About This Site

How This Site Got Its Name

When I first created this website in 1997, its title was the same as its URL: PaulCilwa.com. There were only a little over a million websites that year, though more than three times as many as the year before. But, by 2005, most websites had site names that were distinct from their URLs (web addresses). For example, the site ONA.org was actually titled Ontario Nurses Association. Since I was, by then, developing this site as a blog, I decided to give it a bloggy-sort of name. But what?

I wanted to title it something that would express the range of which I hoped to write. A rejected title was As Far As The I Can C ('C' being the first letter of my last name, and yes, this would have been a ghastly title, which is why I didn't use it.)

But then, in 2003, there was a memoir by a guy named James Frey, A Million Little Pieces, that became a bestseller after Oprah Winfrey selected it for her book club in 2005. I wasn't a watcher of her show, but clips were everywhere, and the show itself was on public TV sets in doctor's offices, airports, and even bars. So I heard the title somewhere, and in a moment of inspired malaphor, put it together with a piece of my mind and voilà! the title for my the title for my website was born.

But the story doesn't stop there. It was later revealed that Frey had fabricated or exaggerated many of the events and details in his book, such as his criminal record, his injuries, and his relationships. In other words, basically the whole book. Had it been labeled fiction, there'd have been no problem. But, as a memoir, it was manure. Frey faced a backlash from the public, the media, and Winfrey herself, who confronted him on her show and accused him of lying to her and her viewers. Frey’s publisher dropped him and settled a lawsuit with the readers who felt deceived by his book. Frey’s reputation as a writer was severely damaged by the controversy, and he was widely criticized for exploiting the genre of memoir and betraying the trust of his readers.

(Here's the fuller version of this story.)

So…should I have changed the name?

Ultimately I decided in favor of my title. To begin with, Frey did not invent the phrase a million little pieces. Secondly, the malaphor (an informal term for a phrase that combines two aphorisms, idioms, or clichés, such as let's burn that bridge when we come to it) continued to be utterly apt, so I opted to retain it.

So, welcome to A Million Little Pieces Of My Mind!