Dear Sir or Ma’am who has “flagged” me due to my search history:
Please allow me a moment to explain myself before you jump to any crazy conclusions. I don’t need a lawyer, as this is not a “confession”. Well, it is, but not in the “I’m guilty or murder” kind of way, but in the “clearly there’s a story behind this” kind of way.
I’m a writer, and sometimes I have to research some pretty off the wall topics. With “The Google” right at my fingertips, why would I wander to the library to find answers to all my strange questions, like how to embalm a body to look plastic? Maybe it’s a generation thing, but having someone physically looking at me while I’m looking at positions of dead bodies is a lot more unnerving than having an invisible, behind-the-scenes person watch me scroll through felonies and their jail times.
That one time I googled “demonology” and “occult manuals for summoning a demon” was really just figuring out what nifty book title to use in my short story. Going for authenticity, and all that. I promise that’s all. I don’t even own a Ouija board.
“Best way to cut off a head” is the same situation. Living dead story. For realsies, I have no intent in beheading anyone any time soon – unless you’re planning to release a zombie virus sometime in the near future. Then all bets are off.
All those random searches for blades, knives, and other assorted pointy objects? Simply research for said zombie book. I just needed to know what could, or couldn’t, be found in shops along the highway.
Kindly ignore the “can a human unhinge their jaw enough to swallow a dog?” search. Turns out that’s a big negative, and I’m not some Human-Centipede-Scientist looking for a way to work that out. I promise. The most anatomy I know is, “The head bone’s connected to the…neck bone.”
And about all the cannibalism searches, you know, the “what’s the meatiest part of a human” and “how much nutritional value is in a human brain”—those aren’t me either. I’m vegetarian! But if some people in some story get stuck in some place with no food, maybe someone in that group brings up this kind of thing. Honestly, there haven’t been any more cannibal searches in a long while.
Last on the agenda, when I was looking up all those searches about how to capture and train a ninja squirrel army…it was for a story. I swear. Uh…I haven’t written it yet, but I totally plan on it.
And for the record, no, I have never mixed blood in with my paint to make the perfect shade of red. I do not add human remains in my fertilizer mix to make my berries sweeter. I am not some kind of patient zero (that I know of). And I most definitely have not trained any tortoises to eat humans…though I do have a tortoise, and with the way she looks at me, I’m not ruling anything out.
My apologies for any alarms I set off. Please continue your surveillance on true terrorists and sociopaths.
Sincerely,
Every Writer Ever
