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I've Been Withdrawn!

dorothyddorothyd
edited August 2010 in - Writing Tales
Oh the shock of it ... I ordered a copy of my teen novel, published 17 years ago, from my favourite Amazon seller. It arrived this morning with WITHDRAWN stamped on the inside pages ... ah me, poor little book, thrown out, rejected, not wanted ... the reason it means so much to me is that it took ELEVEN YEARS to sell that book. I retyped it X amount of times to keep the MS looking right before it found a home, with Bodley Head. You can imagine how pleased I was to be with such a prestigious publisher but they did nothing with it, despite the blurb ...
this novel, by a new writer with rare talent, is utterly compelling; it will leave you shaken.
Slight exaggeration there, methinks but still ... I am going to scan it and see if it can find a new home.

Comments

  • flyingtartflyingtart
    Dorothy it must be so weird to see that! How does it feel to hold a book you wrote so long ago? Can you sell it to another publisher?
  • dorothyddorothyd
    Actually, as I have been working with my erotica novels (six of them to date) I am finding my old work to hold its appeal for me. I heard from my editor in the week that he likes the book he is to out out (again) in January. I did when I scanned it and edited the scan, kept thinking, did I really write that?
    One book I do not remember at all. Every page was a surprise. It is my book, my history plastered all over it but I don't remember it.
    This one is special, this teen book, it is set in the row of cottages where I lived, based around the people who lived there and my family. My mother told me she recognised family members in it. My first ever published novel.
    It came from a dream, I saw the little blonde girl standing at the entrance to the path which led to the back of the cottages (we all used the back rather than the front) and I knew she was waiting on a circus. I turned it into a freak show and it all spiralled from there.
    I have every intention of selling it on. Query emails are out at the moment for all my educational and teen work.
  • forget-me-notforget-me-not
    Good luck Dorothy! Hope you manage to sell it on quick to a publisher that will treat it better!
  • Lou TreleavenLou Treleaven
    Ah, I hope it finds a new home, that would be lovely. It is odd, isn't it, when you read something you've written but forgotten?
  • mcbemusedmcbemused
    It may have been 'withdrawn' Dorothy - but only to make way for a shiny new copy!!
  • flyingtartflyingtart
    Yes, best of luck with it!
  • dorothyddorothyd
    to make it worse... I wrote a teen love story spanning hundreds of years, which the editor at Bodley Head said I couldn't do and I did, they paid me a development fee for it, bit of work here and there, and then dropped it. I had it assessed by Cornerstones, who found it needed this and that (good comments, as it happens) and that is now up for sale. I hope.

    The (missing) book, Man Of Her Dream, bothered me, it has been so completely wiped out of my mind. But then it was pointed out to me that I wrote it in 1994, when my marriage folded. Could have been that which did it.
  • CarolCarol
    Good luck with all these works Dorothy.
  • MutleyMutley
    WHat a strange feeling that must have been Dorothy. Good luck finding new homes for them.
  • RosalieRosalie
    Dorothy, what's your teen novel called? I'd love to read it.
  • dorothyddorothyd
    Then Came The Liars, Then Came The Fools, by Anna McLeay
  • JennyJenny
    What a great title!
  • RosalieRosalie
    I agree. Have ordered it on Amazon marketplace.
  • dorothyddorothyd
    it came from Dire Straits' Love Over Gold album, the track Telegraph Road. Mark Knopfler said
    Then came the lawyers, then came the rules
    I heard, Then Came The Liars, Then Came The Fools ...
  • DwightDwight
    Dorothy, I opened your thread all amazed, knowing you from our forum. What? I thought. Dorothy is outing her memories of that crippling shyness that has blighted her life until now.
  • yippee kye yayyippee kye yay
    dorothy i wish you all the luck in the world with the reselling/success of your books
  • VivViv
    Hear hear!
  • dorothyddorothyd
    Dwight

    :D
  • dorothyddorothyd
    it's getting silly. Last night I got so involved in the redrafting/rewriting of a scene in book 3 to be scanned that I answered an email, an important one, and left it in draft ...found it 1 1/2 hours later ... this book came out 9 years ago so we are talking 10 or more years since I wrote it, been and done a lot since then. Forgot it. Very complex, very strange, almost a fantasy but not quite. Interesting. The work is spiralling thoughts in all directions for another novel and perhaps a short story for the US competition which I posted somewhere on the board.
  • RosalieRosalie
    You have lots on the go, Dorothy! Very best of luck with it all. I'm looking forward to reading 'Then Came the Liars, Then Came the Fools'.
  • shellwshellw
    Good luck with finding new homes for your novels xx
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