Phew! It took me months, and a whole weekend spent doing nothing (save one book promo event down the street) but this including pulling most of my hair out to edit it down to something resembling a manageable length, but sparing a graphic for it and maybe a few more final adjustments, it is finally freaking done. Writing that piece was harder for me in many ways than writing my whole book: it’s just such a broad topic, and it is so, so hard to approach men with it and walk the fine line between accountability and nonproductive blaming. I also went back and forth a thousand times about detailing my own rapes, but it just felt like disclosing them was important (even if it means, as it usually does when I disclose without being a weepy mess, that I’m likely to get at least a few emails telling me I deserved to be assaulted) when it comes to making readers who might feel vulnerable know that I’m vulnerable, too.

We do have substantial male traffic, so I’m hoping it does some good, and to boot, I can at the very least know plenty of female readers will see it and will get to have the rare experience of reading rape prevention materials that are about someone besides rape victims.

(FYI, I had a sidebar in there originally explaining that some couples like and both consent to dominance and submission play and that doesn’t mean we’re talking about rape since that activity is wanted and negotiated, and then gave a little airtime to talking about that it needs to be negotiated like anything else, not assumed, etc. I took it out just because it seemed obvious given the talk about consent before it, but for any peeking over at it who do D/S, can you let me know if you think it really needs be mentioned? Thanks!)

Hell, even if it does no good whatsoever, I am pleased as punch to have that stinker OFF of my to-do list at long last. Know how it is when any given thing just goes on and on, never finished, and how it becomes the most important thing to do in the whole world — even if it really isn’t — just because it’s so hard to finish or get started on anything else with whatever albatross it is putting it’s butt in the way of your brain fully focusing on anything else? That’s what I’m talking about. Now, would that it were the ONLY thing on my to-do, or rather to-finish list like that, but it was certainly the biggest and least pleasant, so that’s something.

Tomorrow — hooray! — I start two days of training and orientation for my new second (third? I have so many jobs, I don’t know which it is) job, which will likely also include a new Hep B vaccination, redoing/updating my very antiquated first aid/CPR and HIPAA schtuff, and, given what it’s like here right now, being very wet and cold coming and going. I also need to not make my workwear my pajamas, which means I must, as ever, face the terrifying laundry piles which I’ve become convinced must somehow be viral. I did give myself a splurge last week as a reward for getting this gig, and grabbed a new kata as well as this awesomely wonderful, toasty sweater (in black) here which just came today, so that at least covers the top of me. It’s the “no jeans” bit that’s going to be a tough order, as that’d be 95% of the pants I own and live in which are not pajamas. I’ll work it out, but the spoiled work-at-homer in me is a wee pissy at the moment, especially since there’s laundry involved.

I also had the first day with my new, fantastic weekly in-house volunteer last week, who got started on a Facebook page for Scarleteen (I can live with Facebook: I cannot and will not have anything to do with myspace) as well as a new call for writers. It’s so nice to have someone to help a little bit sometimes right here in the home office, who I can talk things out with rather than just typing them out, and cooler still, she was a once-upon-a-time Scarleteen user when she was younger, so she gets all of the import of what we do, which is a very happymaking thing.

Oh, and my editor wrote last week to let me know that the book is going into it’s second printing. Yay! But… she only got told after the fact, which means that it’s going into that second printing with the two very irksome art department typos. Boo.

Maybe I’ll name my next pet “Urethea” in honor of those typos, and with the wishful thinking that someday I won’t have to see them anymore save on met vet bills.

filed under Heather Corinna | bookish bits | Scarleteen | apropos of nothing | workworkwork
posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 4:16 pm

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