I Have Stolen Someone Else's Life

Someone much more famous and fabulous than me. The kind of person who lands three book deals with Berkley and has a real office (not just a bed, and a laptop, and one of them things you can buy from bookstores so the laptop doesn't burn your kneecaps off) and who goes to conventions where people actually know who they are and there's more than nine people who like their work.

I've stolen that person's life. Or even someone less famous than that, someone who has just written something really interesting or weird or cool or has published in a few places and is worthy of notice. So worthy of notice that they get a review, on Dear Author.

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2010/01/30/review-waiting-in-vain-by-charlotte-stein/

Because that's what happened. I got a review, on Dear Author. And not just a DNF review or an F review, either. I got a B grade. Me! Less than nobody me! I'm a speck. I have two things of my own out. People were actually complaining that I didn't have a bigger backlist.

I would have squeezed stuff out of my right nostril, if I'd suddenly had the facility to pass published works through said orifice.

However, they weren't complaining that I didn't have a bigger backlist in the review comments. Oh no no no. Because apparently when you briefly steal someone else's life, you get the full works. And so my tiny little novella, Waiting In Vain, was #romwin-ed.

Which is basically like #romfail, only Jane from Dear Author takes an hour to talk about how orsum your book is, rather than how much it sucks, on Twitter. And everyone joins in. And I pass out.

I've passed out several times, since all this happened. I tried to type last night that I'd got a review, but it's really hard to make sense when your typing fingers have turned to jelly. I just don't know how three-book-deal-with-an-office-loads-of-people-know-who-they-are-has-written-something-interesting-and-cool person does it.

People keep commenting on how giddy I am, but I can't help it. I used to laugh at myself, for one day imagining that I would get a review on one of the big romance blogs. I'm so grateful, for everything that's come into my little life over the past couple of years. For the actual published stories and the people saying nice things and just everything. And to think, I almost didn't send Waiting In Vain to Total-E-Bound!

I shiver, thinking about that, now. Don't ever let that happen to you.