Mixed Bag: Inappropriate Editing Client Behavior, Rewilding & A Poem

Writing saves the day

I could not resist. You’ll see why. (Natalia Vetrova on iStock)

So This Happened:

Recently, in the middle of an email referencing a future project, a long-term editing client suddenly crossed the line with inappropriate language that was very unsettling and predatory.

Literally couched between, and I’m paraphrasing, “Hi Chris, I’m working on this project to send you….” and “I’ll be in touch” were several sentences about a perceived relationship that did not, and would never, exist in any way, shape, or form. It was such a bizarre leap it made my head spin. Who presses send on something like that?

I immediately wrote back and cut him off as a client, blocked all forms of communication, and posted in all the Facebook editor groups about this person to warn people, sharing basic details. I didn’t provide a name but said I would confirm if any of them contacted me concerned about a client matching the description.

I did share the email, name, and contact information with friends and family because with the world we live in you can’t be too careful. Although now I only use electronic payment, at one point I had to use an address for this client’s check, which I allowed because we’d worked together so many years. I used an old address where I know the guy living there now and he doesn’t mind holding mail for me.

Unfortunately, (and why am I not shocked) dozens of female editors in the Facebook groups wrote they had had the same experience with their male clients.

I’ve certainly had my share of unwelcome attention but not in my thirty-five years of editing work (until now), which I guess makes me lucky? Ugh.

We are professionals, paid for editorial services only, and we have education, experience, and training. The only “fantasy” about working with an editor is the genre.

I’m not going to rant and rave on behalf of womankind about this. We’ve made strides but it will take a long time. What he did was wrong and I did my part to call it out and take care of myself.

A Poem as Protest

There’s nothing better, in my opinion, than channeling whatever you’re feeling and have experienced into your writing. Making art is always the right choice. I took an old poem on this same topic, drafted after a particularly egregious encounter on the streets of Baltimore and revised it.

A note to always keep your writing drafts! Sometimes it takes years to finish something that wasn’t fully formed at the time you first wrote it. I have an “in progress” folder, which I used to call “fragments.” Call it whatever you like - keep everything!

Here’s the poem. I identify as a female heterosexual, although this kind of thing makes me wish I could live in The Begijnhof in Amsterdam (a lovely, tranquil place—go there if you visit the city) so that’s the perspective. I’ve never been catcalled by or fended off unwelcome advances from a woman so if you’re a man who bristles at this, please keep moving and deal with that on your own, ‘kay?

CATCALL

I want one hour to walk 
without eyes on me like a voice
saying Iwillsuckyoutothebone. 
Because he wants the flesh 
grab. He deserves the feasting. 
To walk outside the gaze with hips, 
hair, mouth, thighs. Mine in salt, 
in heat, in blood. In silence. 
Woman doesn't need man's 
fever. She is her own kindling. 
False desire just tinder her kind 
consumes, blackened air
through which her wild resounds.

Chris Stewart @realwriterchris

There’s a nod to the great Anne Sexton in there if you know her amazing poem.

Thom Frijns on Unsplash

Now Let’s Talk Rewilding

This is something I’d heard of before and has reappeared in multiple places, a sign that I should pay attention to it.

From Wikipedia:

'Rewilding is the process of rebuilding, following major human disturbance, a natural ecosystem by restoring natural processes and the complete or near complete food web at all trophic levels as a self-sustaining and resilient ecosystem with biota* that would have been present had the disturbance not occurred.”

*animal and plant life (my note)

I am going to use this as a metaphor so stay with me.

This is basically what I just did with my poem. The emphasis above is Wiki’s, but it could not be a more apt way to describe the recent “human disturbance” I experienced.

Rewilding is a holistic approach toward the recovery and flourishing of nature, at the heart of which is balance.

Yes.

My (creative) nature. Your (creative) nature. As a human, but let’s focus on as a writer. In my first post I wrote about being so neck deep in “the writing life” that I wasn’t having any fun and I lost sight of who I was as a writer. I’ve been in a liminal space for a few years now trying to figure out what writing is to me and who I am with/without it.

Several months ago (in spring, actually; how appropriate), I started writing poems again because I let go of the “MFA way,” and now I know that this was me rewilding as a writer. Giving myself the soil, air, and water I needed, not what was prescribed to me in grad school and I held on to for decades. Finding my own nature as a writer again.

It's allowed me greater freedom with words and images and structure. To create my own poetic language. To write more intimately. Make greater leaps in thought and emotion.

Start with hiking or walking with an idea and it will move forward. Let it go where it wants to and see what happens. Just being connected to nature—more time spent in green spaces—boosts creativity.

It’s an ongoing process, but now I have a name for it and it’s perfect. It’s what the Writing Adventures are all about.

If rewilding resonates with you, explore it!

Answer these questions:

First, take some time to go sit somewhere out in nature (backyard, nearby park, the woods, a beach, whatever is available to you) and answer these questions. If you can’t go anywhere at this moment, open your windows for some fresh air and play some nature sounds, easily found on YouTube.

Just write quick answers, one word, an image, fragments. Don’t try to make sense or make meaning. Just react. If nothing comes in answer to a question, keep going and maybe return to it later to check in. That said, not every question needs an answer.

• What does “wild” mean to you? What does “rewilding” mean to you?

• If you think of yourself as “wild,” what image or place comes to mind?

• What are your natural processes? In creating, in imagining, in visioning, writing? (I don’t mean research, interviews, outlines. I mean how do ideas come to you? In what form? How do they feel in your body? How do you engage with them, listen to them, shape them? How do they evolve as you work with them? When do you go deep or stay in the shallows?)

• What is your soil, air, water?

• What are your seasonal rhythms, daily rhythms?

• When/where is the flooding, drought, lightning, erosion, the warming, the cooling?

• What needs to be added and/or removed? (Think of where the balance of life is off for you, whether too much or too little—relationship, job, other responsibilities. Think of how you answered the natural processes question. Are you allowing transformation, collaboration with ideas, with the Big C (creativity), or are your forcing things into a mold?)

• What’s missing?

• What animals or plants do you need (these are symbolic and can provide insight—look them up later).

• Who are you without writing?

• Looking at your answers, is there a theme or are there words/images that repeat?

• What one thing can you do now to rewild yourself and your writing?

I’d love to hear what rewilding means to you and anything you discovered that surprised you in the comments!

Chris