My Journey with Erotic Romance by Charlotte Howard
My Journey with Erotic Romance
Eight years ago (2008), I was writing pet care and health articles for a content website, subsidised by creating adverts and marketing tools for various other sites. But it wasn’t what I loved. In fact it was draining, sucking out my soul one day at a time. In 2010 I found the courage to start writing fiction, and I wrote a murder-mystery that I self-published. It didn’t do very well – probably due to the lack of editing and the homemade cover – and amongst the three and four-stars was a one-star review that knocked my confidence. Granted, it was written by someone who I knew and had decided to make it their mission to destroy my life (jealousy is an ugly beast) but still, it led to me removing the book and pretending it had never existed. Maybe I’d made a mistake thinking that I could be an author.
Then came the compliments. Yes, it needed serious editing. Serious editing. But the graphic sex scenes were great! “Please write more! Have you tried your hand at romance?” A romance author? Me? I don’t even read romance… I laughed, dismissed it, and went back to the soul-sucking content writing.
2012. A well-known trilogy with a title based on different shades of a colour lighter than black was thrust into my hands. I read all three in the space of a week. Wow. The closest I’d ever come to reading erotica before was Jilly Cooper and Jackie Collins as a teenager. Okay, so this trilogy wasn’t the best, but I could see why people were hooked by it. Yeah, okay. I’ll give it a go. But where do I start? With what you know…
I wrote The Final Straight first. Horses, and a young woman who finds herself torn between two men. Fantasy heaven. Rejection, after rejection, after rejection.
Don’t give up.
So, I wrote Seven Dirty Words. Rejection, after rejection, after… A friend had opened a publishing house and accepted me as her first author! I wrote Four Letter Words, the sequel for the first novel. And then words just kept on coming. The Words series was soon followed by The Black Door, and I started going to signing events. I met the fabulous Lucy Felthouse at the Festival of Romance in Bedford and we started chatting. She told me about a few other publishers, and I sent The Black Door and The Final Straight to Tirgearr Publishing. Best decision I ever made. Through them I discovered their City Nights series and wrote two novellas for them. When the contracts for the Words series were up for renewal, I sent them to Tirgearr as well. I was comfortable with my Irish publisher, and loved working with Lucy as an editor.
But they were still very vanilla. With my latest work, Taking Care of Leah, I decided to try my hand at BDSM, and brought in sex toys, bondage, and spanking. Oh. My. God. I loved writing this story. I submitted it to Totally Bound, expecting a rejection, so when I got the acceptance email, I was literally jumping for joy. I kept writing, and recently submitted a BDSM short story to another publisher, receiving my eighth publishing contract.
In four short years, I’ve written eight books and signed up to my fourth publisher. I have found my genre.
I’ve been asked by other writers whether I’m going to expand into other areas. It’s sad to say that erotica and erotic romance is still a taboo subject. We like reading about sex, but we mustn’t admit to it. We’re British after all! We don’t do sex. I keep saying maybe, but at the end of the day, I like sex. I like writing about sex. I love the research! I like discovering new areas, and can’t wait to learn more about fetishes, kink, and BDSM.
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British author, Charlotte Howard, was born in Oman and spent much of the first part of her life flitting between Oman, Scotland, and England. Now settled in Somerset, Charlotte lives with her husband, two children, and growing menagerie of pets.
Her career as a writer began at an early age, with a poem being featured in an anthology for the East Midlands. Since then Charlotte has written many short stories and poems, and finally wrote her first full-length piece of fiction in 2010.
During what little spare time she has, Charlotte enjoys reading and writing (of course), spending time with her family, and watching action movies whilst eating curry and drinking tea. Charlotte is an active member of Yeovil Creative Writers Group.
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