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- never contemplated insurance fraud. not sure where in story you got that. - i never foisted a book i thought sucked onto editors. i liked all my books and th

- never contemplated insurance fraud. not sure where in story you got that. - i never foisted a book i thought sucked onto editors. i liked all my books and the only one i dont like right now is Supercash. - i never lied to anyone about my career. not sure where you got that. - i never needed to write a book to forestall bankruptcy. i was already well-recovered. please read the story. I dont think you really read the article. but maybe i did paint myself as a "fuck-up".

danhak 16y ago
You explicitly talked about contemplating ways to make your suicide look accidental as to allow your family to collect the insurance benefits. i.e. insurance fraud.
- jaltucher 16y ago
  no , i did not. most insurance policies actually allow for suicide after a year. The real reason for making it look accidental is for effect on daughters. its an insane way to look at it (any discussion of suicide is insane but this was 10 years ago) but thats the way it was.
  - delackner 16y ago
    Normally I would not reply to anything in this whole thread because people are saying a lot of rather harsh things to you. But it may help to know that your perspective on how you wrote the text is clouding how the text actually reads to someone who is not in your own skull. I don't know a single person who actually has a life insurance policy, but movies have taught us (rightly or wrongly) that people who buy life insurance policies and then talk about killing themselves to make it look like an accident, these people are trying to do so specifically because, in movie-plot-reality, and who knows, maybe in some actual contracts, suicide would not be covered. The appropriate response here is to say "gosh I didn't think of that, you're right, people are likely to get the wrong idea since I didn't say WHY I was thinking about making it look like an accident." Simply saying "no no you're wrong, I never said anything like that" is fighting with the reality that what you think about what you say has little bearing on the most natural way that other people are going to perceive what you say.
    - apotheon 16y ago
      . . . and while I do not currently have a life insurance policy, I did at one time -- and the exception for suicide never went away on that policy.
apotheon 16y ago
I got the impression the bit about making it not look like suicide was for purposes of insurance fraud -- and a lot of your other readers probably read it that way, too. If you never foisted a book you thought sucked onto editors, you need to do a better job of not writing about your books as though you thought they all sucked. You gave a number for an advance, then said that if "I" (meaning you) ever told "you" (meaning the reader, presumably) it was more than that, you lied. I did read the story, and your timeline regarding when you were broke and when you were writing books was quite confused. I read the story. Perhaps you didn't read what I said very closely, considering I actually explicitly pointed out that I read it, and found your writing engaging, as well as appreciating what appeared to be brutal honesty about yourself. Sorry if I misunderstood your meaning in several cases. I think there's quite a bit of ambiguity in how you phrased things. If you are not able to see where I could come to the conclusions I did, I suspect that either you are being just a smidgen willfully blind about it, or you are just being an asshole. I reserve judgment, given that I don't know you.

danhak 16y ago

You explicitly talked about contemplating ways to make your suicide look accidental as to allow your family to collect the insurance benefits. i.e. insurance fraud.

jaltucher 16y ago
no , i did not. most insurance policies actually allow for suicide after a year. The real reason for making it look accidental is for effect on daughters. its an insane way to look at it (any discussion of suicide is insane but this was 10 years ago) but thats the way it was.
- delackner 16y ago
  Normally I would not reply to anything in this whole thread because people are saying a lot of rather harsh things to you. But it may help to know that your perspective on how you wrote the text is clouding how the text actually reads to someone who is not in your own skull. I don't know a single person who actually has a life insurance policy, but movies have taught us (rightly or wrongly) that people who buy life insurance policies and then talk about killing themselves to make it look like an accident, these people are trying to do so specifically because, in movie-plot-reality, and who knows, maybe in some actual contracts, suicide would not be covered. The appropriate response here is to say "gosh I didn't think of that, you're right, people are likely to get the wrong idea since I didn't say WHY I was thinking about making it look like an accident." Simply saying "no no you're wrong, I never said anything like that" is fighting with the reality that what you think about what you say has little bearing on the most natural way that other people are going to perceive what you say.
  - apotheon 16y ago
    . . . and while I do not currently have a life insurance policy, I did at one time -- and the exception for suicide never went away on that policy.

apotheon 16y ago

I got the impression the bit about making it not look like suicide was for purposes of insurance fraud -- and a lot of your other readers probably read it that way, too. If you never foisted a book you thought sucked onto editors, you need to do a better job of not writing about your books as though you thought they all sucked. You gave a number for an advance, then said that if "I" (meaning you) ever told "you" (meaning the reader, presumably) it was more than that, you lied. I did read the story, and your timeline regarding when you were broke and when you were writing books was quite confused. I read the story. Perhaps you didn't read what I said very closely, considering I actually explicitly pointed out that I read it, and found your writing engaging, as well as appreciating what appeared to be brutal honesty about yourself. Sorry if I misunderstood your meaning in several cases. I think there's quite a bit of ambiguity in how you phrased things. If you are not able to see where I could come to the conclusions I did, I suspect that either you are being just a smidgen willfully blind about it, or you are just being an asshole. I reserve judgment, given that I don't know you.