As A Writer...

One of the problems I've encountered as a writer is people.

People whom I have relationships with, or have had relationships with, and I'm not just talking the touchy-feely-kissy-nudge-nudge-wink-wink relationships, I am talking the awkward-making-out-at-a-party relationships, the I'm-on-the-rebound relationships, and the friendships, the working partnerships, the professional detachments between myself and other writers I may have come to dislike for whatever reason or who have certain let's call them foibles that bug me...anyway, you get the picture. People I know or used to know are a problem because aspects of them keep cropping up in my writing and sometimes, they then crop up in my life. Where this really falls down is when aspects of them crop up in my writing and they notice it and are angry, furious, or otherwise unflattered about the whole situation.

Well, look, you write what you know, and you write what you experience and observe and imagine, and so what you do is you take what you've experienced from observations of people and imagine how they'd react in situations you've observed or experienced and...yeah. Every character I create is just as much me as it is somebody else. Anyway, the problem is that sometimes, I can't detach myself enough and so, for years, for example, every story I wrote about a girl who broke up with a guy was strictly about a girl I dated in 1999. Now, when I write stories about guys and girls dating, or breaking up, or whatever, it is not about her at all. She's dead. Well, no, but there's no character left to get out of her because I wrote her to death.

No, where it all comes from now is those that I have dated since her. So, that means aspects of girls I psuedo-dated, and other girls I just had crushes on but never really got together with and, of course, the last two I dated before meeting Kathy...but mostly the one right before Kathy because when a story is written, a source of conflict is needed and it's very easy to think of conflict when thinking about her. So, in my most recent story, titled "Look At How Damn Ugly The Stars Are" (which is a reference to an Alkaline Trio song, which is an aspect of the other of these two girls, so, you see, it's not all the one girl...), it is very easy to see that Brooke (who I used in a screenplay) is based heavily on this particular ex, moreso than Brooke in the screenplay because I needed certain aspects of her life, and our relationship, and, well, anyway, the parts that are true and those that aren't will not be clear to everybody. I know. If she crops up and reads it, she will know what is truth and what is fiction.

The point I am trying to make is, as a writer, or as any artist, the subject is so delicate if you're worried about hurting peoples' feelings, so I am no longer going to worry about it anymore.