Mancandy Monday: Mick St John/Alex O'Loughlin

I mean, wouldn't you?

How about now?

He's a vampire in the shortlived TV show Moonlight. And he looks like this in it:

And also like this:

He's so sexy that so far he's played my blue-eyed hero in Playing (my story in Lust At First Bites), Julian in Not Knowing It (Seduction) and the dirty stranger across the alley in Spying (a story in The Things That Make Me Give In).

He's also the lead in Fantasyland (novel I'm working on), the lead in Haunted (another novel in the works), the lead in my vamp novel Researching Subtext, the lead in my head where he takes off his clothes and oils himself daily...

Seriously, check out Moonlight for one of the sexiest vampires ever to be put on screen.

Head Between Knees

I just queried an agent. I'm off the starting blocks! The starting blocks that lead into a race that's mostly silence and darkness and death and despair like Bones sez in the new Star Trek, but even so!

Oh God what have I done?

F*ck Me!

No really. F*ck me, Alex O'Loughlin. You're banging on my dork button right there, bebe. I will be watching Criminal Minds with you in it, v. soon.

P.S. I think I found a review for Seduction that no-one else has mentioned:

http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookReviews/Seductionacollectionofnaughtinessfromblacklace.html


It's the first review I've seen that actually mentions something I've written, and gives it a little mini-review (along with a mini-review of everyone else's work)! So weird hearing someone else describe my work. So awesome that they liked it (even though the reviewer is very nice, and probably wouldn't have said if they'd hated something about it). But even so! First review with real words about my stuff!1!!1!

And also weird, because the story in question stars Alex O'Loughlin as Julian.

Mancandy Monday: Paul Rudd

Yeah, he hasn't left me alone.

It's funny, because I used to hate Paul Rudd. He always seemed to be a bit of a jerk in things, even in Clueless.

But I feel he's making up for it, now, by playing Phoebe's sweet and funny boyfriend in Friends, a total dork in The Shape of Things, and especially recently with I Love You, Man. He gets a lot of kudos from me, for the latter. It's rare to see a male protagonist like that, onscreen: fumbling, sweet, unable to understand a lot of macho bullsh*t. He likes playing golf with his soon-to-be-wife. Hell, he just likes hanging out with his nearly-wife full-stop! It's a shame that such a thing is a miracle to see, but if you've watched Everybody Loves Raymond or any similar major American sitcom, you'll know what I'm talking about.

According to the law of sitcoms, men hate their wives. Spending time with them is a chore, unless they're getting sex. And women hate their husbands. Husbands are childish buffoons who wreck the place. It's especially irritating because this is always presented as the norm, instead of, you know, maybe you should like the person you're marrying. Or maybe if you're not into that, you shouldn't marry a childish buffoon. Hell I don't know: maybe marry someone who likes some of the stuff you like!

So anyway ranty-rant the point is: it was nice to see something different, for a change. Even if it made me sad inside that it's a goddamned revelation to see a husband liking his wife, and vice versa.

And Paul Rudd is hot. I like him like this:

But is it so wrong that THIS is my fave Paul Rudd?

It is, isn't it.

Leave Me Alone, Paul Rudd

I went back and forth on whether I should share my editor's response to my collection. I mean, I've seen other BL writers do it, but I just don't want anyone to think I'm this young upstart bragging, or summat. I dunno. I mean, I'm supposed to share all my thoughts and feelings and amazing things that happen, right?

Because I never in my wildest dreams ever ever thought that the editor of BL would say to me:

"I think this is an extraordinary and very idiosyncratic collection of erotica."

Or:

"Your writing has a penetration and emotional depth not often so well expressed or found in popular erotica."

Or all the bits he quoted as though I'm worthy of quoting.

And then the capper, which made me die and then come back to life as a zombie:

"I’ve actually read literary collections that are inferior to this."

I mean, what the hell do you say to that? Apart from thank you thank you thank you? I actually wrote that in the email: I don't know what to say. And I don't, because it all seems like a dream. People have said to me oh don't worry, and you're great, stop being negative, as though I'm just fishing for compliments or falsely modest. But I don't worry and say I'm rubbish or anything like it because I'm just waiting for reassurance. I say it because I find it hard to believe anything else. When I get rejected, I somehow always feel that's my just desserts. It hurts less because of that- because I know other writers probably deserve publication more.

So when I hear things like this- I don't know what to say. I'm not used to it. So few people have read my writing - and most of them were friends and relatives - that when someone of that stature says things like that to me, I can't adjust to it. I feel like there's been some sort of paradigm shift, and I'm just trying to catch up.

Of course, he didn't have all awesome things to say. I do too much head chatter (I'm such an inner monologue-er, I know). I needed to cut down a couple of the stories, and make them more direct. I needed to rearrange them in the anthology, and put the big sexy action stories first (thank God thank God I managed to write my dirty Sheriff story. It took one night of hard slog, but I got it done). But those things aside...I think it's okay. And I understand everything that's wrong and thought the same things myself, so I've managed to complete the edits (hopefully) with very little fuss.

Now I just need to stop psyching myself out and get back down to business. I keep playing ink ball and falling asleep and fancying Paul Rudd, instead of cracking right on with my next project (s).

Mancandy Monday: Arnold Rimmer

Mainly because of the new Red Dwarf episodes on Dave this weekend, but also because I'm clearly mad.

I've always fancied Rimmer. I don't know why. I guess I just root for the hopeless loser, the completely ridiculous gimboid with his completely ridiculous interests and obsessions. I like a man who can proudly say he has an interest in 19th century telegraph poles and Hammond organ music. A man who is utterly terrified of women.

But who occasionally gets oiled by them.

I'd oil you up any day, Arnie. And if you occasionally became the bizarrely much more physically attractive Ace Rimmer (it's just Chris Barrie wearing a wig, for God's sake!):

...that would be okay too.

Oh, and P.S. I mused about whether to do a blog about Amazon Fail rather than Mancandy Monday, but I think the whole world has got it covered. Even so, I feel I should express my disgust over the matter - essentially censoring Lady Chatterley and Stephen Fry is just beyond the pale - and have sent an email to Amazon accordingly. I've signed a petition, and would encourage anyone to do the same. It doesn't just effect erotica writers (my book had a ranking! Now it has none!), but books and groups of people that have had quite enough marginalising for one history of the human race, ta very much.

So get on it, Amazon.

Next Up, On The Charlotte Stein Show

My God that would be one awful sitcom. Lots of me falling over and sleeping with my glasses on and spilling things down myself. Hi-LARIOUS.

But my real intention with posting this blog is to say what I'm planning on doing next, having turned in TTTMMGI. If you're interested, Bertha. Bertha? What do you mean you're watching The Charlotte Stein Show? Look, it's just a girl who can't eat spaghetti right. And puts her socks on the wrong feet. Watch King of Queens, instead.

So, next up:

* Editing some stuff on TTTMMGI. I thought about doing a blog about Adam's response to it (seriously, he read it in three days. Three. I handed it in on Sunday night at 2am, he got back to me today at around 5. He is made of win and awesome, and I wish I could tell him that without sounding like a kiss ass), but...changed my mind. I might do a bit later, when I've decided whether it's a) okay to do so and b) I'm not just being a swaggering braggart.

* Finishing up my proposal for Black Sheep. At the moment, it's almost ready to go- I just need to trim the chapter by chapter synopsis, cut some of the waffling, and put in some extra sex in the first chapter. As can clearly be seen on the right hand side of my blog, I have new word count meters. Of course there's always the likeliehood I'll never sell any of that stuff in a million years, but I like having the meters. They push me.

* Writing No Touching. Recently shared with a friend the entire plot of it, and she actually got excited about the thing. She kept trying to guess the end before I'd even got to it, in a "oh please say they don't all die!" sort of way. Never had that before! Really pysched me up for it. Could be I've got a winner, here, unlike my usual waffling drivel novels.

* Finishing up proposal for Fantasyland.

* Getting up the courage to query an agent. I think No Touching would be a good thing to query with, though I'm not sure. I don't know if I can just query with what I've done so far- just email and be all like oh hai there, my book comes out in October plz 2 b representing me? But all of the big guns I want to go after only state in their submisson guidelines what to do if you're not published yet. I suppose it doesn't matter. I should just follow the guidelines, anyway. I don't know if BL is really big enough for any agent to be like: cor, yeah! Published already- let's go for it, Charlotte!

Not that BL is puny, or anything. BL rocks the kasbar. Still...I dunno.

I guess we'll see how brave I can be.

Mancandy Monday: The Janitor

Yeah, it's another weird one this week. Sue me- I've been watching long stretches of sitcoms to keep my spirits up while writing and writing and writing.

So this week, it's The Janitor, from Scrubs. This guy:

It took me a while to appreciate the beauty of Janitor. He just whittled away at my heart with all of his little weird moments in Scrubs. How can a guy so ginormous and handsome be so odd? I love big handsome guys who are odd. I'd pet his squirrel army, and I'd never imply that he couldn't think of the word sad, so had to use mop instead. I'd be his wife with only pointer, and thumb-pinky. I'd call him Dr Jan Itor, if that's what he wanted.

Then I'd climb him like a tree. Oh, Janitor.

P.S. So last night, I handed in my anthology to Adam!!!1!11!11!1 Effing hell, can you believe it? I couldn't believe it. I got a fourteen story antho done for him in four and a bit months, AND gave him an extra five stories- just in case. Not only that, but I'm partially happy with what I produced! I just hope he likes them. I worry that a) the overall tone is a bit too sombre and b) the stories aren't erotic enough and c) some things in the stories are a bit too same-y. But I guess everyone has these worries once they've handed something in. I also worried that I hadn't formatted everything correctly, but Adam was good enough to point me in the direction of the tab key without making me feel like a fool. He's simply the best editor to ever exist.

Oh tab key! I previously never knew you existed, but now I love you! You will save me a whole extra bash on the space bar, and make me not look like a div to editors. I should have made this Mancandy Monday: The Tab Key.