On Fri, 04 Apr 2003 00:55:58 -0800 Quinn Tyler Jackson 
writes:

> Has this ever happened to anyone else here?

It is always an astonishment to see oneself through others' eyes, at
least for me, both ways.
But that's the beauty of it -- the facts are the same but the
interpretation varies. 

> Isn't writing people we've known into our fiction a bit like this,
> except by publishing, we're posting it on a wall? Do we own the 
> right  to do that?

We've certainly claimed it, for as long as we've told tales around the
campfire.
Look at the slander the Bards of Yore propagated (Sir Robin's "He bravely
ran away" is actually a pastiche of something from the years of Ethelred
the Unready, if I've got my dates close to right.)
=shrug=
We do own our lives, our perceptions, our experiences, imho.
What we do with that ownership ... is up to our own conscience, and being
aware of "the shoe on the other foot"
And realising, no matter what you do, someone will read you the wrong way
(one of my oldest quote entries is: "If the reader can misunderstand,
they will"), see insult where none was ever meant, see you in the
character you THOUGHT you wrote as diametrically opposed to your
self-vision.
=shrug=

Writing, as you know, is NOT an affliction for the thin-skinned.
When you accept the laurels from the Muses, you also must also, perforce,
accept the consequences -- even though some of them are patently wrong
headed, if not damn silly.

But that's true of any occupation, whut-whut?

'Best
BarbJ

====
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. --Mark
Twain 
====
[Courage is...] tasting the vegetable before making a face. --Bernard
Waber

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