Self-Absorbed Updates

Okay, so I thought I'd let you know how I'm doing, Bertha. I'm not yet important or interesting enough for it to matter to anyone how I'm doing, but it's like purging all the goo from inside me and besides I think I'm supposed to do this, okay?

So sent off Sexy Little Numbers submission to BL. Semi-happy about it. Very gender switch, though, and still can't seem to get it as dirty as I think might be wanted. I just think I find it hard to get it really dirty in such a short amount of time. It's like cramming a million cocks into a lunchbox. I like build-up too much, so that the million cocks have time to breathe and frolic and get themselves into a right old state.

Anyhoo, also sent off a submission to Xcite books. Everything fine. Send the email to hubby to check it looks okay. Everything good. Sorted. Send it to them and it still comes out wrong! Big giant spaces between each paragraph! Am internet div, will be blacklisted from publishing industry for huge spaces. V. bad. Black mood. Etc.

Also massive panic has descended about Misbehaviour submission, as per usual. I always like it when I send it off, and then as it gets closer and closer to the time when I might hear about it, panic stings me like a thousand tiny bees, inside my clothes. Am rubbish. Am buffoon. I know it wasn't good enough. I should be buffeted by four (FOUR!) acceptances, but am not.

Bees, bees, bees.

In further news, have now completed four stories for my own anthology, and almost completed a further three. Another two are half done in long hand. I am reasonably happy about this progress, but since I want to submit for The Affair (half done) and possibly to Scarlet magazine by Feb. 11th, have got to get my finger out. Am aiming for 4000-6000 words a day on the days when I'm not full-time working, and sometimes meet it. Mostly it's more like 3000, though.

Does this all sound like a complaint? It isn't. Oh mah gaw I'm loving it. Even the massive spaces in emails. THIS is LIVING!

Even if it's kind of...not. I'm living in a dream world, yeah!

My Book!

Okay, so thanks to a certain fabulous personage, I discovered that my book is up on Amazon, which probably means I can talk about it without fear of it all floating away.

So yeah. Black Lace offered me a contract (is that how you should put it it? I am so not up on bizness lingo) for my own collection of short stories, and so I will shortly be a bonafide published author, if all goes to plan.

Of course I still dream that I just imagined it all and then I wake up and its real. I still wonder how on earth I dared send off my first story after sixteen years of writing and writing and loving writing but never daring to submit. I still can't believe that Adam Nevill not only took the first story I ever submitted, but seems mad enough to believe that other stories of mine are good too, and that I deserve my own collection.

I don't know whether to keep thanking him until I die of thanking, or be concerned for his mental health. Or my own mental health. Maybe I'm actually in a loony bin imagining all of this, crayoning on the backs of cereal boxes and calling them my published works, and emailing my imaginary editor on an old broken phone strapped to a television.

But either way, I'm too excited to wee. I've been storing up wee since May.

Anyways, here is the Amazon link, Bertha. It's meant to be called The Things That Make Me Give In (minor typo being rectified. No, this is not a subtitle):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-That-Makes-Me-Give/dp/035234542X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1232636907&sr=1-2

Let's revel in it, Bertha. Let's memorise it. Let's print it out and frame it along with the first ever cheque I got for published work, my first contract for a short story, the envelope the stuff came in, Adam's first email to me, the clothes I was wearing when I first got something accepted (a nightie. I came downstairs bleary eyed and alone in the house, only to find that I was now Charlotte Stein, Author, with no-one to tell. My friend called me back first - the Mighty Sef - and made me explode by saying "Is that Charlotte Stein, writer?"), a sample of the air I was breathing at the time, a napkin from the celebratory meal...

I have a lot of framed things in my house.

So anyhoo, I know I don't get to choose a cover- and wouldn't have it any other way. I'd probably have this:


But oh, I can dream of either a ladee with an expression very much like this one on the lovely Sally Hawkins' mug:

Or Matthew Macfadyen without any clothes on. Can't I?

Does Anyone Remember....

Okay, so I know that barely anyone will read this but I've searched and searched...

There's a Black Lace book- a historical. In it, there's a scene where some young Lord of the Manor type has it away with two maids in a barn, I think. The heroine is spying on him, I believe, as he gives it to them good and proper.

Anyone have any idea which one it is? Plz help! Charlotte must have nostalgia pr0nz!

I Killed

Had a great writing night last night. I killed. I got those stories and I made them my bitches. At first they were all like: but mooooooom, I don't waaannnnnaaa. They whined like the little bitches they were. But I showed those stories who was boss. I whipped them and when they cried, I whipped them some more.

And then I tried to go to sleep at 9am, and they wreaked their unholy vengeance on me. Oh-ho-ho, they said. You thought you were gonna get away with riling us all up like that! You thought you could just walk away and leave us now that we're all bum fucked and whip marked and left tied up with a huge boner.

Well see how you like this, Charlotte Stein: BAM! Seven pages of a new story I had hiding under my left testicle that has to be written now or YOU WILL DIE. Take that, beyotch. Write that story. NOW who's the boss, huh? NOW who?

That's what I thought.



Dear God, how I love almost being a writer!

Alison Tyler Is Orsu- Great.

I really like Alison Tyler’s blog. This is of absolutely no consequence to anyone, but I do. Mainly because it holds no secrets. Or barely any secrets. I remember there was a big brou-ha-ha a while back in Romancelandia, about whether writers can be too honest and say too many things (usually dirty), and Justine Elyot’s blog the other day made me think about this, too. I guess just about how much information is too much.

When really I think it should be- how much information do I want to share, and stuff the lot of you. I mean, I’d never go round to people’s blogs and comment on how little someone shared. That would just be outrageous! So why is it okay for people to tell other people to say less? Or even suggest it?

Alison Tyler’s blog is brilliant because she says so much (while still being discreet) about the world of publishing and erotica, worlds that are often closed and secretive and full of Masonic handshakes- or at least seem to be, sometimes. So it’s a great place to go and read fun reports and things that happened and blunders that people could possibly make and always seem to, all over poor Ms Tyler.

Though I’m sure I’m about to make many of these blunders, and haven’t learnt my lesson at all. Mostly I think I just come across like a jackass. I’m probably coming across like a jackass right now, commenting on a likely still touchy subject that people will hold grudges over for the next ten million years, and saying things about Alison Tyler, and raving like a lunatic on important people's blogs. But I can’t help it! I was always too afraid before to say stuff, and comment on my fave author’s blogs, but now that I’m pretending to be one of them, surely it’s okay to rave like a lunatic?

I feel if you don’t take this opportunity to say oh hai I leik you, when will you ever say it?

You’ve got to seize the day.
You’ve got to live the dream. Of being a jackass.

Or maybe not.

Random Obsession Of The Week

You know what happened to me, the other day? Right out of the blue? Michael Sheen punched me in the face!

Oh, I jest, I jest. Or it’s more like: I exaggerate, for silly effect.

Really I was just casually watching telly, when the trailer for that almighty pile of McCrap, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, came on. And for some unaccountable reason, a wild excitement rose in me. It was the kind of excitement that my body usually reserves for something with Scott Cohen in it (yeah, like I’ve felt that in the last thousand years. The next time he’ll be in anything that gets released, the End of Days will be heralded by it), so I was somewhat taken aback.

But not taken aback enough to fail to realise that I fancy Michael Sheen.

I mean, I’ve fancied him casually before. I’ve admired him in things. I thought he made a great Kenneth Williams. But this tremendous excitement- where did that come from? And at first I didn’t even realise why I was excited. I had to think about it for a while.

And then it struck me: I’m excited because Michael Sheen, who has played Tony Blair and is often called the best British actor of his generation, is in a film about warring vampires and werewolves, starring Rhona Mitra and directed by that guy who did the effects for Battlefield Earth.

I suppose this should sadden me. But instead I’m just thrilled by Michael Sheen, that he should have no ego and debase himself in such monstrous cheese. And am also thrilled by his wearing of a lot of skin tight leather in the film, as though the film-makers realised that a million little girls right fancied that Lucian character, and decided that he should replace Kate Beckinsale as the eye candy.

They’ve so far pretended that Rhona Mitra is the eye candy. But I think they’re starting to realise what audience they’re actually going to get. A gaggle of drooling women, wanting to see a werewolf blub and get vengeance for his barbecued girlfriend (OMG! SPOILERZ!). While wearing leather.

Because really, that storyline is the only reason the original film has endured. Seven thousand fanfics and novels, based on one line from a mediocre movie: he killed his own daughter, just for loving me.

I wouldn’t mind being killed, for loving Michael Sheen. Repeatedly, all over him, daily and nightly and ever so rightly. In fact in general I think I like the whole vampire/werewolf forbidden love thing, and should like to immediatly write something awful and made of brie with many scenes in barns where my warrior Mary-Sue doth heal his whipped back, and verily we do bonk in forbidden towers, and I do weep at his mistreatment and free all the slaves singlehandedly and then am put to death but our love crosses mature cheddar oceans of time, etc.

It will make me a million pounds, I tells ya!


******************************************************

And now I shall test something:



ETA: YES! It worked! Now if only I could figure out how to put it anywhere but in a post!

Yes yes. Am aware. Am internet peabrain. In days of yore I would have been one of them peasants who held aloft the wheel and proclaimed it magic from the Debil. It's a miracle I can continue talking to you, Bertha, without calling for a witch to be burnt for stealing my sacred words and showing them in the magical box.

Beta Men

I am unfashionable. Out of vogue. I’m not in step with current trends, I’m dated, I’m passé, I’m outmoded.

I like beta men.

Look at that- beta men are so unfashionable there isn’t even a proper term for them. There go the alpha males, strutting around with their manly title, being all alpha. While the poor betas are stuck being rubbish and unloved and without a classification.

Though I hear it’s always been this way. Don’t alpha male lions kick sand in the faces of the betas, and steal their lunch money?

Though somehow I doubt anyone is going to steal Clark Kent’s lunch money. You know why? No? Come over here and I’ll whisper. Closer. Closer. Now hunch down. Yeah.

He’s really Superman.

Never would have thought it, would you? Because everyone knows that men who aren’t alpha males are sissies. Romance Land says so. Some authors even go so far as to label men who don’t drag them back to their lairs by their hair as pale limp weirdoes, as though any man who is the least bit non-aggressive is actually a cave dwelling mole creature.

But I know differently, because I like beta men.

I don’t mean submissive men. I don’t mean men who like to be beaten up by a dominatrix named Mistress DarkPain. I mean men who aren’t afraid to let themselves be anything other than an ultra aggressive brooding hulk.

For example, just think about Superman for a moment. Movie Superman, as played by Christopher Reeve and his creepy doppelganger, Brandon Routh. He isn't afraid to be an unassuming doof, most of the time! In fact, I think he quite likes being my plaything being Clark Kent. And even when he’s catching planes and hurling atom bombs into the sun, he’s never show-offy about it. There he goes, just quietly doing his really physically impossible good deeds. He’s much more like Jesus in that regard, and Jesus never starred in a Christine Feehan novel.

Not that I think that beta men are like Jesus. Or maybe they are, because I kind of fancy Him. Think about it: tall, dark, handsome. Great beard. The titles alone would be worth it: The Son of Thy Lord and His Secret Virgin’s Baby, for example.

And he’s never a macho asshole. Unlike most erotic romance heroes, these days.

Maybe it’s just that I’m fed up of the macho assholes. I like an alpha male. I truly do. I just think that sometimes, authors confuse “alpha male” with “oops I just accidentally on purpose punched your mum in the face for looking at you”. And it’s all become a bit of a competition, with everyone trying to out-alpha each other- as I think Dear Author once predicted.

Now it’s all a grim reality.

Or maybe it’s just that I honestly do love beta men. Men who are a bit like Clark Kent- humble and sweet and bumbling, but with hidden depths, perhaps. Depths that mean he can hurl a 747.

Men who don’t obey exactly, but who like to give a lady exactly what she wants.

A bit like a sex robot.

Oh wait- this is all coming out wrong! I can’t even think of a good name for you, mysterious group of passive-in-an-odd-way men! I’ve let you down, my Clark Kents, my Jesus Christs, my Gabriel Grays! I can’t protect you from getting the collective sand of Romancelandia kicked in your faces! I’m trying to build a career, here!

I’m just not up to the task. Maybe when I’m a gajillionaire. Then I’ll write novel after novel starring You, and everyone will herald me as a trailblazer, and I’ll laugh and laugh at all of those who mocked my love of mole creatures.

Or I’ll stop smoking crack. Whichever.

‘Til then, my love, you must only continue to bonk me in my nightly dreams. Stand there until I tell you to move, and not because you’re obedient. Because you want to stand there.

All my love now and forever,

The Mighty Viper aka Charlotte Stein

Seriously.

Can people not see Brandon Routh? Am I seeing something different to what everyone else is seeing? Is he secretly a goblin, or summat, and I'm seeing the handsome side while everyone else sees Ulgar the Unpleasant?

Because goddamn, he has no sites about him. Where are all the fangurls, wetting themselves and posting sixteen million icons of his head? He was Superman, for God's sake! He looks like he was carved out of handsome! He's not even handsome in that too handsome way that's offputting, like Brad Pitt!

I curse you, internetz. I curse you for not yielding Brandon Routh unto me! Go sit in the corner, internetz, and wear the dunce cap and cry about how much you like Johnny fucking Depp.

I Think I Have Some Previously Hidden Stealthy Shame Barrier

How about you?

I've always thought of myself as a bit of a floozy, but apparently not. Apparently I'm secretly a 19th Century prim and proper Governess, who balks at the flagrant and sordid behaviour of the Lord of the Manor.

I just can't get the winkies to go in the moomins, sometimes. They run away from me, afraid of my shame barrier. My shame barrier is like a waterchute, and all the cocks and fannies and tits and nipples and bumholes and quims and cunts and clits and bubbies and writhing wriggling bodes slide off down it into the abyss of propriety.

So Just How Big Is Big Enough To Need Digital Erosion?

I'm guessing big. But I've been wrong before. I mean, Brandon Routh's package seems pretty immense in the above picture. But maybe he just has very deceptive balls. And clearly, Warner will have made no distinction. Deceptive balls still make for a fanboy eyeful, and they don't want that. It turns off their core audience to see giant thrusting bulges lunging about the place

Though I'm noticing more and more that film companies are starting to care less and less about whether fanboys are disturbed in their sexualities. No. Because much to my delight, films and TV shows are starting to cater to that non-audience, that gaggle of uninterested in horror and sci-fi and comic books femi-creatures.

It's been happening for a while. Remember back in that godawful remake of Amytiville? With Ryan Reynolds? The one in which for no accountable reason, Ryan Reynolds and his body by Beef-U-Like decide to take a bath?

Since when in movies do men take baths? It was a revelation! He'd had a hard day fighting dead Native Americans! His massive brick like muscles were aching! What better thing to do than sink into a nice hot bubble bath with candles, so that the entire female population of the world can sit up straighter in their chairs and exclaim that they never knew that they were allowed to objectify men, now! The movies are saying so! You have seen 300, right? I don't even think Zach Snyder meant to do that. Like a subconscious imp was whispering in his ear: dude, chicks dig men writhing around naked in oil. Who sort of look like they want to have sex with each other. Big numbers in March.

And okay, we took a step backwards with the erosion of Brandon Routh's spectacular bulge. But I feel we took a step forwards again with the total and gratuitous constant removal of Zachary Quinto's shirt on Heroes. Because TV's really at the forefront of the Woman Can Ogle Too movement- just check out Sawyer in Lost, always flapping his hair about and showing off his weird fat-but-muscular body. He's like some maiden in a romance novel, flouncing his flouncy fringe and accidentally losing his bodice.

And what about Alex O'Loughlin in Moonlight? What the hell was that all about? Why didn't they just grease him up and hurl him into a pit of women who've been surviving for the last twenty years on a diet of that ugger in Forever Knight and Frankenstein's monster, David Boreanaz?

Though I will admit that Angel and Buffy had Spike. Who probably started this whole mess.

Not that it really is a mess. I ain't complainin'. I'm just waiting for that Superman Returns sequel: Man of Oh Fuck What The Fuck Is That In His Underpants?