Technicalities

Just over five years ago, I sat on my porch waiting for the phone to ring.  I expected the nurse to tell me I wasn't pregnant.  What she said instead was that I was "technically pregnant"; I'd been around the block long enough to know a beta that low wasn't going anywhere.  Indeed, I didn't make it past six weeks.

I received an odd email from an editor on Monday.  Two sentences telling me I'd done a lot of work and she wanted to talk to me.  She didn't say she wanted to publish the book.  She didn't say she was rejecting it.  Indeed, a friend of mine agreed the tone was weird, and she didn't know how to read it.

She finally called me today, and I ended up in a state that can only be described as psychological whiplash.  She repeated to tell me I'd done a lot of work--yes, indeed--and launched into a laundry list of problems with the manuscript, burying in there something like "I'm not saying we won't publish it if you won't make these changes but..."  At some point I said I wasn't going to do anymore work without a contract.  I've done a lot on this book already, as requested. 

Like that beta a long time ago, I expected to be pregnant or not, not some hazy space in between.

I told her that it's not supposed to be like this; being told your book is going to be published should be exciting, and it's just not.  She told me she'd said only positive things...but every interchange I've had with her as been distant and somewhat negative, like she just doesn't get what I'm doing.  I hung up the phone crying.

And then she called back and left me a message that gave me the good news that she really should have started with:  I've done good work and they're delighted to publish it

Still, feels like a rocky pregnancy, not a guarantee of a live birth.