Extra Bits Vol.2
Every piece I write gets edited by me about a million times before my draft. I find it easier to overwrite as opposed to filling in later. Anyway, this is what got left on the cutting room floor this time around.
Heads up, this one chats about sexual assault and suicide.
The Published Piece (Click the photo to read):
The bits that got cut:
….making my friends laugh so hard driving down Ryan Road in Michigan…
….some were said to me by my first repeat rapist as he apologized and said my name followed by “Remember, don’t tell”, and some were things I’d told myself as I stepped in front of a mirror, said my name, and forced myself to believe that I deserved it all.
Why I cut them:
In this case, things weren’t cut but they were changed. They were all changes I was fine with and understood.
So, you’ll notice in the first part the identifier of where I lived was removed and in the second it was changed from the word “rapist” to just mentioning that I was assaulted.
This was all because their legal crew realized that in this piece I talk about people besides myself, like my parents, and they wanted to make sure they were cool being associated with this piece (that mentions suicide, rape, outing, etc). Also, because I don’t identify my assaulter in the piece BUT I do mention that it happened when I was a minor.
I never really had such a long talk with a law department of a publication before, but I get it, they needed to cover their bums. So we landed on making those changes, removing those identifiers, and having proof that I’d talked about my assaults, suicides, and queerness in other publications. Which I have. I’ve written about my queerness all over the place, my suicide attempts once or twice, and one of my major assaults (that resulted in an abortion) only once.
I felt like this was a good lesson for learning what I’ll be dealing with when it comes to my book edits. I never planned on mentioning names and things in any of my work (I don’t, only my own, I NEVER refer to anyone by name and honestly, rarely write about others but myself), but it’s dope to keep that in the front of my mind as I tell the story of my some of my life.
It’s so wild that we can’t tell many of our own stories without mentioning other folks, like, thats so interesting to me.
Anyway, I love learning little lessons like this for the future and I’m glad the changes were made cos this is one of my favorite pieces I’ve written so far.