The world of Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer, *coughs* but the Divine world belongs to me.

Once upon a time there was a housewife – we'll call her Bella – who discovered the world of fanfiction, and after being a reader for a year, decided to try her hand at writing some of her own. She was fascinated with how kinky and naughty one could make the characters. Though it was nerve wracking, Bella set out to pen her very first story about a Dominant who liked to delve out pain, and a previously abused submissive who had a craving for just that. As the story took form, so did the perfect title: To Serve is Divine.

As time went on the story gathered a small following. Bella was humbled and amazed at the friends she made through the story and the personal stories that were shared with her as her ramblings unfolded. When the opportunity presented itself to enter a publishing contest hosted by a fiction site that believes in having coffee with every story, Bella went to her readers to ask how they would feel about her entering for a chance to rework TSID into an original story. Not only did she get words of support and encouragement, an actual publishing offer from an established house came to the forefront.

Dazzled by the outpouring and the proposition, Bella went to her husband – we'll call him Edward – to see what he would think of his wife setting out to publish erotic fiction. He was a little unsure but finally conceded and so Bella agreed to a conference call with medieval lovers of romance books in August of 2012.

A plan was formed to completely overhaul the fanfiction version of To Serve is Divine into a 3 book series: The Divine Trilogy (To Serve is Divine, A Divine Life, and Surreal) by rebuilding the characters from the ground up, changing the setting, and changing the POV from first person to third person. To top it off, there was the also the small matter of expanding what had already been written to at least double the original content, if not more (Bella is still working on this so a final word count is unknown).

Bella placed her other stories on hiatus, with the exception of writing for charity compilations and a couple of birthday one shots, and dove into the vigorous task ahead of her. Unexpectedly, she released her first publication as part of an anthology with a sweet, YA tale of family and love in December while she continued to plod along with creating the beginning book in the trilogy.

January 2013 saw the release of book one. The remaining books will be released later in the year and the beginning of 2014. Knowing that some of her readers that were following TSID when it was a fanfiction may have missed the news and wondered why the story disappeared from FFN, she decided a little 'tale' was in order and so this recount was penned.

Stepping out from the umbrella and safety net of FFN into the big bad world of real publishing also involved revealing her identity and so Bella now has an author's page on Facebook under R.E. Hargrave and *gasps* a twitter account under rehargrave. She also has a website where all the pertinent book information a person could want can be found: www . rehargrave . com

Never fear, Bella has not turned her back on the fanfic world for she adores the fandom and all of her readers. She has no plans of leaving Uninhibited Wallflower untended, and also has a couple of future stories up her sleeve which have already been started in various docs.

With a blowing kiss and a fond adieu,

R.E. Hargrave aka texasbella