In the interests of fairness… with thanks to ‘My Fair Lady’

As I ponder the future of my novels and my writing after such a heart-warming response yesterday, I do feel that in the interests of fairness I should point out a few things about the consultancy with whom I have been working.

We met a looong time ago. I was so raw that I didn’t know what POV meant, or narrative arc, or narrative tension or backstory… to name just a handful of technical terms. The consultancy had not only to report on my works, but also explain exactly what the reports meant. Essentially a glossary was needed those many years ago. They saw me through a young adult’s trilogy, then through The Stumpwork Robe and its counterpart. And most immediately through A Thousand Glass Flowers. They introduced me to the brilliant YouWriteOn.com almost at its inception, which led me to new and highly valued friends and the most astonishing turnaround in my writing life .

'The flower seller...'

In short, they dragged me from being a flower-seller and ‘prisoner of the gutter, condemned by every syllable she uttered’ to something vaguely approaching a lady able to attend the races.

'a lady at the races...'

Quite simply, where I am at this point I owe to them and I need that to be understand by anyone who may think that I was treated badly. The consultancy worked with me last year at no cost and I can only assume that was a vote of confidence in Glass Flowers. The editors who worked with me were succinct, plain-speaking and were able to encourage me to continue on, until ‘The Rine in Spine’ became ‘The Rain in Spain’! It’s not the editors’ fault that the industry is in such a state of flux or that the bottom line is a question of who can engender the most profit. Editors do have farsightedness, the marketing departments perhaps less so.

My position at this very moment is more a question of timing, timing, timing or more particularly money, money, money. One day the ‘Legacy’ houses might just take back the power within this newly established e-market and things will change again. It’ll be exciting for the new and hungry writer as he or she will be given the chance to stand among the giants of the writing world.

But for me that time’s most certainly not now. After a couple of days to mull over all the suggestions that came my way, my decision is almost made. I think you all pretty well have a handle on what that might just be. Another week or so and I will have decided for sure.

'I'll spread my wings...'

In the meantime, I can only thank those editors who worked with me and say ‘I’ll spread my wings and do a thousand things and maybe do some more.’