When you're a freelancer, burning a bridge is like pouring Perrier on your laptop. The droplets trickle into the circuits, washing away every word, every document, every important email. Our professional contacts, we like to believe, are just like our computers: mainlines for financial survival.

But there's a difference. A dead computer can be replaced, sometimes even fixed. A ruined relationship with an editor— someone with the superhuman power to hire and fire, assign and reject—is permanent. Upset too many editors and bid farewell to the freelance life forever. It's our biggest worry—next to paying our rent and health insurance.

Or maybe not, as I've recently discovered. Nearly five years ago, just after I first quit my staff job at Cosmopolitan, I dismantled a bridge of my own. Like most writers who have recently left a staff job, I was getting steady work from my former employer. Of course, pieces like "How to Make Fast Love Last" and "Put More Bliss in Your Kiss" were only stimulating me financially, not intellectually. But I couldn't complain. My stories were always listed on the cover, giving me fantastic writer-girl PR. Other magazine editors saw my name month after month, and, as a result, my phone rang regularly.

Then I did something stupid and greedy. I had plenty of freelance work, but I still took an assignment from a Cosmo editor who had been my nemesis on staff when we were both associate editors. Face to face, we played nice. The reality was, we were fierce frenemies. Back then, several colleagues had warned me that she'd badmouth me to my bosses, telling them that I freelanced during work hours, arrived late, and planned to quit as soon as I could. (Only the last part was true.) She was the kind of person who would do anything, say anything, and make up anything in order to get her promotion.

I'd been self-employed four months when her name—I'll call her Martha—popped up in my email inbox. I took the assignment she offered even though (1) I was leaving the next day for California; (2) I had enough money at the time; (3) I had too many deadlines as it was; and (4) it would be more fun to rebuild my hard drive than to work with her. I always said yes to everything, because I worried that each story would be my last. My life felt too unstable to say no.

Martha wanted me to do a sex story about quickies, which I'd need to write while vacationing in Santa Monica. Every time I opened Microsoft Word instead of going to the beach, I cursed Martha and hoped it was raining on her in New York. I turned in the damned thing on time. Once I arrived back in Jersey City, where I lived then, she promptly gave me a brutal revise. The comments were unrealistically bitchy: "Smooth out your writing," and, "This is an organizational nightmare."

I called a friend, an editor at a different magazine, to vent. She agreed that my quickie story was fine and that Martha was tormenting me. My pal then divulged that Martha had just applied for a job at her magazine. After our phone conversation, I emailed my friend: "You should call Martha, interview her, and make her do a really hard edit test. Lead her on like the bitch she is. Hahaha." I hit send. The message was on its way—not to my buddy's inbox but to Martha's. Realizing the mistake I'd made the second I'd made it, my body heated to at least 102 degrees. I called AOL, begging them to do something. They couldn't. With the armpits of my T-shirt soaked, I changed into a fresh one.

Martha faxed me immediately. She sent a blank piece of paper with the words, "Say hi to your friend for me." I made the difficult call to tell her I was sorry. She said, "Don't worry about it; we've all done something like this." Then she forwarded my childish email to everyone on the Cosmo staff. I never wrote for the magazine again. I sent a short, typed letter directly to Cosmo's editor-in-chief apologizing for my behavior. The EIC wrote back that she hadn't heard anything about the situation, and she wished me the best. After that, I heard that I wasn't even allowed on the eighth floor of the Hearst building.

At the time, I cried, groveled, kicked pigeons. Nothing made me feel better. My sleep was interrupted with visions of Martha laughing at me, beating me with stacks of women's magazines. I was worried about the money I would lose, but worse, I had suicide-bombed my reputation. I looked like an idiot. Fair enough; I had acted like one.

I remember going to lunch with another editor acquaintance a few months later. She had heard the story, even seen the forwarded email. I was an urban legend in certain magazine circles. The embarrassment lingered for years. Each time I'd hear that Martha got a promotion or new job, I'd whack myself around in self-loathing. My confidence suffered even more than my ego did.

But then I started pitching other magazines, because I had to. Cosmo was out for me, but Glamour, Marie Claire, Ladies' Home Journal, Self, and others gave me work. Like pulling a loose tooth with a piece of string and a slammed door handle, maybe my snafu wasn't as painful as it seemed. I slowly built new relationships, babying and overprotecting them. My heart raced every time I sent an email, for fear of screwing something up. To my surprise, I did OK. My work level stayed regular, following the ups and downs of the economy. I started seeing the mistakes— pissing off an entire magazine staff, working with someone I knew to be difficult, taking on more assignments than I needed, sending emails to the wrong person, and creating a joke out of myself—as educational instead of devastating.

Martha's name resurfaced many times. Mostly, former Cosmo acquaintances, even a boss, would contact me after they quit the magazine to talk about what a backstabber she was. I tried not to add to the gossip—I had already done enough—but I took some comfort in their problems with her. Next, she landed a deputy editor job at a women's magazine I depended on for assignments. When I heard the news, I self-hated for only a moment, then I wrote the place off. After all, my blunder was bound to bite me in the wallet from time to time, and I had accepted that fate. Then I received an email from her. She was taking over one of my stories. Respectfully as I could, I declined to work with her under any circumstances. She wrote me four evil emails about my professionalism, all of which I ignored while I finished the piece with another, much friendlier, editor. One month later, I heard she was "let go in restructuring."

Last I heard, Martha is working at a website. While I will never purposely make an enemy in this rat-eat-rat business again, I now understand that it's not the end of my freelance world if something unfortunate happens. This revelation has been a freeing one. Some editors—like any people—are evil, insane, and wrong. Now I don't feel required to kiss so many asses.

Today, I am thankfully careful with my emails. I am also thankful for karma and one-hour computer repair shops. I am most thankful that, after almost five years of freelancing, I still juggle deadlines in a West Village coffee shop. I am my own mainline for financial survival.

Kristen Kemp is a freelance writer living in New York City. You can read her other "Getting It Write" columns in the archives.