he dirty little secret about being a writer is that so many of your best lines are not your own. Oh, maybe you tweaked those lines, maybe you slapped some flair on them, but really. Be honest. You stole that line at a bar, you stole that line from a coffeeshop, you stole that line from a subway conversation. And if you are me, and you are lucky enough to know the brilliant people that I know, then often, you stole that line from a friend. I carry a notebook with me at all times -- and when I don’t, the back of a credit card receipt will do fine, thanks -- and when someone says something I enjoy, that inspires me, I am prone to write that sucker down. "You don't mind if I use that, do you?" I ask, and 9 out of 10 times the person will say it's fine. They are flattered, in fact. And in a way, this is grossly unfair. My friends -- Julie and Aaron and Lisa and Rose and Stephanie and Bryan and a hundred others I can't even name here -- practically deserve co-credit sometimes, because they are the people who sit with me, turning a story around over a long phone call or a beer binge or a quiche at brunch, and then the story comes out, and everyone tells me I'm so fabulous, but really? Really? It takes a village. If I sat here in my apartment, "writing what I know," as they tell you to do, it would be a sad stream of stories about a marmelade tabby and his ongoing campaign to receive wet food earlier in the morning.

My latest story at Salon, "Reality TV Shows We Would Like To See", is the perfect example of this quiet collaboration. It began, in essence, during a long car ride to the Salon office retreat in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. My colleague Page's boyfriend Kevin kept spinning off these ideas for reality shows -- some great, some terrible, each acknowledged as such -- and it suddenly occurred to me that this was a story that needed to be written. I dug out the notepad and started scribbling. For the next two weeks, I brought up the conceit at parties, and I stole every good idea given to me. Now, in all fairness, the resulting story is probably 80 percent mine. But that 20 percent? Well, that belongs to Kevin and Page and every other person who indulged my dumb-ass bar game: Let's make up a reality show!

Now, there is a shadow side to this. When a story goes wrong -- and I don't think this one did -- I'm the one who gets pilloried for being a ripe idiot. So to all of you generous enough to help me over the years: I thank you, I thank you forever, and while I am lucky enough to get the praise, I hope you know I will always, always take the hits, too.