Hello there, I am Susan G the author of four of the novels on this site and I thought some of you may be interested to read a little about how I got into this writing game. I guess it all started some years ago when I was a member of a forum that ran a 'short story' writing competition. The prize was a book that I had my eye on, so with nothing to loose, I got scribbling. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing experience so as soon as I'd submitted my entry I started writing more short stories just for fun. Well, I never won the competition, but my imagination had been fired, so I kept on writing. Very soon I had lots of ideas and a with rush of enthusiasm I organized my thoughts and decided to stop the short stories and plump for a full length novel. My first attempt was about a young lad who was forced to take part in a jewellery heist. Lots of things went wrong, including the accidental killing of a security guard. In their attempt to escape capture the robbers dragged the lad along with them to their remote, secret hideout. In the end, the police captured the gang but no-one believed the lad was an innocent victim. He went to prison convicted not only of taking part in the burglary but of being part of the murder too. He couldn't take the misery of it all and killed himself by leaping off the tallest building in the compound, the kitchen block. The prison guards who rushed to his body found a cryptic note in his pocket addressed to his girlfriend. It expressed his sorrow, his love for her and also let her know where some of the jewels had been hidden back at the secret hideout. That book was my learning curve and after getting advice from a literary consultancy and from various publishing agents , I realized that I hadn't done enough research for my plot and that some points, especially the legal side, just didn't ring true. I knew that my best course of action was to abandon the book and start anew. I began to write Opaque , and at the same time I attended as many workshops and any talks by authors and publishers that I could so that I could learn more and perfect my craft. Once the book was completed I sent off the first few chapters to various agents for their appraisal, and hopefully acceptance. I received favourable reviews back from many of the agents, but they always said they could not take it on for publication for one reason or another. It seems as if mainstream houses are unable to take on many new authors and so have to be so selective in their choices, i.e. they only take on one or two people a year. This does mean a lot of worthy books just don't get the chance to be seen by the masses. It takes a lot of time and effort to write a book, and for me it takes a couple of years fom the start of the writing, through the constant checking and reviewing and reviewing again to make it perfect before it is complete. I have recently started on novel 5 and as I look back I know it has taken me a long time to get my work into print, but finally abook2read is publishing my novels as ebooks YIPPIE!! I am very happy to be able to share my imagination and creativity with you all. I hope you like my stories. Happy reading!! Susan G