"Why did you write My Sister Rosalie?"

Bella, and Rosalie, are trying the best they can to be true to themselves, even though, obviously in Rosalie's case, she has no idea she's being true to what's hurting her and Bella. And also Bella has no idea she is better than she thinks she is. But that's the beauty of this story.

This is a story about hope, even when you don't see it anymore. 

So.

I ... my daughter died. Rose Marie. And it hit the family so hard, even today, more than ten years later. Little Isabel said: "I miss Rose Marie." That hurt. A lot. And I wonder. Can she hope now? Who would she have been as a person? I wonder that. Would she have been happy, or sad, or selfish, or generous? I wonder if she's happy now, and I don't know that, and I'll never know that.

And so I wrote MSR. I don't know about Rose Marie, but maybe Rosalie can find hope, and maybe she can be happy, and maybe that can help, her, a little.

'O' is for 'old-fashioned'

A reader writes to me: "I just want them to admit what's going on. Not just having them seemingly fight 24/7!!"

My response was 'brief' and 'to the point.'

Was that irony? Anyway, my response:


Hm, yes. You may be forgetting the time and the place. Montana was newly incorporated as a State and homosexuality was illegal: you could get hanged for that in some States. This is the Depression, and the 'Roaring 20s,' and its licentiousness, were blamed for the dark years of the 30s.

And shame was a big component of relationships then: holding hands was a big deal, it said you were getting married, and kissing was never seen, in public nor even at home.

Yes, our girls aren't dealing with a lot of stuff, but, on the other hand, they're dealing with a lot more, and a lot more openly, than their contemporaries were.

For Rosalie or Bella to say 'I love you' day three together? In the 1930's? Anachronistic. And why would they, anyway, and how would it work if they did? Would they be accepted in society? Would guilt overwhelm Lizzie?

Or were you looking for easy answers and the happily ever after with birds singing as they frolicked off into the sunset, holding hands?

For them to admit what's going on, they'd have to acknowledge it, and this 'something' never, ever went on, publicly, in the starch, conservative West, ever. And in private it surely didn't either, because they wouldn't admit it to their friends, nor even to themselves. They would just look at each other, afterward, (after what? the admission), and avoid each other as much as possible without causing a scene.

So what can they do?

Nothing. Nothing but fight and be angry with each other and themselves.

MSR is a fairy tale, but it is readable and credible because these are things people are dealing with, even today, and even here.

Or: if Rosalie is the one for Lizzie, and Lizzie is the one for Rosalie, aren't they worth fighting for? Aren't they worth every fiber of their being?

"Why can't we all just get along?" is a hopeless, stupid cry, because we can't all just get along, we're not all exactly the same, we're not all robots following some totalitarian plan, we're, each of us, a person, with our own thought and feelings on how to get by, on what's right and what's wrong, our own petty fears and jealousies, and for some people, saying: "Hey, I love you, I really do," are the scariest words they'll ever say, and it may take more than everything they've got. It may take a miracle for someone to risk it all with that one person with whom they can risk nothing, because if they do risk it, they might lose, and so what's the point?

How do you say 'next!' after Rosalie? Or how does Rosalie say 'next' after her Lizzie?

She can't.

And so we're stuck until somebody rises above herself and their petty differences. Bella did that, a little bit, already when she said 'no, not this game anymore,' ... and then she instantly chickened out. Did you see how she chickened out?

Two steps forward, three steps back, but that's still progress, because at least they're stepping forward, at least they are taking action and doing something different, something new, something nobody else in the world at that time is even trying to do, everybody else is just trying to scrape by or to scalp the scrapers, this is the beginning of the end of individuality in America: the 1930s where the little guy is overwhelmed by market forces and Big Business.

Rosalie and Lizzie are thinking and doing things on their own, and these things are unlike what everybody else in America have submitted themselves to.

MSR. Slow going? At least it's going, and going somewhere: somewhere different, somewhere new. And you can jump, you can take that leap of faith, and find that there are, indeed jagged rocks, three thousand feet down at the bottom of the chasm, or, you can take little tiny baby steps forward, fighting (each other) all the way, and make progress, not fast progress, but it does take forever in the cocoon for a caterpillar to become a butterfly.

Or you can leap, instantly, and get right to that happy ending. There are many, many fanfiction pieces out there that are 'Oh, Bella, Oh, Edward, kiss-kiss-kiss! YAY!'

How many books were Twilight? How many pages were Harry Potter? My story is only 347k words, so far, that's a rather small book, and only three days in the cabin, that's a rather short amount of time to demand that two girls get over themselves AND their societal mores and get on with the show.

MSR can be read in one sitting. I know more than several who have done just that.

But it's not T2: Judgement Day, it's not a bang-up show nor a wham, bam, thank you, ma'am story. It is a fine wine, not to be gulped, enjoyed so much more savored, isn't it so?

Or perhaps I'm just old-fashioned that way.

Rosalie: a study in contrasts

Some thoughts on reading "Secondhand Rose" by giselle-lx

The Cullens are a wonderfully interesting dynamic of seven people so very different from each other that a family is... so easy to look at from the outside and take for granted: 'Oh, they're the Cullens,' but on the inside, it's a lot of work, all the time, and everybody has to play the game or it all just falls apart. Emmett appears to be the most easy-going of the lot, but he also has the toughest job, being Rosalie's punching bag, and all. This story got into the mind of Rosalie, and saw her and Emmett, and her just stopping, disengaging, and looking away, even in the midst of a conversation or love-making or anything.  She has more than just anger: she has wisdom. So easy just to see her as hating Edward, but understanding him for what he is? "He's a boy"? It's hard for me to come to grips with that in myself: it's hard for me to understand people for who they are, as I so often judge them for who they are not. Rosalie actually shows compassion for Edward, and I tipped my metaphorical hat to her.

"Brava, Rose. Brava," I whispered.

Now, me calling Rosalie Lillian Hale 'Rose' ... well, she'd casually rip my face off in her affronted fury. You gave her heart, but you did not make her one ounce less than who she is: hard, broken, angry, imposed upon by the world, and hating it and everything in it with all her might.

Rosalie is the kind of person that gives me hope. I hope I can be such a person: that can be broken, but still carry on, to be angry, but still understanding. To be weak, but okay with the weakness enough that it doesn't incapacitate me. I wish I could be a person strong enough to be Rosalie. I wish the readers of my stories find enough strength in my Rose to be better persons, themselves, as I wish to be a better person, having read Rose doing just that.

MSR's Visitors, June 2013

"... but, of course," I thought to myself, "I have 2.5K visitors from the U.S., then the always faithful Canadians, the UK, and Australia follow, and then ..."

And that's when I caught myself. 'Of course...' I have 2.5K visitors to my site from my country? from any country?

Who else can say that?

And that's when I became grateful.

I'm grateful to all the people who come to my site, read something, then go about their lives, and then, faithfully, return, again and again, and read something else, something more.

And 'of course' I have the bulk of my visitors from the English-speaking world. Of course. But why would I have visitors from anywhere in the world at all?

Let me say that again, and savor it: I have visitors from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia.

I've never been to the U.K. (I shall rectify that). I've never been to Australia ... I've been to 'little Australia,' ... Hawaii, and seen the people, seen how differently they carry themselves from people from the U.S. ... it was a very pleasant shock to me to see people who, outwardly, look so much the same as me and my friends in the military stationed there, but inwardly, are so different that they were like an entirely different race, an entirely different species of people. Before cell phones existed, two young girls approached me and asked me if the pay-phone was working. I held it to my ear, heard the dial tone, and told them everything was fine, they could place their call home.

Australia and the U.S. are so different from each other that we have to ask each other if working phones are working, as we can't even hear each other's dial tones and know what it means.

And I have readers, ... lots of readers, in Australia.

And then, ... the other countries, ... the countries where English isn't even the primary language. Let me reel them off for you (let me reel them off for me).

Germany, the Philippines, France, Egypt, Mexico, India, (now back to English) New Zealand, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Brazil, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Spain, China, Portugal, Denmark, Singapore, Israel, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine*, Switzerland*, Hungary, Czech Revar, Morocco, U.A.E., Malaysia, Indonesia*, Iceland, Comoros*, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela*, Korea, Norway, Colombia*, Hong Kong*, Netherland Antilles*, Argentina*, Guatemala*, Virgin Island, U.S.*, Russian Fed*, Austria*

All those countries! Most of which, more than 90% of which I have never (yet) been to, and, being as that I'm now an old man, past my mid-life, I can fairly say most of which I will never see, unless I change my life and who I am and be a person to go see them.

And the starred countries? Those are the countries that had only one visitor, one time. That means, if you're reading this, and you're from one of those countries, you, and you alone, represented your entire country as a visitor to my site.

You. You from the Ukrain, Switzerland, Indonesia, Comoros, Venezuela, Colombia, Hong Kong, Netherland Antilles, Argentina, Guatemala, the Virgin Islands (U.S.), the Russian Federation (?!? the entire Russian Federation!!!), or Austria ... you are the single person in your whole country that got the name of your country mentioned in this post, so I could honor your country, and you.

Thank you.

And I've missed a ton of single persons from other countries who came, alone, but several times over the course of the month of June 2013, so they were recorded as not one visitor, but multiple visits, so you could've been from Hungary, for example, or Iceland, or Ireland, or Sweden, or Morocco, or from a host of other countries that had 2 or 10 or however many visitors more than one, but you, and you alone, placed your country on the above list of 'Countries who had readers visit my site in June 2013.'

Thank you. Because of you, your entire country has been noticed, mentioned, and honored.

Do you know how important you, and you alone, are just by reading my stories? That you are actually doing something? That you are actually reading (and reading in English at that!) and taking in and thinking and being, but then also representing yourself, of course, but also your whole nation, your entire people? Did you know that?

Thank you, people from here, right in my home town, whom I know and whom I don't, and thank you, people from around the entire globe, those of you whom I know, because you've PMed me or, bravely, reviewed my stories.

Thank you.

I would've never known you otherwise. But I wrote, and you came, and you read.

I hear you as you read my words, and understand them and take them into your heart, or don't understand them and struggle with them.

You know me, in the writing of these words. I know you, in the reading of them. I see you.

And I love you.

geophf

People are people so why should it be ...?

Rosalie and Lizzie. Lizzie and Rosalie.

The archetypical odd couple ... but aren't we all? And I mean 'we all' meaning every single one of us.

Both girls can, and do, so easily hurt each other, and what's worse is that they both want what's the best for the other, and they both see that they are the worst, themselves, and the worse for each other.

Ick. Icky, icky, ick!

The saving grace? Besides nothing, is they are both so pig-headed, and they keep demanding of each other that they don't give up on themselves, and they're stuck all alone in a cabin in the woods, so they have to make things work, because there aren't many other options ... you just can't glower across the room at each other can think mean thoughts. I mean, you can, but that gets silly after about five minutes, and that leaves 23 hours and 55 more minutes to get over it and do something less stupid.

Actually, all of human relations would be a whole lot better, I think, if more people started to realize this. "Hey, I can either be pissed at this (pissy) person, or I can try to make this work instead of glowering or avoiding!"

Hey! Imagine that!

Sometimes I'm okay at doing that, sometimes ... not so much.

My hat's off to both girls, both Lizzie and Rosalie. They are doing everything wrong, and all the time, at that, but Rosalie is a well of (impatient and angry) patience ... each hour she doesn't just outright kill Lizzie is a (not-so-small) victory, it seems, and Lizzie is ... well, if I were in her shoes, I don't think I'd've lasted half a day, but she keeps trying, and failing, and getting beat down for failing (?!?) and keeps trying to pick herself up so she can at least try to fail again. And she does this even though she knows she's in for heaps of trouble, but she just keeps trying.

Would I do that, in her shoes? Would anybody? Day after day, hour after hour with super-angry Rosalie who has some Serious Issues that she's wearing right on her sleeve?

They just keep going at each other and for each other, and when they go with each other ... now, that will be a sight to behold, and perhaps, when they do do that, it won't be major, nor surprising, nor Earth-shattering, ... maybe they'll just do it, and not even realize it, and maybe they will, and maybe they'll be amazed, and maybe they'll be just fine with it, and that's all.

They have worked so, so hard, fighting each other, every step of the way, so maybe when they push together, instead of push against each other, maybe they'll just say 'Oh, so that's how easy it is!'

Maybe. I guess we'll just have to ride with them, on their journey, and see for ourselves ... discover what 'this' will be, right along with them as they discover it, too.

If they don't screw it up first.

Ick.

Amazing (Saving) Grace

So, that happened.

It wouldn't've had to have happened if we were dealing with two young women, two mature adults, resolving their conflicts with quiet grace and dignity.

Isn't that so?

Well, Rosalie isn't a mature adult. She's a poser, TRYing to appear mature and above it all, but she's really operating from hurt and doesn't have a clue how to interact with another being in a reasonable way at all.

And Lizzie, being herself, just going along with everything until she can't stand it any more and then goes too far is not helping the situation.

So there it is.
So now that the two have explained themselves to each other, the world can go on turning because now everything with be rainbows and unicorns and peace, love and ice cream?

Mmm! Ice cream.

The thing is: MSR actually is a reflection on growth, and the two characters here are very good at holding onto what they believe they should be or what they think they are, as opposed to growing up, actually, and facing new situations maturely.

Maybe they will get to that point, but it appears both of them have a lot of growing to do ...

... and there is that whole big white elephant of UST that neither of them are dealing with at all right now, and neither in a mature manner, either, right?

Chapter 73 came because ch 71, where Lizzie was being a strong, brave independent woman lashed out and said what she said. Ch 77 exists because leaving ch 73 lie? what could come out of that other than nothing: Lizzie would be a sub slave and Rosalie would dom boss her around for the rest of the very short story that would devolve into boring tropes already done to death in way too many stories on ffn.

But Lizzie is Lizzie, and she has her own unshakeable core, even if she thinks, 'Whatever! just tell me what to do and I'll do it, I don't want to think for myself, it hurts too much and now I'll cry' and Rosalie is Rosalie and she is actually a royal class-A 'b' ...

Do you see that Rosalie and Edward are exactly alike?

They aren't because Edward NEVER accepted Bella's faults, but Rosalie, in this chapter, does: 'you do have your faults,' Rosalie said to Lizzie, and she smiles at her own statement, realizing this.

Rosalie puts Lizzie on a pedestal, yes, but she knows this, a little bit. Unlike Edward who forced Bella there and refused to listen to her, EVER. Rosalie listens. Once in a while, but she does.

I think, maybe, it's because Rosalie's a girl, she can at least sympathize with Lizzie a little tiny bit, even though they be total opposites, at least Rosalie can hear a girl, as a girl, speak, and give her that room to be a girl, and have her self-doubts (even though Rosalie claims she has none), and talk and talk and talk a thing through, so she can at least try to put her hands around a thing.

Rosalie is Rosalie, but maybe, being a girl and being with a girl, she can give Lizzie the room, the space to be herself, even if that's not what Rosalie wants her to be.

Maybe that's their saving grace? I don't know. I hope so.

Is MSR Platonic?

I field this question occasionally.

"Hey, geophf, love your work [shameless self-plug], but is MSR platonic?"

Hm. Is MSR platonic?

Well, what, actually, is platonic love? Is it a love of mutual admiration entirely lacking in a sexual component? Is that what platonic love is?

Nope.

'Platonic' love, originally, was when Plato, and his students ... effed young boys, so they could keep their minds off the local girls, so they could think about philosophy. "Platonic" love wasn't. It never was. Platonic love was very, very carnal, and homosexual.

It's fascinating how that word, originally meaning something very clear and direct, has come to mean something nearly entirely the opposite: some vague, ambiguous, neutered, watered-down excuse to hide one's true feelings behind 'friendship' because either or both parties are too scared to show what they really feel because they might lose 'this.' 'This' being this frustrating masquerade of 'niceness' and 'sincerity' to cover over true feelings, but 'this' is all we have now, and we can't risk losing that for a real friendship or a real relationship, because I don't want to scare him or her away, because if I do that, then I'll really have nothing, instead of having this ambiguous nothing that I don't really have, anyway.

Hm. So, is MSR platonic? Oh, and by the way, how are your 'friendships' going for ya?

I always love answering that question by saying what platonic is, and then asking it right back to the asker.

MSR brings out a lot of feelings in the readers, particularly feelings of who they are as people. It's really 'interesting' to read reviewers' reactions, because it's always about how they are dealing with their own feelings and thoughts, even if they attack MSR by proxy or transference.

I like those reviews. A lot. "geophf, when are you going to get away from people dealing with their feelings already! I can't deal with mine, so I don't want to deal with other people dealing with theirs."

Great.

My best chapter, savaged by someone bored with all this touchy-feely stuff.

Or, "I'm tired of Bella whining! Rosalie should just off her. I can't deal with people being sick and when people get sick around me, I just want them to die."

Somebody actually wrote that. But that's okay, that's not really them expressing their real feelings. After all, "It's just fan fiction."

Keep believing that. Keep believing that what you say and what you think, even if it's just your thoughts and feelings about fan fiction, have no bearing on who you are and your life. Keep living that disassociated life that objectifies everything around you. Hitler didn't have bad people to do his bidding, no, he had people "just follow orders," so it "wasn't their fault."

"It's just fan fiction, so I can say anything I want about it because it doesn't matter. It's not me, it's just my views about a fictional situation that I would totally repeat because that's how I think."

Yeah. Keep believing that.

That's one type of reader, you know: the kind that lets others do the thinking for them. They typically don't like MSR, because it's "slow" and hard for them to "understand."

On the other hand, I like reading reviews where somebody got something that they could take away something I put into that chapter, my heart, that is, and carried it in their own. Because why? Because they opened their heart, maybe for the first time, looked inside, saw something there that they didn't see before, and, seeing it, left a better person.

Not because something I wrote. I'm simply a catalyst or a cipher. No, it's because they went up to the mirror and truly looked.

I'm glad I was there to see you look into your heart. Thank you for looking.

MSR, ch 69 FBs "Friends with Benefits"

Okay, what happened in this chapter that was supposed to be light and fluffy?

Lizzie said, "I'm not a girl," and whammo! Rosalie had a choice, but either option was a bad one: she could say: 'no, actually, you are a girl" and they'd get into a fight. Or she could say: "You're right, you're not a girl ... when have you ever smiled? or played? or had fun?" leaving Lizzie, drained already, an emotional wreck, nowhere to go but nowhere. 

That's what happened.

Bummer.

Bummer chapter in a bummer story.

Remember my author's end note, oh, ten chapters ago, that it was going to get worse before it got better?

The thing is this was supposed to be a fluffy chapter with Lizzie playing 'ring around the Rosies' and Rosalie smirking at Lizzie's manic behavior, as she ran around Rosalie, throwing buds into the air, warning her not to crash (emotionally, that is).

But Lizzie had to open up her mouth, and out came the words.

But why? Well, of course, 'girl' is a trigger word for her, as she's always questioned her maturity, and more generally, her place in this word. Rootless and friendless (ibid), Lizzie is perfectly set up to fight any and everything, and perfectly set up to trip and fall over every trap laid out in her path.

And to Lizzie, everything is a trap to her. So she can retreat, and get into trouble, or she can fight, and get into trouble.

It happens. Somebody withdraws from the crowd, because they're feeling picked on, so they get picked on because they're the loner so they lash out and get into heaps of trouble.

So, as her friend, as her sister, what do you do? What do you say?

"Whatever"?

"Yeah, you're right, you're not a girl; sorry." When you're not sorry, and you see her lashing out from her hurt?

This chapter should've really been named "Chapter 69: FB -- friends with benefits." Because, truly, Rosalie is a beneficial friend, as opposed to a superficial friend.

Look what she tried to do: she give Lizzie a light, playful wake-up call: "Lizzie, you're saying words that aren't right."

Lizzy ignores this, gets defensive and angry, and over what?

Over the fact that she wants to pretend that she's not a little girl, and that she wants everybody else to pretend that, too. Because the world of pretense is nice and safe. And pointless. But don't think about that. Nobody else does.

That's how things work. And by 'work,' I mean, of course: 'don't work.' Everybody pretends that everybody and everything's hunky-dory when actually people are alone, isolated, and hurting. But 'I'm fine' 'I'm mature' 'I'm competent' 'I'm doing my job' so if we just ignore the hurt in their eyes and in their posture, we'll all just get along until they pull out an automatic weapon and start murdering school children or throw themselves in front of a moving train, being the seventh one to do that this month.

Rosalie doesn't play the 'I'm okay; you're okay' game we all play, as much as Lizzie wants and expects her to, even though she should and does know better by now.

If Lizzie truly is okay, then Rosalie's okay with that, ... happy even.

But if Lizzie's not okay, and says that she is, and wants everybody else to be okay with that, then ...?

Then Rosalie can say 'okay, whatever,' like everybody else does, confirming in Lizzie's mind that she's all alone in this world, and nobody understands her, nor cares.

Or she can grab Lizzie by the collar and shout into her face until Lizzie gets that she can't fuck with Rosalie's mind like she fucks with everybody else's.

Or she can do what she did in this chapter.

One day. One day Lizzie will be happy, and just be happy to be happy, ...

That's what Rosalie is praying for. That's Rosalie's hope, you see.

Because you know how Rosalie knows Lizzie was never a little girl?

Because Rosalie was never a little girl.

Rosalie wants to see Lizzie laugh and dance and play and frolic, because ...

Rosalie never did that.

If Lizzie can do that, if she can drop all the weight of growing up too fast, but never matured into a woman, self-possessed and self-actualized, that is: she knows who she is and she's fine with that ('fine' being actually fine and not 'I'll pretend I'm fine to get by'), ...

Then will Rosalie be able to do that?

That's too much to ask for Rosalie now. But Rosalie will have seen that done for somebody she loves with her empty, cold, black heart. She can't save herself, but if Lizzie is happy, just for one instant, ...

Then Rosalie will be happy. And will treasure that moment of happiness for the rest of her wretched, bleak, solitary, pointless eternity.

Like Rosalie told the girl: she's being selfish. She so wants Lizzie's happiness.

I wish there were more people selfish like this in the world.

Is MSR femslash?

I get this question occasionally from readers.

Is MSR femslash, or gfs? or bffs? or sisterhood?

Well, what is it?

That's what Rosalie would ask you as you read this story, wouldn't she?

That's the question you ask yourself when you look at a girl you're looking at, right? Is she The One? Is she even gay? or curious? will she like me? will I like her?

Do you know the answers to ANY of these questions before hand?

I don't think you do. Or, if you do, you're already judging her. If she has to be The One, then she can't be herself, and you've already doomed the relationship, because she can't be herself if she has to be The One for you, right?

If Lizzie HAS to be femslash with Rosalie, then all this wind-up is pointless, and they should've been in bed at chapter 2 if I was a slow writer and by the second paragraph in the first chapter if I wanted to get right to the goods, right? That's what femslash is, right? Skip the preliminaries and get right to it.

Well, that's what the usual fare of femslash is, but the really, really good pieces actually do let Bella and Rosalie get to know each other, get to cry a bit because college is hard and Bella's dad dies and Rosalie has commitment issues and a bit of a b-tch and maybe a little (too) slvtty because she's compensating for these wounds she carries in her heart that she has to be that way to receive love, even if it's fake or physical. And you learn to love these girls and when they do fall into each other's arms, it's because they love each other, not because it's femslash and that's what they're supposed to do ...

You know the story I'm talking about? Read: Mechanical Difficulties by HopelessRomantic79.

Now, my BxR story is a little different than that. Okay, it's WAY different than that, and different than most of what I've read on this site.

As you have seen.

But do you see where this is going?

Yeah, you do. Maybe. The thing is I have the whole story mapped out: all three books of it, but Lizzie and Rose are surprising me at every chapter. I had written three chapters ahead of this one (ch 66: Schadenfreude), and I had to throw all of that out, all 12k+ words because Rose just broke down and told Lizzie her name. She wasn't supposed to do that. And Lizzie wasn't supposed to take charge like this and start to arrange things. She wasn't suppose to do this until halfway into Book II.

But here they are, and they refuse to let the plot drive them, no: they are two people, two scared people wondering if this can work, and wondering what 'this' even is! One of them has no experience whatsoever in love, never had a bf, never been kissed, and dropped out of school because people are just too weird for her, so she'd rather live at home with her Pa, who is quiet and safe and predictable. The other girl was raped and murdered by five men, so her whole view of love is twisted and filled with hate: totally unromantic. She's given up on love, seeing it as a power-thing, useless to her, and she's given up on herself, seeing herself as hateful and broken: unfixable, unloveable.

Put those two together and what do you get? femslash? friendship? sisterhood?

Well, what you've gotten so far is 66 chapters of MSR with a lot of anger on Rosalie's part and a lot of tears on Lizzie's part. Both of them have a long way to go before they can ... what?

Well, they've started to heal, just a little tiny bit, they've started to hug some, they've started to open up, just a bit to each other, and ...

And, well ... it's a start. A real start. There's false starts because you try something, and whoops! that didn't work, but instead of being cool about it, Lizzie breaks down in tears and Rosalie gets furious, so there's plenty of backsliding.

But are they trying? And what are they trying for?

Rosalie was right: Lizzie is a little chicken-sh-t, and she has no idea what she wants.

But Rosalie? All you have to do is read my side story: Rose by a Lemon Tree to know that any criticism she has of Lizzie is nothing to the problems she's saddled herself with.

Rosalie knows what she wants. Just ask her. Or, actually, she says she knows what she wants, and is very sure and confident in saying exactly what she wants and how she wants it all to work out.

The thing about Rosalie is that what she says she wants, and what she really wants, may be two different things, but her own pride so blinds her to that difference that she doesn't even know nor acknowledge that there exists a difference at all. So she says she wants to keep her distance, that she would rather have Lizzie hate her than draw any closer to her, for, after all: she's a monster, twisted and evil and incapable of love.

She knows this: just ask her.

But then she gives Lizzie her name, and says she never had a sister ... that is, she never had a girl close to her. She never gave anyone else her heart. Not really. Not to Royce. She planned her future with Royce, with their perfect wedding and their perfect family with their perfectly well-behaved children, but she never gave Royce her real heart, her true love, and maybe Royce sensed this, her aloofness, her haughtiness, and maybe he felt threatened by that: his manhood was called into question, because no matter how much of a man he was(not), he was never able fully to possess 'his' Rose, never fully able to own her nor to make her scared of him and grovel like everybody else did, all this employees and sycophant friends.

Who has had Rosalie heart? Not even Vera, her friend. Because Rosalie could feel superior to her. Vera married low and moved on and left Rosalie behind, because Vera followed her heart.

And Rosalie never did.

Rosalie never gave her heart away, and Lizzie was never given the chance to.

So, can Lizzie muster up the courage to say 'I love you, Rosalie Hale'? because for sure Rosalie's not going to say that. Ever. That is: first. Rosalie can't give her heart away now. It's far too painful.

It really, really doesn't look good, does it?

But Lizzie has grown, and Rosalie, even though she won't admit it, has, too.

So, maybe ... maybe.

And that's my answer. It's not definitive, but does live give you a priori definitive answers? If it does, is that living life, or going through the motions in a limited little box of a maze and calling that life? Life is lived in the questions, isn't it? and finding your own answers to the questions you dare to ask. If someone else spoonfeeds you answers, then do those answers have any meaning? or any worth or value? That is, being given to you instead of earned.

You can be handed a person and told: you're sleeping with her tonight. And many, many girls in the world are told just that. But it's up to them to find in the person they choose the things to love, be in that person in their arms right now, or the one they go out, seek, and find. Or the one that comes to find them.

But you have to choose whom to love, and you have to choose why, right? And you have to make it work, every day.

Is MSR femslash? or friendship? or sisterhood?

Maybe.

That's up to Rosalie to let go of her pride and 'what's right' in her eyes, and up to Lizzie to let go of fear and embrace her hope.

Just as it is for you to give up your pride and fear and embrace your hope, and write your own story. That's what Lizzie and Rosalie are (tentatively) doing, and isn't it an exciting, hopeful, just so different read? And for them, living it, so, so scary, so new?

Is your life femslash, friends or sisters? Do you want to keep living the safe ho-hum life everybody else lives? Or throw your heart out there, get hurt, badly, and, maybe, just maybe, let her catch it and cradle your heart, and you, in her arms, as you cradle her?

geophf, writer of that really weird story MSR signing off; I have to get back to writing that next chapter.

Anonymous Reviews

Okay, confession time.

I really, really hate anonymous reviews.

And no, it's not because they are banal, those anonymous reviews I can deal with, but I rarely get banal reviews, as my story My Sister Rosalie (MSR) seems to demand from reviewers that somehow they have to step up their game if they want to dare to leave a review, even anonymously.

That's probably why I'm not 1K+ reviews by now. People are scared to review my story, even anonymously, so I applaud every person who does leave a review. It shows they have moxie and guts.

My kind of person. The kind of person I like to hang with. The kind of person I wish I were at times when I know I'm no such.

No, the primary reason I hate anonymous reviews, is that they ask questions, or implore in a request, or in some other way reach out to me.

And when a person reaches out to me, am I like other fanfiction author(ess)es (primarly), and simply say to myself, 'Huh, that's nice,' and leave that as that?

No, I've responded to every review, every PM, every 'favorite' marking, every 'following' marking. And surprised quite a few people. "geophf, why do you answer me when I've never received an answer from anybody else here?"

Oh, just because you've grown used to slights and rejection, you see that now as the norm? and you now expect that I'll be a callous bastard, too?

Oh, and I can be quite the callous bastard with jerks, vicious, even, just ask around. You give me or my characters any shit, and I'll give it back to you, doubled, and in spades.

But with an anonymous review, I don't get shit. Quite the opposite: I get insights and entreaties ... and. I. can't. answer. them!

So an anonymous reviewer said, 'please, please, please let Bella and Rosalie reconcile; it'd be a perfect birthday present for me!' and I do do that, but in two chapters, not instantly in one, so her next review for the interim chapter is 'WTF! I quit this shit fic!' and the very next chapter, if she had waited, would've given her the reconciliation she wanted, and then, even much more than that, and if she had had a ffn account, I could have explained that this would be coming in two chapters, and please be patient.

So now I've lost a reader, because she implores me to do something, and I do, but not in an instant coffee kind of 'and they magically lived happily ever after, because stupid fanfics provide instant gratification like that' way, but in a 'this is MSR, and you, and the characters have to earn every step forward that they dare to take, and sometimes these steps are hard, and sometimes people stumble, taking them,' slow brewed coffee kind of way.

That's MSR for ya, not all sugary lightness caramel macchiato coffee drink that costs you seven bucks and gives you stomach cancer and brain rot and kidney failure, but a strong triple espresso, that only the strong can drink, and then, in tiny sips, savoring the coffee, even in its bitterness.

Huh. Don't you put a slice of lime in espresso ... or lemon?

Hm.

Or I get another kind of anonymous review that said ffn is all bad fics (yes), a few barely tolerable mediocre fics (yes), a handful of good ones (yes), a couple of greats (and more than a couple), and then there's MSR, that transcends greatness.

Okay. A couple of things. This reviewer felt shy leaving this review because they felt they were too unsophisticated to leave it?

How can I respond to this person and say that I'm not looking for sophistication; I'm looking for honesty, and heartfelt-ness helps, too.

And why do I have to have other people tell me how great, or how not, my writing is? Why do I need these reviews to determine what my self-worth is, to help to look forward, or to dread, writing that next chapter? After three years of silence, one of my readers, a self-proclaimed 'greatest fan,' wrote me a furious PM and asked what the fvck my problem was, and she said she wasn't calling me a liar, but three years, and no update for Book I, and a Book I title implies a Book II so where are the goods, asshat?

Why did it take the devotion of a fan for me to pick up my pen again, after three years of silence, when this story is in me, has been in me, complete from day one, and I knew it was good, and I knew it could touch people's hearts, but did I write? No. Why? Because I'm a little chicken sh-t, and at the end of chapter 55 ("Beautiful") I knew exactly where the story headed, and I couldn't afford the thought of publishing something that scares me, 'cause it gets dark for a whole book length before anything hopeful comes out of it.

But there was Rosalie, and there was Bella, and they decided to move forward with their own development, even without my consent. But they needed me to write and to write and to write for them to tell me, 'no, we're going our way, not your way, Mr. Control Freak.'

But I wouldn't write, not for three years, because I'm a scared little chicken-sh-t Bella.

But Bella is a scared little chicken-sh-t, dumb as a doornail about the world and its ways, but she tries, and cries, and tries again, and gives up, then finds the strength to move forward, even a tiny little step forward, which she immediately takes back, and falls back even further, because her self-worth is such that she doesn't believe that she deserves her advance toward her own happiness.

And the hilarious thing is, her happiness is in the happiness of others, and she takes it away from herself because she thinks she doesn't deserve it, and in doing that, she takes it away from everybody else in her life.

There's a lesson in there for me, I'm sure. And there's a lesson in there for you, too, if you're willing to take it on, and that is: step forward. Put yourself out there, and take that tiny little risk of reaching out, and letting others reach back to you. It'll hurt, a lot, when you get back not a cloak or a loaf of bread, but a spitting snake, but for every snake in the grass, there are one hundred people's lives better because you reached out, and they and their hearts are thanking you. And out of those one hundred, there are one, or two, or five people who dare to reach back, who dare to thank you. 'Tak' 'Danke' 'Merci' sometimes in languages you don't even know existed, but they are thanking you for reaching out and for letting them reach back to you.

You reach out to me in your review or your PM or your follow, but if you leave an anonymous review, I cannot reach back to you to thank you or to reassure you or to commiserate with you. And I am sadder for it. It makes it harder for me 'update soon' with a next chapter, that is hard enough to write in and of itself, when I'm sad that I've lost a reader because I can't reach back to her to tell her, 'not this chapter, but the next chapter, please be patient' or I can't thank a reader from changing my fic, in my mind, to a good BellaRose fic, to something that's transcendent for them, so doesn't that make my story intrinsically transcendent? And I walk around, all day, with this epiphany, and I can't thank you enough, nor even at all, because I can't reach back to do that.

Okay, back to writing. Good night, my sweet princes and princesses.

MSR ch 60: a question of rape

In this chapter, Rosalie was in a pickle. Doing what she 'had' to do, and getting caught in the middle of that and destroying a human person that she's trying to save: Bella.

By raping her?

And Bella, finally, calls this out.

Yes, Bella pulled the r-card, but the parallel was so right there for her: Royce raped Rosalie, and now Rosalie is doing the exact same thing to Bella under nearly the exact same conditions. That's what she saw Rosalie was doing.

And, in fact, Rosalie was doing exactly that. Bella said 'please,' 'no' and 'stop' over and over again, and Rosalie just kept going, ignoring Bella's pleas to stop, just to prove a point.

The next question is ... well, the next chapter, there's that question: 'Why?' and then how does Rosalie answer Bella's question if not through direct experience (as that worked SO well, didn't it) and how does Bella recover, ... or is she recovering already?

I struggle with this. A girl is nearly r-aped, so ... how can she stand to be in the same room with the person, the monster, who that morning lost control and wouldn't listen to her?

Ick. Here we go.

The thing is, this is an issue of fiction, but this is an issue that so confronts us today. You're a teenager, and you're trying to find yourself and your place in the world ... fit in? stand out? And the sexual identity is so tied up with all of that, because who are you sexually?

When you're asking questions, you open yourself up, and in opening yourself up, you play games with it, flirting, discovering, having fun, trying to fit in, or trying to stand apart. And you also open yourself up to the possibility heart break and to getting hurt.

Bella isn't, in this story now, ready to face the questions of her sexually identity, and isn't ready to have them thrust on her right this very moment and given the choice right now, whether she wants to not.

But how many of us had to face the same choices, and give in quietly and not make a scene so you can be cool and fit in, even as your very being pays a price for that? Or to scream and to fight with all your might ... and still have to pay a price for that?

And how do we recover from a scar that nobody can see, but you see in everybody's eyes when they look at you? Rosalie asks herself that question: how do I go on? How do I get a new boyfriend, when he already knows I've been raped?

Bella now has do her own recovery, and do it sharing a one room cabin with the very monster that this morning forced herself on her.

How does she do that?

How do we?

---

An answer: understanding and forgiveness

One of my readers has already answered the above question in her own way. If Bella understands Rosalie in what she was trying, and failed, to do, then, that doesn't make it acceptable, ok, or cancel what Rosalie actually did but it can pave the path to forgiveness. Other thoughts about this chapter (after you've read it, of course)?

The Eternal Marriage of Twilight Vampires

Twilight vampires, once they love, love forever, don't they?

Yes, Rosalie doesn't let go, does she? And she doesn't get over it. That's what Mormonism did, co-opting vampires, which were a Catholic construct. So Catholic, in fact, that a protestant writer could not avoid putting in the transubstantiated Host and crosses (which Protestants, at the time, equated to symbols of Popery), but the Mormon church isn't Catholicism with the concept of Grace, but its significance is that of the Eternal Marriage.

And so, here in Twilight, vampires are Eternally Loving, even though the beloved is gone, they just cannot let go of that love, as it is fundamental to what they are. They love, and they love forever, even after Bella, the beloved, has been dead for centuries, even though Didyme has been dead for thousands of years, Marcus still loves her, eternally.

And one might think: ick. No fun. Nothing to explore here. But for me, as a writer and thinker, this gives so much depth to what could simply be described as Yet Another Teen Angst Story.

And perhaps Twilight is simply, merely, that: YATAS. And perhaps that's why the vampires of interest are teenagers, just so struggling with (and against) who and what they are, unlike alucarD, who is perfectly happy in what he is ... he delights in it, in fact, rejoices in the utter cruelty of his actions.

There's a guy who loves to go to work.

But perhaps we, or I, can learn from the struggles teens have. The uncertainty. The 'not getting over it.' The 'always and forever' weightiness of what goes into decisions and thoughts.

And on the flip side ... to be loved eternally? To be Immortal Beloved? "Ick," says many: "stop being so clingy!"

Or, to have that steadfastness? That rock-steadiness? That security that Rosalie will always love Bella (as in Reminiscence)?

Rosalie's stuck there. Edward's stuck in Twilight. His 'stuckage' turns out 'happily' in that his eternal love can now be directed at an eternal lover.

Just as is the case for Carlisle and Esmé. Isn't Esmé content in Carlisle's love? And isn't Carlisle assured in hers?

Esmé will never have to doubt Carlisle's devotion to her ... or will she? (Okay, so she may have doubts, see "Her Transformation," ch 1) Wouldn't that be a nice thing to have in a marriage?

I say yes. But then the flip side is this story: a vampire makes the choice, commits to the choice, even unwillingly, and there it is, eternally. Even 300 years later. Even Forever. This is one of the consequences of Eternity, and Twilight vampires are Eternal.

Just ask Rosalie: she knows that very well.

"So, you write fan-fiction, huh?"

I have a question.

So, if anything is possible, what's stopping you?

Nothing.

I read. I write. I have had an editor, a dear friend, named LiLa ("Lion in the Land") for about a year. She's been writing, too.

And she's published her first book under the name Nicki Elson called Three Daves, about a girl going to college in the 80s and meeting three guys, each named Dave.

She wrote this story, she shared this story with her friends, and then she published it, and now it's a book.

So, if anything is possible, what is available?

Everything.

For LiLa, what was available that her story is now a book. It was real before, just for herself, then it was real for a select few thousands that read it and the select few hundreds that encouraged her writing, dozens of them at each chapter she published.

And now it's a book, and now it's real for the world.

...

But what does this have to do with the title of this entry?

Jennifer meets Dave, Dave, and Dave in college, and 80s music plays a big role in the story.

Sound familiar? Anybody go to twilighted.net and visit Lion_in_the_Land (note the user id)? Remember the awards and interviews she's had about an AU/AH story she wrote about Bella going off to college in Chicago in the 80s and meeting Jasper and Emmett and Edward?

Or Dave, Dave, and Dave?

Remember all those reviews she got? The ones that said: "OMG! Your writing is so good ..." and all that and "You should write a book!" and all that?

Well, she did.

Now let's look in the mirror for a second, my dear "so, you write fan-fiction, huh?" author(esse)s. Ever got that review or reviews that said, "OMG! Your writing is so good! You should write a book!" But you said: "Oh, I just write fan-fiction; I can't write a book, and who would read it?" and they come right back: "I WOULD!"

"Oh, I just write fan-fiction" as if that's bad? "I can't write a book"

LiLa did. She found a way.

Do you see that trail she blazed for you, me, and everybody? Did she do it for us? Maybe. Maybe not.

But the trail is there now, and it's real.

A fan-fiction authoress that we know and whose stories we've read is now a published authoress.

And to think she almost didn't do it, and just one little song gave her that whatever to put out that first chapter, and her very first reviewer gave her that sense of self that, hey, somebody likes my stuff.

Are you going to publish a book? Maybe. Maybe not. You now can see from LiLa that this possibility does exist for you, even if you've just written one chapter with just one reviewer saying she liked it. Because not so long ago, LiLa was right there.

So let's say you decide to publish. Great! You win. And the lives you touch with your story, now that it's a book?

You win. Big time. And this guy will be standing here with his mouth wide open and his heart fit to bursting, just so happy for you and for your success.

So let's say you decide not to publish now.

You can still win. Because somewhere, there's a LiLa you know whose story you love.

Review it.

Say to her how you love it. What exactly in that chapter makes you laugh so hard you puke or cry so hard you need cleaner for your keyboard? Say this to her. Encourage her.

Because then, she just may publish that next chapter, she just may comment that, hey, your review lifted her spirits, and it may just give her enough to finish the story, and maybe, maybe-maybe-maybe, publish it as a book, so you can hold it in your hands, and know that, wow, she did it. You know somebody who did it and were there with her during the creation of that book, chapter by chapter.

I came along after she finished her story, and she's taken the twilight version off of twilighted and ffn, but my congratulations to her, no: my admiration of her and her work is right here, right now.

LiLa is one of the stars of fan-fiction writers, and her success and the praise she receives is well-deserved. She writes from the heart, and that heart is joyful.

You know your own LiLa, my dear authoress, all you have to do keep encouraging her with your honest reviews.

Or, all you have to do is to look in the mirror, and take that step of pressing that 'add chapter' button, or of mailing off that manuscript to the next publisher.

Roman à Clef

Hey, geophf, that new story of yours, "Her Transformation" ... it seems like filler, marking time, what's its purpose?

Hm, 'purpose' ... stories with a 'purpose' are called 'roman à clef.' ... is my writing like that? Ever?

Maybe it is, if purpose is to ask: 'what is this thing? this existence? and why am I here it in?'

Isn't that the fundamental question we ask ourselves?

Isn't Esmé asking herself this? Isn't Rosalie, as she suffers this agony, asking herself: 'why me?'

What if the answer isn't one that we like? What do we do with that? Give up?

As for this piece filling the time line ... well, yes, it is.

Don't all stories 'fill [some] time'? Like msr?

This story fills three days ... and then one year in eternity. "You Kept Me Waiting" fills thirty years. "Twilight" fills a couple of years. "Sense and Sensibility" fills a year or so. "Antigone" and "Medea" fill a day. "One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich" fills ... well, one day.

The Torah fills three thousand years, plus or minus a few billion. The New Add On (Testament) starring our most famous son ("He Was One Of Us" after all) fills in another three hundred.

And the कामसूत्र (Kamasutra) fills a night. Night after night.

So, what is the purpose of a story? What's its point? Hm. Well, instead of asking: "Is this real? Is this literal? Is this true? What's its point?" as modern Christian Bible scholars do, perhaps ask this: "What does this mean for me?" "What do I take away from this?"

What does it mean to be a new mother? What does it mean to be a newborn, still so hurting from the old life? What does it mean to love unconditionally, even if the beloved is a tough case? How about on the receiving end? What does it mean to be beloved, so strongly you can't stand it, because you're dealing with your own stuff, and you don't want anybody else, who loves you with all her heart (and why? just because) to see you at your weakest, ... that is, when you most need love?

Ever been there? If you never have, do you want to risk that kind of love? Knowing there's going to be hurt, too?

Esmé is her name: (unconditional) love. This is Rosalie's transformation, but this is Esmé's story. Why? Because nobody ever cares about Esmé.

I do. She is a person, with a story to tell: I am giving her that venue.

And the thing of it is: although nobody cares about Esmé, she, herself, cares about, and cares for, well, ... everybody.

One of those people is Rosalie, and, perhaps, one way Esmé showed her care for Rosalie is not abandoning her, even during the most difficult period in Rosalie's existence.

Funny how every part of Rosalie's existence is her most difficult part.

Hm. There's a lesson in that for Rosalie somewhere, I'm sure.

Vampire Peaches

There is a story where Emmett is caught biting peaches. Not to eat them, but to see if they become vampire peaches.

Ha-ha, yuck-yuck-yuck, Emmett so stupid funny! *sigh*

But the thing of it is, Emmett is funny, but he's not stupid. And peaches cannot become vampires (or, put another way, the vampiric nature of peaches is to be stone ... vampires are the walking representation of King Midas, after all: everything they touch dies).

But what about animals.

Hm. You're a vampire, wouldn't you love to have a pet kitty or fido ... forever? Where, if a car hits them, the car gets wrecked, not they?

Sweet! And you can do everything to it that people do to it: you know, go hunting, pat it, experiment on it by injecting it with chemicals, just like pharmaceuticals and cosmetic companies do! And the cool thing is, your pet won't develop cancer and die after you feed it five pounds of saccharine. Bonus!

No down side to having vampire pets at all, right?

Hm.

But here's the thing. When fido is hungry, fido has to wait for you.

A vampire dog wait for you? Why would it? It's thirsty, so it's going on a hunt. Now.

Then it bites a wolf, or a mountain lion, ... because it can, and then, can it kill its victim? No. So now you have a vampire mountain lion on the loose in the woods.

Anybody see 28 Days Later? Anyone? Anyone at all? Bueller?

Hm. And then that happens: a pandemic. And who comes to clean it up?

That's why we have the Volturi, ladies and gentlemen, because some fool vampire's brain goes snap or gets a fool idea into their mind and the little experiment goes right out of their control.

So, vampire pets? or vampire animal experimentation? Bad, bad idea.

And Carlisle's already thought of this. He's probably thought of this at his very first hunt: "Hey, I was turned by being bitten, I wonder if this stag can be turned, too."

Carlisle stayed there and made damn sure that stag's heart was stopped and it was not getting up again, then he buried the shredded remains deeply.

And when Carlisle visited the Volturi centuries ago? And took Aro on a hunt? To show Aro that there are alternatives? That bit of evangelization didn't go so well for Carlisle, but Aro probably saw right away the ramifications, and probably gave Carlisle a little warning lecture, to boot: "Now, Carlisle, I don't care what silly pursuits tickle your fancy, but if this gets out of hand ..."

A vampire animal gets on the loose, and the Volturi come, and they have all the justification they need to wipe out every abstaining vampire in the world.

So, you hate the Cullens and the Denali coven? Make yourself a vampire wolf.

After it turns, and shreds you to bits, and goes on a rampage, the Volturi will exact your revenge.

But don't think the Cullens are not onto this. They read the newspapers, and, as they've shown, they can mobilize a force strong enough to deal with any problem in the world ... including the Volturi. They read about your experimentation, they are coming to have some words with you. Last I checked the Volturi are sending a delegation to the Amazon to have a "chat" with a certain vampire doctor who likes to create half-breeds. You can bet the Cullens may send their own little envoy, too.

And that's the thing. You become a vampire, then you must think of the long-term (and eternal) consequences of every one of your actions, and the things you do locally have a possibly global impact, just as things happening in other parts of the world may have a direct impact on you.

So, do you think that becoming a vampire makes your life easier? That you can indulge whimsy?

Think again.

By becoming a vampire, all your tiny temporal problems are now eternal and far-reaching.

Vampire peaches. Vampire kittens.

Ha-ha. So funny. So cute.

Or not.

Words of Wisdom from Women

My cara spoza reads my blog.

So, she read the last entry, and she told me she enjoyed it.

I asked, "What did you like about it?"

And she told me this story.

But first, let me tell you the story her mother told her.

You see, her mother is a multiple-Palanca award-winner for her writings (It's the Pulitzer in the Philippines), and she told my cara spoza this (in Tagalog) about writing.

Writing is like having a child.

There is the anticipation of it. It's growing within you, as you write, and you can't wait to get it out there. But at the same time you are so scared, ... how will she do in the world? What will other people think of her? How will they treat her? I shouldn't care about what other people think of her ... she is my baby ... but I do. Very much.

And then other people like her, and you are just so proud and so pleased. Or one person says just one little word of criticism, and you just want to kill that person ... until another person savages her. And then you want to die from the despair.

"Oh, she's not loved! ... but I love her! Shouldn't that be enough?"

And as soon as she gets out into the world, stumbling, and then finding her (Bella-)balance and (Bella-)grace, ...

Then she starts doing things you never saw nor expected. Then she creates her own stories, and they take on a life of their own.

Just like Twilight was one little dream that lead to two books (it and Forever Dawn) which lead to four books, when lead to Midnight Sun and now leads to Bree.

So I told you that story to tell you this one.

So, my cara spoza said that: "My mom told me writing is like having your own child."

And I, after I got over the shock of that epiphany, added that writing is an act of creation.

"Yes!" she exclaimed, "you get it!"

But I didn't. It had to be pointed out to me, by my dear wife, who is a woman and an mother. Two things that I am not. Fundamentally not.

And so, for me, reading Breaking Dawn? I know many of you do not relate to that book. There are many things in it that I do not agree with either.

Funny how Book III has a quote from Edna St. Vincent Millay ... and funny how Rosalie and Bella grow so much closer in Breaking Dawn ... just saying (*cough* msr *cough*)

But there are things in there that I can and do learn from it. One is this: 'little nudger.' The intimacy that Bella has with her baby, from that very first morning sickness, when she realized what caused it? And the immediacy with which Bella connected with her fœtus? That is something that I had had a dispassionate, an intellectual, understanding of, even until now, even writing stories about women in the most intimate way from a woman's perspective, credibly.

As has been told to me, I cannot possibly be a man, because I write about a woman's monthly travail with accuracy: neither running from it nor glorifying it nor profaning it.

But this one little thing. This one fundamental thing.

When my cara spoza had our second (living) child, it was a very tough pregnancy, requiring an emergency C-section when it was found the two very serious (mortal) issues in the late-term could not be addressed other than immediate delivery.

Out popped little Isabel. And I saw the little blue-eyed nudger, and thought: oh, that's nice. And handed her off to my dear wife on the operating table, and she cried and exclaimed: "My baby!"

Did I get it then? Maybe. Maybe a little bit.

Can I get it now? Maybe. Maybe not. I can try. I can try, as hard as I can.

But I am not my sisters. I am not my wife. I am not my multiple-Palanca-award-winning Mother-in-law.

I do not have children in the way that they could or did.

And that experience ...

I write. I write stories. I write to make life a joy or to make it tolerable.

To try to understand.

Sometimes, my writing touches you, my dear reader. And for that, I am grateful. And sometimes you share your words of connection or anger or appreciation, and I am grateful for those. Very grateful.

And when you share with me, as my cara spoza did today, I learn a little bit of that ineffable mystery that is life, in something so simple, so fundamental as this: my baby.

Please tell me how my writing affects you. Please tell me where I go right and where I go wrong.

Because msr, and my other writings, are my babies, just as Steph has her own babies in Twilight, et al, and the words you say in comfort are a comfort to me, and the teaching words you say, teach me.

Has msr helped you? At all? Tell me. I'd like to know. And, in telling me, maybe, by forming those words in your review, you'll see something about yourself or about msr that you didn't until you articulated it.

That's what 'sharing' is: you grow in the sharing of it, and I grow in the learning from it, ... from you.

And I will reply to your review, and thank you for it, ...

And, yes, I am thinking about the next chapter of msr ... okay?

The Steph Bug: a new Bree novella

Fear not, this post is spoiler-free.

So, my brother Mike was pleased to inform me that Steph is sending her latest Twilight novella to be available late June.

Mike knows more about Twilight current events than I do.

(One could actually see the waves of pleasure emanating from him as he reported this item of news.)

Upon hearing this news, I was so pleased and so sad.

I was so pleased, because if anybody needs her story told, it is Bree (the newborn spared by the Cullens in the final battle with Victoria in Eclipse, but then ...), and, as Twilight and Midnight Sun has shown, Steph has a way of writing that inspires others to write (case in point: the gajillion twilight fan-fiction stories out there on ffn, etc).

But I was so sad, too. So sad for Steph. Because of this: I've got the writer's bug bad.

When my muse attacks me, she is mercilessly vindictive, she won't let me rest until I write that piece she's screaming in my face to write. I can't not write that piece, because when I don't my life becomes more and more wretched. I've got the Marcus chapter of my story 13ways on hold now for half-a-year. It's been plaguing me every day. I've started in on the third chapter of "Her Transformation." It's more than a week now, but it just hurts, more and more, and, scarily, less and less (I feel the dulling and the numbing of my will) each day my mind turns to it, ... and then turns away.

It hurts me, almost physically, to keep a piece bottled up inside, and the only way to ease that pain is the publish the thing.

Case in point. The next night of msr. Please, don't remind me. I know exactly what happens. I know why. All I have to do is write it down. After I write the day. After I write the ...

sigh

So I'm sad for Steph for this reason.

Ever since she wrote those pages in Eclipse, she's been thinking about Bree, hasn't she? You have ... I know you have. Some of you even went on to write stories about her. So there's Steph, burning with this for years, until now it's published.

Whew! Glad that torture's over with, eh?

But if only it were so easy. MSR. What has it inspired in me? All my other stories. What has it inspired in others? Some of their stories.

What will Bree's story do to Steph, now that it's out there? Has she now been expiated? I hope so, for her sake, but given my experience with writing msr ...

So I'm sad for Steph, because by writing this world of Twilight, she infected me, and others, with this writers' bug. But, as the publication of the Bree novella shows, it appears she's been infected as well.

Poor Steph!

... and poor me! The Bree novella to come out in June? How can I wait all that time?

You: maybe by writing and publishing that next chapter of msr?

Um, thank you for not reminding me.

sigh