit paper—of the difficulties they’ll face with agents and publishing companies, more of them will inevitably be seduced into presenting themselves as rare birds (albeit supremely marketable ones).

These days, not only must the literary purist make posterity believe he did indeed live, but if he wants to find an agent, receive a decent advance, get published by a name house, and endear himself to a marketing and publicity team that will ensure a prime spot on the front table at Barnes & Noble, positioning his book to climb the sales ranks and thus securing a contract for his next book, he needs to make posterity believe—by writing it in his latest memoir—that he lived more dysfunctionally, more tragically, more multiculturally, more exotically than anyone else.

Sigh. There’s no faking my way out of this white, 30-something, middle class existence.
Guess I’m stuck with me and my mind. Crap.