Day 1
Anita’s trembling finger hovered over the enter key. She’d read the email at least three times, proofreading, editing for clarity and trying to exude an energy that would encourage them to publish her. She was procrastinating. Anita knew it even as she read through the email one last time. She looked at the time at the bottom of her screen. It was only a few hours till they closed applications. She’d dragged her feet enough. Taking a deep breath, she clicked send, then closed the lid of her laptop and walked away from her workstation.
She went to her living room, threw herself on the couch, and turned the TV on. She needed to distract herself or she would end up in an endless worry loop over her application. According to the call for stories, they’d receive an answer after five weeks. Lord knows she’d have enough time to worry. She didn’t have to start today.
She wouldn’t waste this day off. No siree. Distraction here I come, she thought.
****************
Cyrus was supposed to be editing a video that was supposed to be uploaded in two days. Instead, he was on social media, and it wasn’t even the kind of surfing you could characterize as useful. He closed the tab decisively, and then instead of closing the entire browser, he moved to check his email. Checking email is productive, he reasoned. He checked his official emails, then on a whim checked the rest of his largely dormant addresses. God, he was deep in procrastination mode. He had a new email on the address that people often erroneously sent fiction submissions.
“I’ll just give it a quick glance.” He said out loud as he downloaded the attachment. His usual thing was to read the stories, then copy his standard “You accidentally sent this message to me instead of romance publishers.” Most of the time he just managed a few paragraphs, but sometimes he lucked on a really good one.
His eyes nearly bugged out when he realized it was erotica. He’d never happened upon erotica. It was usually every form of romance, from historical to fantasy, never explicit erotica. He adjusted his position on the seat and kept reading. Jesus, it was so steamy he felt like hiding while reading it. Thank God his sister was out of the house they shared.
Jesus. This girl had a healthy imagination and an impressive command of descriptive language. God! He was getting embarrassingly hot and bothered, and in wintery July, no less. He was going to need a shower after this.
Ten minutes later, as he towelled off from the shower he’d predicted, a goofy smile on his face, he decided he had to write that woman back. He simply had to, and he was not going to use his usual template. He had to tell her how fucking great she was. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been that turned on by anything, much less words on a screen.
Day 1: Three hours later
Even though she knew there was no possible way they could have responded to her email yet, Anita pulled up her email. Her heart raced when she spotted the reply. Holy shit! They had replied. Was it good or bad when they responded that fast? She clicked the email open with trembling fingers and read through it as her heart tried to escape the confines of her rib cage.
Oh God, she’d sent it to the wrong person. The publisher’s email address had an s at the end and when she’d missed that s, it had gone to some random person. Oh God, she’d missed her deadline. Her heart sank as she sat on her desk chair. Weeks of work gone just like that.
She closed the lid on her laptop and lay her head on it. She’d worked on that piece every free moment she had at work and at home and this was how it all ended? Her eyes stung with unshed tears. She’d underestimated how desperately she’d needed a win. Any win. Even just knowing she’d finally submitted a piece and someone else had read it after years of writing stories she never let anyone else read.
She didn’t even need to win the contest or be selected for publication, she thought. She’d just wanted to dip her toe in the publication pool and had failed even at that on her first try. God, she was such a loser. She couldn’t even email right!
************
Cyrus had devised a working system. He’d edit about 5 minutes of the video, then refresh his email. It was massive progress from the split screen he’d had before, playing Minesweeper on the left and casting a quick glance at his email every 5 seconds. At least this way he was getting some work done and distracting himself. He’d written such a sappy reply he was equal parts mortified and excited to hear back from her. He should have known better than to write back while he was still riding an orgasmic high.
She still hadn’t written back. He just knew it was a woman. First, romance was women-dominated and erotica even more so. He occasionally read romance novels, thanks to his sister, but he didn’t know any other guy who admitted to it. Hell, even he didn’t advertise it. Second, she was way too intuitive to not be a woman. She just knew things… Anyway, if she turned out to be a guy, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, he was going to proceed under the educated assumption that she was a woman.
Why was she not writing him back? They always wrote him back almost immediately, thanking him for letting them know. He shook his head, minimized his browser and forced himself to edit the next five minutes of the video he’d made barely any headway on. His mind stayed on that email even as he powered on.
***********************
Day 2
He was firmly in his teenage girl phase, he conceded when he suppressed a squeal upon seeing her email.
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Hey you,
Thanks for letting me know about the mix-up.
I appreciate it.
Anita
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From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Hey you,
You’re welcome and sorry about that.
If it makes you feel any better, it happens a lot. One study found that 58% of people have sent an email to the wrong person or to the wrong email address.
I hope you get published and even win. Your submission was fucking great, no pun intended. Truly. It’s the best thing I’ve read in the years since people started mistaking my email address for that publisher’s. You’re definitely a shoe-in.
Not Romance Publisher (Cyrus)
********************************
Day 4
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Hey you,
I work as a video editor (not that you asked but I promise it will soon be relevant) and one thing I appreciate when I put out creative work is feedback that’s concrete, not just “I really liked it” or “it was so nice” period, although that’s good too.
So, I thought as one of the people who’s enjoyed your work, I should tell you one or two things that I liked about it. I think sometimes with art you can’t always tell what you liked or hated, but you sort of have an overall sense of how you felt. Well, I have both. I’ll tell you how it made me feel overall and some things I liked about it.
Overall sense: Turned on (Obviously) and thoroughly entertained.
Things I liked:
Girls on top: There was something really beautiful about how you wrote the sex scenes (which really were most of the scenes and I’m not complaining). It felt like the girl was really into it, even leading and directing, which was insanely hot and him following her lead made it feel soft and genuine and hot again. Plus, she very clearly got hers (which isn’t always the case for heterosexual women), and had fun.
Bang bang bang: Your prose is something else. One day you have to tell me how one writes chapters of smut without saying things like ‘pounded into her’. It was refreshing.
Two fat characters: I grew up reading a lot of romance (we can blame my elder sister for that). There’s this ongoing phenomenon my sister and I call “one ‘fattie’ at a time.” For some reason, there can only be one fat character at a time in romance novels. If the heroine is fat, the hero has washboard abs. If the hero is not your traditional abbed-up jock, then the heroine is the hottest girl in town. It’s the unspoken no fat hero and heroine at the same time and it’s like nobody told you about this rule. Either that or you’re just a rebellious little anti-authoritarian, which is my guess and which I think is fucking fabulous!
Once again, I really hope you win.
Let me know how it goes… if you’d be open to that.
******************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Hey you,
Thanks for your kind words and you’re right, concrete feedback helps. It hits a little differently too 😊
I have to ask, have you ever considered just giving/selling this email address to the publishers to prevent these kinds of errors?
It can be hella discouraging to get that error message.
***********************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Hey you,
So, I wrote to them twice and they didn’t reply. It may be because I wondered why in 2023, on these hallowed Lizzo interwebs they were still using a Gmail address. Seriously, how? American and European organizations fund them, the least they can do is get an official email address linked to their domain. Guess they weren’t as open to feedback as you are. 😉
I can imagine getting that error message after psyching yourself to submit something sucks. Sorry about that. Hope you were able to submit it in time.
Like I said, I really think you were great. You could win this thing. 😊
*******************************************
Day 5
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Yeah, have you heard the one about catching more flies with honey than vinegar? That could easily explain your success rate with me and your failure rate with them.
****************************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
First, why would anyone want to catch flies?
Second, and more importantly, did I hear you correctly? Am I succeeding with you? #FingersCrossed 🤞🤞🤞
*************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
First, because they are Shrek and Fiona?
****************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
That was two-parter, but I’ll let it go.
What do you do when you’re not submitting smouldering hot content online?
**********************************************
Day 7
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
I read smouldering hot romance by night and work at a call centre by day.
******************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
What’s that like?
*********************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
You know what reading romance is like.
Working at a call centre is like being everyone’s punching bag because they can’t really punch who they want to punch.
I feel like I can give an actual State of the Nation address based on the nature of the calls we get and let me tell you, Maina, things are dire. The country is in hell’s basement.
*******************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
That must suck.
And it’s obvious, things are dire. I figured things were really fucked when I heard even more people are rationing their food. Like, how do you do that as a parent? I can’t even imagine. I want to cry every time I pay my electricity bill, but at least I have a reliable job and I’m not rationing food, you know?
Are they offering any kind of employee mental health support?
**********************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Employee mental health support? Sir, do you have some free time? I’d like to talk to you about a system called capitalism. Can you spare a few minutes?
****************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Yeah, I walked right into that one.
But just to be clear, I’ll always have a few minutes to spare for you. 😊
**************************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
You are beyond, cheesy. You know this, right?
****************************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Wow, just wow. Are you really going to shame me for being expressive and honest about where I’m at emotionally on these interwebs in a whole 2023? Wow, babe. You are:
1. Not making good choices. (smh while I look for an appropriate meme to capture my judgmental face)
2. On the wrong side of history on this one (you can always join the right side though)
Excuse me, ma’am, do you have a few minutes to talk about emotional maturity? Things like not being afraid to show your hand.
******************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Hahaha!
Wasn’t judging you, babe, just making an observation. You took it so hard. Who hurt you, babe? 😊
*********************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Patriarchy.
That’s who did this to me. Patriarchy.
But I’m working to bring him down. We’re going to kick his ass, big time.
****************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
I love to hear it. Down with patriarchy.
P.S.
1. I’ll always have a minute for you
2. You can always show me your hand
***********************************
Day 33
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
God, I finally finished editing and exporting the 4-hour video only for YouTube to hit me with copyright claims. Spent my day making adjustments and exporting over and over. Had to do it 8 times. All I want to do is scream and never look at my Adobe Premiere ever again. So that was me.
Restore my faith in this world, Anita, tell me your day was great, good, heck, I’ll even take okay. How’d it go for you? Today was y’all’s big meeting, right?
************************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
I hate to disappoint.
Patriarchy is alive and well. The entire meeting, and I mean the ENTIRE meeting, was about how young women are dressing in the office. Apparently, men are visual creatures and when women don’t look like nuns, it distracts them and makes it difficult for them to work.
You think you wanted to scream?
I wanted to howl!
The only thing keeping me from getting properly wasted is the fact that it’s a whole Tuesday. Well, that and the fact that I can’t afford my preferred alcohol.
******************************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Yikes. You win.
*****************************************
Day 46
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Attached audio file.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Jesus, what did you do? Did you submit it for me?
Holy, shit. Holy shit.
I got shortlisted. I got fucking shortlisted. That means they’ll publish me before they select the final prize winners.
Oh, my God! It was you, wasn’t it? It was you.
Jesus Christ.
Thank you so much.
When did you even do it? I was past the deadline, and they don’t accept submissions after. I know they don’t. They say on their website in very strongly worded language that they don’t.
How’d you even do it?
Listen, I’ve got to go compose myself then we can pick this up later.
Thanks, man.
****************************************
Cyrus listened to the audio note on repeat. It was the first time he was hearing her voice, and it was everything he’d imagined and more. The unbridled excitement in her voice gave him life, filling him with joy and hope.
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
Attached audio file.
Sorry, I forgot to say, I’ll call you on Google Meet later once I’ve calmed the fuck down. Is that cool? Probably at around, 7 p.m.
*********************************
From: [email protected]
RE: Email Error
I can’t wait! 😊
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Day 53
Cyrus sat at the table that gave him the perfect view of the door and waited. He’d purposed to be there early so he could watch her walk in. As he sat there, heart racing, palms sweating, he couldn’t believe his good fortune and how it had all started with an email that wasn’t even meant for him.
He wiped his palms on his jeans, then looked up and he knew, he just knew it was her. Anita was rocking a pair of skinny jeans and a fitting tank top that showed off her ample breasts. She met his gaze, then tucked her long braid behind her ear and started walking to his table, an enormous smile on her face. He stood up with a huge smile of his own.
“Look at us, two fatties.” He said, leaning in to embrace her.
“Rule breakers have all the fun.” She answered, sliding into the seat opposite him, eyes appreciating his large frame that checked the bear aesthetic down to a t.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
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