Waiting In Vain

Okay, so the contract's been signed for this. I think it's safe for me to post something about it.

Total-E-Bound have accepted my novella/short story, Waiting In Vain, for publication!!!!!! YARGHH!

As you may or may not know, Bertha, this is really excellent news for a variety of reasons:

a) After Black Lace closed, I was terrified that no other publisher would ever want my work.

b) I was just generally terrified that no erotic romance publisher would ever want my work, even though I longed to be a writer of things both erotic and romantic.

c) Total-E-Bound are orsum.

d) Total-E-Bound publish all sorts of different sub-genres within the erotic romance genre, and as my dream is to one day have an erotic romance paranormal type novel published, perhaps I'm one small step closer to fulfulling this dream.

e) It's going to be the longest single thing I've yet had published. At 10k, it's just about a novella. I've progressed from short stories to almost novellas!

f) Although I submitted it for their Christmas Crackers anthology, it's actually going to be published as a single Lust Bite on its own, on (hopefully!) December 28th- the day after my birthday.

g) Two weird coincedences: my first published thing was in the anthology Lust At First Bite. And the star of Waiting In Vain was fuelled by the same inspiration as in Playing- Alex O'Loughlin. I should really consider writing him a thank you note:

Dear Alex O'Loughlin,

Thank you for being so disgustingly gorgeous. Because of your disgusting gorgeosity, I was mightily inspired and produced two works that are apparently worthy of publication. You are the muse that makes woo-woos happen in my underpants.

Love,

Charlotte Stein

Though I realise I'm thanking the wrong person. And no, I'm not going to start blubbing and reading out thank yous like I've been given an Oscar or summat. But I should really thank my editor at TEB (I have an editor at TEB!) for being orsum enough to take a chance on my work. And there are also people out there who have kept me going when things looked really bleak, writing wise. And they (and this happening) have really made me want to say this:

Don't ever stop. I came *this* close to not submitting to that TEB call. Literally- I had minutes to spare before the deadline. I agonised over it. I thought- there's no point. They didn't like my last thing, why should they like this? I'm not erotic romance. I'm too foofy. I'm too erotic. I'm not erotic enough. My stories are boring. I can't write. I need to live in the real world, now. I've failed.

But I was wrong and stupid and don't ever give up. Promise? Don't give up. Stay strong, okay? Because every single thing you almost didn't send could be 1.34 mins away from someone saying yes.