Ping-pong

I had a pingback drop into my Inbox this morning:

https://gladyshobson.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/passionate-affairs/#comments It was posted there by :   http://www.worldclassbooks.info/?p=4251 

I’m not into all this pinging and ponging. I find it rather confusing. BUT, reading again what Michael Allen put in (what I think might have been his last) posting, put a somewhat ironic smile on my face.

Now I consider Allen to be a jolly good writer who ran an excellent literary blog, which was of great benefit to writers, especially unrecognised ones like yours truly. He is sadly missed.

It seems every time I appear to be making a tiny progress my props fall away and I’m back in the mud of obscurity. Indeed my latest book, Awakening Love was to be the book that would mark me out as a writer of Women’s Fiction, even if in moderate terms. But how to interest a publisher?

Howbeit, I do have a contract with a USA E-Book publisher for that book and for its sequel (Seduction By Design), which I hope will reach fruition later this year. That could be a start, for it is certain the few books I published myself will not spark off a glimmer of recognition. I have neither the time nor the energy, to say nothing of the money involved, to promote and market my books.

So back to pings. What put that smile (however ironic it may have been) on my face? Well, it was what Michael Allen wrote about me: “Gladys, if you haven’t discovered her, is one hell of a writer.” Followed by a reference to my Blazing Embers (Angela Ashley) and how I had written ‘beautifully’ about a ‘gran in search of an orgasm.’  He also considered Awakening Love to be of a “high standard.”

So here I am a “hell of a writer” according to Allen (and also prize-winner Andrew F O’Hara plus others who think highly of my scribblings) but still unrecognised.

But maybe the sun will yet shine! AG Press (USA), is publishing two of my books (in my own name this time) When Angels Lie and Blazing Embers. Oh yes, small publisher maybe, BUT great oaks from tiny acorns grow. The books are been revised and will have new covers. They are being given a second chance in the USA.

I have, at last, finished writing and editing (for the umpteenth time) Checkmate. What to do with it? Well, it is a sequel to Seduction. And just maybe… 

Writing seems to be a game of ping-pong. Back and forth, appraise and revise, edit and proofread. Submit and reject! But not any more. No more new submissions to agents and publishers. Enough is enough.  “One hell of a writer?” I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry!