In my poetry, when writing about obvious or obscure life experiences, I am honest, though. But that suggestion was just for story writers, I suppose. Now, you have to be careful about this. You have to have an eye for who wouldn't mind being talked to, and who would mind. But hey, you never know.
People live fascinating lives and have interesting ideas about things.
You can always submit later drafts. The place to send it is the US copyright office, which is part of the Library of Congress. It last for five years, at which point you can resubmit. The last time I sent them something, it took 6 months for the certificate to come back, but it was back-dated to the time that they received it. If you send your manuscript by certified mail, you'll know what that date is going to be.