Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

The people in a writer’s life have to understand that it is quite possible–more than that; they should even anticipate that it will be so–that they may find themselves the subject in some piece or another of text. It is a great-good compliment. And those that find themselves honored in this way must also understand that the depiction may not be something they will necessarily like. This is because of a little thing called literary license. It is where, at least as I employ it, a writer can be feeling some such emotion about a person, one so strong that they are compelled to try to capture all that passion in words, and so may begin writing-nay DESCRIBING–things as they actually happen and may end up in a land quite removed from reality. Because it often happens that a story–even what begins as non-fiction–just gets away from you. Staying on the original track can be truly a daunting task, especially–and please acknowledge the emphasis here–if the passion in question is anger. A writer’s best self are the words she spins, that is, she is never able to express herself as clearly and forcefully as when she endeavors to write down who she is, what she thinks, of whom she loves. There is no one interrupting her with their own opinions. There is no censor except the one in her head, which inevitably takes a break when anger is trying to be expressed because it knows it never had a chance of keeping up with the speed of her four and a half typing fingers as they spew venom into essays or fiction or…(*clears throat)…entries on a blog.

It’s like Picasso’s Dora or his Francoise. Only I am not such a bastard as Picasso. And you didn’t necessarily want to just hang around me because of my fame and to further your own ambitions. Well. Perhaps not.

What I am trying to say is that what may be written about you, you magnificent and inspirational loved ones of writers, may be the ugliest things you never knew another person, particularly one you thought loved you, could think about you. But your writer loved one did. And although writers must take responsibility for making public their private selves–which if you hope to be any good at all is always more open than any writer will ever own–those who love and are loved by writers must also come to accept, however begrudgingly, that the parts of themselves that they read will not always be favorable. There may be a character in a bit of fiction that is absolutely 78% based on a real person that the writer of said piece speaks to everyday. But the rounding out of that character–the full other 22%–may be things so distasteful that the person who was mostly the germinating speck for that character could get very angry about. Hopping, piss-fire angry. But without appropriate justification, I think. Because of the little words “based on…” That means that the character was never meant to be fully the wonderful you-yourself that you know and love to wake up and look in the mirror to greet every morning. To make their piece of fiction more enticing to the general public, the writer might have needed to omit the other 22% of your brilliant, humanitarian qualities and INVENT 22% that are more hellish than everyone knows you actually are. And that could be…should be…alright. Because it’s just fiction. And you know that writer’s write about life. And being in that writer’s life, you-yourself are bound to make a sort of appearance because you are of such importance to the life of this writing person that they couldn’t not immortalize even tiny bits of your personality (or whatever other things) as they try to make a valuable contribution to the texts of both your time.

And then there are other places. Like blogs. Which get some writers…sometimes…into trouble…even if she always, always gives the same caveat before she reveals the pocket of the internet which is her own to those who are curious what it is she so furiously writes on somedays or is always checking up on…this thing called a blog. Even if her caveat is spoken quite slowly, with impeccable articulation, and the person to whom she has spoken this caveat says they understand her when she says “You may not want to read the things I write there. I am completely honest there–I hold nothing back. What you read there may seem to come from a person you don’t recognize. It’s me, though…it’s my writing. I tell the truth–what I actually, actually am thinking about. Sometimes it’s kind of dark. And it’s my life. So I write about whatever parts of it I want to.”

Trouble, my dears. Trouble is what sometimes a girl gets into. Because though people who actually know you in the material world think it’s neat to read about all your little idiosyncrasies and sexually-charged quips you “publish” in the virtual world, they always have a problem when the thing being scrutinized is them. Really pitiable bind it puts a writer in. I think.

So, to review. What we have here are a set of factors that lead to misunderstandings between writers and their beloved subjects because of:

1. literary license concerning a writer’s life
2. the mercurial nature of the artist (what may be written about you now may not be what the writer will feel about you in even the ten minutes following that thought)
3. a partially-ignored caveat

Futile are take-backs. What was written was meant…at that moment. If only at that moment. But what must be understood is that anger gets away from you. And that adoration doesn’t disappear just because someone happens to be in a huff.

(And if what is happening, Maverick, is that you are in a huff because of some petulant thing you read on this blog that I wrote when I was in a huff…please forgive me. I mean, take your time…but do. I don’t want you to be in any doubt concerning how glad I am to have found you and to be getting to know you. It is a delicate situation, you understand? My impressionable young mind doesn’t always manage unpredictability. I am still learning to navigate waters that you have been rowing with some precision for a decade or more.)

Roll your eyes at your writer loved ones, you darling subjects. Tell us how passive-aggressive we are. Ignore us for a bit to teach us a lesson. All fine responses to discovery that some portion of you has become the villain in some writer’s latest verbal vanity parade. But then remember how writing is the thing they love most and so wanted to include you in that part of their life that there you are. Somewhat. But all the same…there you are.

And then accept that you may be found around there again.

And then forgive.

And then kiss…and make up.