Being a friend or relative of a writer is exceedingly difficult. Because we writers are shameless users of people, we view your lives through the narrow slits of our ambition. Not only is all you do and all you are fodder for our wicked profession, but all you don’t do and all you aren’t and never will be is equally at risk for exposure. We writers make things up and we make things believable, a particularly nasty combination for the innocent by-standers in our lives. Driven by larger than life egos, we believe that what we think, and what we imagine we might think, and what we think we might imagine all belongs on the printed page. Yes we put ourselves in your shoes daily, but only so that we might exploit you as material. We struggle mightily to put aside our quivering qualms about using you because we are chasing the high that comes like a shot of pure heroin when a reviewer calls us “fearless”, “honest”, “insightful”.

So what can a person do to shield themselves from the carnivorous pennings of a writer who lives close at hand? I’ve given some thought to this and would like to make several suggestions.

The best and most effective response might be to become a writer yourself. Wreak revenge in the very same way your writer has injured you, through the printed word. Be better, sharper, snappier than your writer. Become the competition.

Not up for the printed page? Gossip can be a powerful tool. Get on the telephone and talk about your writer to all their friends and relatives. Spread half truths about things they’ve written that you haven’t actually read but that you have on good authority from someone else is about you or someone you love.

Remind your writer that you are vigilantly fact checking everything they write. This is an especially pernicious weapon if your writer writes fiction. Saying things like “I didn’t actually say that,” drives fiction writers crazy.

Take offense on behalf of someone who doesn’t bother to take offense for themselves. This strategy works well if your writer has actually named someone, because they will have had to have gotten permission from that person. Be all about protecting that person from your writer. Find other people who will be outraged on behalf of your duped friend. Taking up this kind of cause makes people feel good about themselves, gives them a reason to get together and work up a righteous anger.

Help other people to recognize how your writer has alluded to them personally. Say things like, “How are you holding up after reading that short story?” Or, “You must be a saint to be able to smile after that last column.” Of course, if someone comes up to you and says this, you must smile and say “Oh I’d be silly to take any of that personally.”

If all else fails, and the writer in your life continues to pillage your life in order to attain fame and profit, you must simply stop living it. Do nothing. I mean this in the most literal terms. Be the most uninteresting, unengaged, lump of a person you can be. Granted it will be a sacrifice, but persevere long enough and your writer will either stop using you or stop being read. That’ll really show us.