Exciting News!

Now that Cleis has given final approval to the TOC, I can at last announce what I've been dying to announce and fretted about sudden disapproval from Cleis for what seems like forever:

My short story, Pleasure Keeper, was accepted by the fabulous, stunning, amazing Rachel Kramer Bussel for inclusion in her anthology: Please, Sir!
And lookee at its beyootiful cover!




It's also already up on amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Please-Sir-Stories-Female-Submission/dp/1573443891/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256676245&sr=8-1

And is out in the US May 1st, 2010.

I'm in extremely esteemed company so it's a double bonus, and on a personal note this acceptance meant an awful lot to me, because it came at a time when I was certain that a) I'd never get in to anything but a Black Lace antho and b) Black Lace, unbeknowst to me, was about to shut up shop.

So it was both a lovely validation, an honour and a huge relief. My heartfelt thanks to Rachel Kramer Bussel for all of the above.

Mancandy Monday: Murdock, From The A-Team

When I was far too young to be fancying full grown men (though in truth, I've never fancied anything but), I wanted to snog Face, from the A-Team. Everyone else wanted to snog Corey Haim, but not me. I wanted Face.

Until a pattern emerged- one that would continue with me for the rest of my life. I call it: "starting to fancy the non-obvious guy". Suddenly, v. handsome guy starts not being enough for me. Isn't he just a little bit too handsome? A bit too smug, a bit too smooth around the edges. He's practically an apple.

Where as I always want lychees: the scariest, weirdest, most eyeball-like of all fruits. The fruit you've never heard of and which terrifies you.

So I started fancying Murdock.

Mad, big tiger jacket wearing, sock puppet loving, practically bald Murdock. Murdock, who spent his time trying to enrage a gigantic mohawked man. Murdock, who would never be as handsome as Face, but who I loved, regardless.

I wanted to escape a mental ward with him in a helicopter. And then snog, naturally.

Of course now, I want to do many, many other things to him. And especially as he's soon to look a lot like Sharlto Copley, who has a spectacular head of hair but makes me think he's still somehow bald underneath that baseball cap.

I don't care how bald you are, Murdock. How weird and non-obvious. I love you anyway.

Heroes. P.S. MASSIVE SPOILERS

I know I'm supposed to use this blog to promote my writing and whatever, but seriously- don't do it, Heroes. If you kill Sylar, where will all the sex in the world go? You're making a sex abyss, Heroes, and I hate you for it.

Kill someone less sexy! Mohinder would be sexy, but he's fookin' boring so he'd barely create a sex sinkhole. Plenty of sex would be left for everyone, if Mohinder died! And yes, there'd be less scope for Mylar fanfic, but Sylar could have sex with a table and I'd be happy.

I shall call this new pairing: TabLar.

But I digress.

Kill Hiro! He is extremely not sexy. He acts like he's twelve and he's carking it now anyway! We all know he's never going to become sexy cool goatee Hiro, because you never follow through on anything, Heroes. It's how I know that Sylar is going to be the "unexpected" "male character" "who dies", because although it looks like he's going down the route of becoming that weird ass Sylar in the future with a kid (he's a blank slate, he's hooking up with that blonde chick), YOU NEVER FOLLOW THROUGH.

So it's not going to happen. Instead he's going to die. And you'll only have yourselves to blame, when sex stops calling you.

News And Another Excerpt

The news: I hit number fifteen on Amazon's adult bestseller chart/list thingie! Of course, I know this doesn't mean that I've sold hundreds of copies. I understand that it doesn't mean that much when I fall right back out again five seconds later. I know that Amazon is the place I'm probably selling the most, and everywhere else I'm selling zero copies. But even so- once, in my life, I was in the top twenty of some sort of book chart. My gast is well and truly flabbered by that idea.

Also, the wonderful Coffee Time Romance who really seem to support Black Lace anthologies, in particular, have done a great review of Misbehaviour:

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

Thank you so much to the reviewer, Lototy, for a considered and lovely review!

And since the lovely Alison Tyler is currently talking about phone sex for her fabulous Fetish Fridays:

http://alisontyler.blogspot.com/2009/10/fetish-friday-21-phone-sex.html#links

I thought I'd post an excerpt from The Things That Make Me Give In in keeping with that theme. It's from my story Phoned In, which is about two friends who find that their relationship has been reduced to long distance. However, it's about to take a turn for something decidedly less friend-like:

She tries again to picture his face, and instead sees his hands. His big, strong hands. His long, long legs as he strides towards the ice-cream parlour. The way his dark jeans had hugged his arse.
What would it be like if he was the boy next door, and she was the slutty neighbour?
‘Are you imagining that you’re the boy next door?’
His reply comes out in a frank sort of burst.
‘Yes.’
She was wrong. They were never honest with each other. She knows, because that one word is what his real honesty sounds like. Quavering up and down and sad through the middle.
‘What does she feel like?’
‘Who?’
‘The neighbour.’
‘Good. Soft. Like she really, really wants me.’
‘Are you jerking off again?’
‘I couldn’t stop now even if sudden paralysis descended. I’ve been doing myself every night after a story. I imagined I was the stranger on the beach, too.’
‘Oh, I bet that was nice.’
‘It was.’
‘Did her pussy taste good?’
‘Oh it did, it did. I can’t even remember what a wet pussy tastes like, so it was nice to revisit.’
‘I didn’t realise that the stranger on the beach liked it so much.’
‘He does. I did. I love eating out– you know that.’
‘Yes, but only in the non-euphemism sense.’
He groans, but she knows it’s a frustrated sound rather than the other type.
‘Go back to the beach,’ he says.
It’s very easy for her to. There are unanswered questions.
‘Would you have fucked her differently?’
‘Yes.’ The phone clacker-clacks, as though he’s shifting positions. ‘I would have...I want to have her in my lap.’
‘Why?’
‘So that I can press myself right up against her. So that she can move against me.’
‘I bet...she’d like that.’
Olive wants to swap the word bet with a different one. Know, maybe. To wrap her legs around someone’s waist and press them to her and have them press back and be able to rock into lovely great thrusts... It makes her keep clutching at her pyjama top. She clutches at it until it’s a big sweaty mess.
‘Don’t say she,’ he says, in a voice now so hoarse it sandpapers against her skin. ‘Say I.’
She presses her thighs together and manages to get it out: just that one word.
‘I...’
It seems to be enough for him however. He pants a yes and then another right into her ear. The panting makes her want to change the words completely.
‘I’d like that,’ she tries. ‘I’d like that.’
‘What else would you like?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Would you like me to stroke you as I fuck you?’
‘Are you fucking me right now?’
‘Imagine that I am. Tell me what it feels like.’
‘Hm. I...good. It feels so good. You feel good and...big.’
‘I bet you say that to all the guys.’
‘I say it to you because you’re inside me, fucking me hard with your big thick cock.’
Unintelligible sounds garble down the phone at her.
‘You are big everywhere, aren’t you?’
‘My dick feels like it’s strangling my hand.’
‘I bet I could hardly get my fingers around it.’
‘Oh, I’d love to see you hardly get your fingers around it.’
‘Do you jerk it hard, or soft? Fast or slow?’
‘Both. One after the other. I’m doing it slow, now, really slow ‘cause I don’t want to come while you’re talking to me like this.’
‘I thought that was the idea– to come while I’m talking like this.’
‘Not yet. I want you to touch yourself, first. I want us to come together. I’d like nothing better than fucking you into a great...big...orgasm.’
‘Say orgasm again.’
And then he stretches the word out like taffy.

Mancandy Monday: Matthew Macfadyen

The reason I've chosen Mr Macfadyen as this Monday's Mancandy, is because he features in many a story in The Things That Make Me Give In. Or rather, he was the inspiration for at least two of the male characters, and I'm sure you can all see why:

So what I thought I'd do is marry my Mancandys with my book promotion in some sort of unholy union from hell, and give you all a little taste of in what way, exactly, Matthew Macfadyen inspired me.

He inspired me to write about a very, very naughty university Professor, who does very, very naughty things with his student, while looking a lot like Matthew Macfdyen, and a lot like Remus Lupin from the Harry Potter films/books. Tired looking tweedy Professors with hidden strict streaks are hot, I tells you!

See if you agree:

‘Go to the board behind me,’ he says, finally. His voice seems to...deepen when he does, but it’s hard to tell. Harder yet to understand what deepening might mean. That he realises he’s doing something wrong?
He’s about to do something worse, she knows. It’s obvious, even before he tells her to pick up the pen. Though maybe it’s just worse because she obeys, file now closed and pinned back to her chest.
‘Write fifty times: I must write less ridiculous love scenes.’
‘Is that what you think they are? Love scenes?’
‘I don’t know, Clara. Do you feel like you’re in love?’
‘Just shut-up, all right. I’m not doing this, you know.’
‘Fifty times. I must write less ridiculous love scenes.’
‘Don’t you mean fuck? Fuck scenes.’
There is a pause in between her putting the pen to the board, and him speaking next. It’s the heaviest one yet and she feels it pressing on her back– though maybe it’s just his presence that’s pressing, as he stands up behind her. Her legs are now trembling and buckling under the pressure, she knows, but God, at least she hasn’t cried in front of him.
‘Yes, I mean fuck,’ he says, and then too alarming to bear– he puts his hand over the curving top swell of her bottom.
The pen slides up on its own and makes a scything smile of green that isn’t meant to be there. The word scene on her first line is now ruined– she can’t reach most of the shaking mistake, to rub it out.
She goes to turn and say something sharp, but he then pats her bottom. He pats it, and says:
‘Keep writing, Clara.’
The face she had half-turned to him seems to want to turn back, but she doesn’t know if she can bear that. If she turns back, and keeps writing, what then? What then of flowery words and teachers and students and ridiculousness? This wouldn’t happen in her story. It wouldn’t happen. It’s too sordid.
It feels heavenly.
He just strokes her bottom, just slow, ever so slow and in circles. And when she makes fumbling marks on the board once more, then – oh, then – he begins to ruffle her skirt up, inch by inch.
Suddenly his mouth is at her ear, his breath as hot as her own insides feel.
‘What do all good romance heroines get, Clara?’ he says and for a moment she can’t think. She has no idea. Hand holding? Marriage? A yacht and three mansions and–
‘The hero!’ she says, and then is embarrassed that she has yelled it out, like a little apple polisher. Ever the A student, ever the good girl, and apparently also slightly more than the second string character.
Even if he isn’t the hero of anything.

‘And tell me, what are the heroes usually like, in a romance?’
She can feel herself shaking, now. He has his hand on the seat of her knickers, her skirt completely pushed up. As she answers, he strokes just one finger into the split of her buttocks through the material.
‘Aggressive. Arrogant. Dominant.’
‘And the women?’
‘Submissive. Pathetic.’
‘Is that what you really think? That they’re pathetic?’
His fingers strokes tighter into the crease, straining against the taut material. She gasps, and writes things that are not words.
‘Yes. Yes.’
‘And you hate arrogant men, cold men, nasty rotten rakes. You don’t like to write about them.’
‘I...find it hard. I find it hard to write about...dominant men.’
‘Shall I yank your knickers down?’
‘Yes! Jesus, yes.’

And The Winner Is...

Jeremy Edwards!! Yeah!!!

Yes, the lovely Jeremy got picked out of the hat (actual thing I picked out of: an old ice-cream tub) completely at random, and so wins a copy of my super duper book The Things That Make Me Give In.

Hopefully you'll see this, Jeremy, so I can send you your copy. Just email me at charlotte_stein@hotmail.co.uk with the address you want it sent to, and I'll get that in the post as soon as possible.

And I just want to finish by saying thank you, to Jeremy, Danielle, Emerald, T. Harrison, Justine (I know you didn't enter cos you bought it, but even so!) and Sefi, for taking the time to enter and comment and be lovely. I wish I had copies for you all, but unfortunately my relatives have pretty much stolen all of them.

Stupid relatives.

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.

What Makes You Give In?

No, seriously. What does? Thanks to the divine Janine Ashbless and the wonderful Roberta Fleck, both of who commented on Janine's blog about the things that make them give in, I'm now wondering what makes you give in, lovely people of the world.

For me, it's this:

And this:

And this:

The smell of a just cracked book and the Starman soundtrack in my ears. HR Giger and Sigourney Weaver. Black as midnight hair. The month November and all its misty coldness. Fizzy worms, oh fizzy worms and lamb spiced with cumin!

.

Those are the things that make me give in, to a variety of things and in a number of different ways.

Now it's your turn. Tell me what makes you give in, and I'll put your name in a hat, shake you all about, and choose one of you at random to receive a copy of my orsum fabulous amazing book, The Things That Make Me Give In.

And if what makes you give in happens to be "being put in a hat, shaken all about, and then chosen at random", well...all the better, eh?