I Feel Cleaner

Seems I'm on a cleansing kick lately, and it's expressing itself in various ways. I'm cleaning off my plate in 2008 (hey, that rhymes!) because I've been under the weather and I need to rest. Can't say I'm surprised because 2007 was a busy time for me. I got jacked. Threatened. Rejected. Accepted. Befriended. Rescinded. But it all made for good practice.

My latest editor emailed me with a wonderful compliment, and it reminded me of my need to be cleaner in every aspect. ". . . I also wanted to say I'm looking forward to working with you, especially since you had one of the cleanest mss. I've ever read."

I won't lie. My first inclination was . . . suspicion. After I left my first ebook home and went shopping for places to rent, I was chastised for all manner of bad form. In fact, in 2007 alone, I've experienced all these:

- My first editor took away my semicolons and en-dashes
- My second editor took away my ellipses
- My third editor took away my overuse of feel/felt (and my ability to trust)
- My fourth editor took away my goodwill
- My fifth editor took away my habit (or is attempting to, ahem) of beginning sentences with words ending with -ing
- A publisher that rejected me warned against my over-reliance on a body part to describe changes in emotion
- A reviewer took away my need to use euphemisms for sex-type-things

I took away from these experiences a willingness to learn, grow, and a determination to stop making up words when I feel it appropriate. (Note to Aliyah: No more lasering for you. Sorry, babe. I know. You love pistoning genitalia. Me, too. But I'm not allowed to do it anymore. No. Not ever.)

I notice that writers very rarely talk about this sort of thing. We're generally more than happy to share our good news, though, and forget that rejection ever happens. One of my writer friends even told me that I'm "weird" in that way because rejection is embarrassing. I shrugged. "For you maybe. But if we were all perfect every time, why the hell would we need editors? Shit, if I could slam out the perfect, destined-to-be-a-bestseller-story, I'd self-publish and cut out the middle man. Do you really think I'd waste my time submitting if I had the ability to craft the perfect were-shapeshifter-m/f/m-BDSM-urban-paranormal-erotica novel/with-an HEA?"

I think not. No sir.

More about cleansing: I've sold three manuscripts in past six weeks, but none are erotic romance. A very smart woman told me to write what I love, and when I began to do that, everything began to fall into place. I'm less anxious--also less angry--and finally able to keep to a set writing schedule. I've one last erotic romance floating around out there, and I only submitted it after an editor's request. No matter what the publisher decides about its future, I know I'm done with that for awhile.

The same writer who told me rejection is embarrassing also inferred that my stories worked better in the living room than the bedroom. More of a mindfuck than a, uhm, fuck. I'm finally willing to admit that she's right. And that's where my embarrassment finally displays itself. I'd struggled so long and so hard against my own nature and received little satisfaction in return. I won't do that anymore. A mindfuck indeed. And I'd been doing it to myself the whole time.

The End of An Error

The above is what I said to my friend when she told me she was getting married. It was a slip of the tongue for sure, but we both thought it was hysterically funny. But after we stopped laughing, we cried a bit, realizing that we needed endings in order to foster new beginnings.

I've known my friend Jen for seven years. I picked her, as is my way, because disaster usually strikes those who choose me. We worked in a cube-like environment, passing each other as I clocked out and she clocked in. She wore black every day. Every. Single. Day. Except for her whimsical pink handbags that might have been at home in a Barbie Dream House. I picked her to talk to because she looked exactly like the type of person I shouldn't like. In addition to her black gear, there was also her shaved head, pale skin and southern accent. She was also sullen and withdrawn.

But she was also bright--painfully so. She knew everything about everything, and during the odd moments she'd open up to impart her knowledge, something magical took flight around those dingy cubicles. A Jill of All Trades, but Mistress of None, I set about picking her noggin, because while I'm not great at other aspects of living, I fervently exercise my right to know.

So, we flirted in a completely girly, heterosexual manner after working overtime one evening. We auditioned for our roles as new best friends at a bar. After she admitted she'd married her gay husband to help him attain citizenship (yep, that still works!) and told me one of her great-aunts looks like Robert Guillame sans pigment, it was sooo on. I had nothing as worthy to contribute, but she did seem enamored by the trivial bits of news I'd picked up from reading a dozen or so free papers that day.

She passed me books between shift changes. They had titles like Cunt, Slut and Apocalypse Culture. I let her borrow movies like The Last Kiss Goodnight, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Sleeping With the Enemy. Four months later, after she no longer needed to live with her husband, she moved into the empty bedroom in my house.

The first thing I noticed upon cohabitation is that we handled stress differently. She'd become completely still, stop eating and go to sleep at every opportunity. I tend to get loud, eat anything not nailed down, and not sleep at all. I frightened her. She frightened me more.

But there was something....

Sometimes we'd sit for hours and discuss feelings that ranged from anger to apathy. We talked about everything and nothingness. I got her hooked on One Life to Live and Psych. She led me into the world of House and Two Guys and A Girl. During repeats of OZ and episodes of Law and Order: SVU, I listened patiently as she extolled the virtues of Christopher Meloni's neck. She politely humored my rants about my loving hatred of Peter Krause on Six Feet Under. We were magic.

And then, she moved away.

I loved her. I hated her. How could she do this? I'd made the choice, damn it, and this is how I was repaid? We trusted each other with some of our most hostile, vile thoughts...and distrusted each other because of those same thoughts. We were antagonists and were perfect together in that we were both too lazy to do anything to get the jousting started.

She said she'd never marry for love. But on my birthday, I learned that she would marry--and soon. She no longer wished to fight love anymore because knowing me had shown her how important it is!

Me? The woman who taught her how to hug (forcing them on her as I screamed "Black love!"), invading her cold, unwilling space until she finally gave in and now is the best hugger ever? Me, the one who started a row in the kitchen, one so startling that we both burst into tears? That fight sent her into her room, for she was ready to pack. But me, being me, explained that we could hate each other today and it would be all right tomorrow. Honest. If you agree to like me tomorrow morning, I agree to like you right on back. Though I doubt she believed me at first, she agreed. We lived to get pissed another day. And it was...nice.

That's when I realized this person who seemed so alien to me, someone I'd chosen because we weren't supposed to have anything in common, was my sister. Sisters, other mothers, that kinda shit. We began to hate each other openly and earnestly, then, because love--even platonic, sisterly love--hadn't been on the agenda for either of us.

So when she moved away, I thought we'd finally both escaped. We cried and hugged and snotted curbside until she climbed into her friend's SUV and said farewell. I thought I was free. Neither of us is known for the ability to keep in touch.

But Jen does keep in touch. She calls and emails and sends me weird videos. She dealt with two housemates that make my frequent bursts of insanity seem sweet. She got healthier, and stronger, and learned to love herself. And now she's in love with a nice man. I've chatted with him, and loved his laugh--deep from his gut, just like mine. He's smart. He's short. He's loud. Her words. But he makes her happy.

And since I'm not a kid anymore, and can find no rational reason not to be, I'm happy, too. Seems we're both in similar places. Neither of us is trying to outrun our demons anymore. We've both slowed down quite a bit.

Anyway, she swears nothing will change. That's bullshit. Everything will change, and it should. It's been a year, and I'm still not over looking to my right and her not being there (imagine two people sitting in a room for 12 hours and not speaking because both are on their laptops--sending IMs or emails...) She says the same thing about me all the time. Growing up is hard, and we resisted it as long as we could. I'm proud of her progress and she's proud of mine. And now that we both understand that we're lifers in this strange sibling-like relationship we've created, I think we both finally are free. And we each take baby steps to normalcy because of it.