Hurry Up and Die So I Can Write About You
... is not the only approach to avoiding lawsuits
When you’re a writer, you’re basically a bastard.1
Everyone who knows you, knows it: you’re going to magpie the shit out of stuff they tell you. You’ll turn their fuck-ups into entertainment. You’ll steal strips of their personality and cobble them together with bits from other people to create a horrific Wickerman labelled a “fictional character” in which they are going to get roasted.
Well, not everyone you know, because some people aren’t interesting enough; them you’ll just drop from your life because you are, as noted above, a bastard. But the rest of humanity? Fodder.
Someone comes into your life? They’re asking for it. Any time spent in your company is risky. The longer they know you, the more likely they’ll end up in your words. Which wouldn’t matter, except the one thing writers really, really like to do, is shove their words out into the publ…
