HOPE

Whoopee! On page 11 of a recent Newsweek,-I read this:

“With more than 20 million copies sold in four months in the U.S., the erotic Fifty Shades trilogy seems to be giving mouth-to-mouth, to the barely breathing book industry–and slipping in some tongue for good measure. A self published book was picked up by Berkley Books, marketed as a Fifty Shades clone, with a similar book jacket -- a pair of cufflinks on the jacket with 'He possessed me and obsessed me.'"

Yowie! The article goes on to reveal how this is happening throughout the book industry – big-name publishers are grabbing up books – romances with sexy, erotic plots that suggest Shades of Grey like themes – they’re buying, re-packaging and marketing them.

Wow! My six e-books, six “romances” -- “There’s HOPE!” – that’s what I was mile-a-minute thinking while weighing my success/failure potential -- they’re not prurient, hot erotica, but there’s great sex in my books -- my leading ladies are heroines whom readers can love and emulate and ... and ...

And putting down the magazine, hope grew, grew, grew -- hey with six sexy books on Amazon -- in all the stores, sites, places that sell ebooks -- some publisher’s going to see them, read them, grab them!

Chanting my titles – Rose, Karen, Heart City, Splintered -- certain they could be touted and marketed, I celebrated publishers are buying again! If you’re writer, that your book could be chosen transformed into a best seller, gets you tra-la-dancing, tripping the light fantastic.

Hey, Shades of Grey -- the scenes, the characters -- every page I read was ... gee ... not grabby -- on and on it went, evoking nothing except my writer’s mind saying gee ... this is sort of dumb.

While writer Em is singing and dancing, her mind -- my face facts mind -- kaboom -- wakes up.

My books have sex scenes, but they don’t do what Shades of Grey does. In Three miles East of Rose, my hero and heroine fall in love thinking about sex, wanting it, needing it, but on the verge of doing it, don't get together because morality and family commitments make it a wrong thing to do -- it’s a suspenseful, sexy story that gets you turning the pages, but EL James’ book has you, the heroine, being seduced, mounted, pounded and churned sexually -- very specifically -- very wetly, hotly..

Realty hits. Facts like bricks pile up -- umpteen agents tried to sell my books -- umpteen agent got umpteen rejections -- how to get Rose, Heart, Splintered, Karen, Ivy, Cordelia to the eager publishers -- all were sent out umpteen years ago -- not grabbed.

I have to say what I’ve said before. to comfort myself. “There’s a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life, Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”

I find myself repeating Emily Dickinson’s poem ....
"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—"

I quote Aristotle. “Hope is a waking dream.”

Waked, brick wall in front of me, I pick up a feather. And with it, as my pen, I scrawl H O P E, and having writ it, blink, close my eyes, open my eyes.

I see a new horizon. I feel okay. I feel what Cicero said. “While there's life, there's hope.”