My Writer's Journey: Serial Stories and New Ideas

I have this bad habit of making my life more complicated.

First, take a look at this sweetheart.  I agreed to foster him over Labor Day Weekend, but he's made himself so at home, he's still here and we might keep him permanently.  The cat is not happy, but the kids sure are.  Frankly, she's not happy about Toby, who still thinks she should play with him and does not understand hiss-slap-on-the-nose.

I'm wrapping up the details of the charity fundraiser for the victims of the Colorado Fires.  Someone mentioend to me that the Red Cross will not dedicate donations, but put them in a common pot.  I need to check on this and if that's true, then I'll find a different charity to give the money to.  In the meantime, I've mailed off six books to the folks who donated $25 or more, and am working on a cover so I can send them the novella that I ran in serial.

Speaking of novella, I saw a post on Facebook from Sarah-Jane Lehoux that she was trying something new--pre-made book covers for $30 each.  You'd give her the text to put in, and she'd customize the cover and give it to you, all rights.  I thought it was clever and went to check them out and saw the most awesome cover for a DragonEye novella.

I'd been toying with the idea of self-publishing the novellas on Kindle, and this cover has pushed me over the edge.  As you can see, I bought it.  Now I need to figure the rest out.  Don't know if the rest are sold, but you can check them out at http://sarah-janelehoux.blogspot.ca/2012/09/30-premade-covers.html

So, who wants to read about Vern taking on Neo-Nazi cultists?

My Novel's Journey: Mind Over Mind cover art

I had a blog post written for today, but it was whiny and I debated using it. Then Gwen Gades, publisher of DragonMoon Books, made the decision for me by sending me the awesome cover of awesome!

Behold...MIND over MIND!

(Note: back cover blurb not added yet, but Gwen said I could post.)

Charles Bernard (www.onlineartacademy.com) does cover art for the big traditionals, too, so this is the one cover I had little say in. Rather, he came up with four concept sketches and I was allowed input on which I liked best and to make MINIMAL change suggestions. All of them were so amazing that I got chills, but I kept coming back to this one. I love the impact it has and the expression on Deryl's face and how he's stuck between two worlds, neither of which is very appealing. (That's a mental institution in the background.) Also, it had the fewest conflicts with the worldbuilding aspects (most of which we'll see in the next book, Mind over Psyche.) Fortunately, the folks at DragonMoon agreed with me.

Got a not-so-secret secret to share. A week or so ago, I went back to the website where the concept sketches were, just wanting to geek out again, and I found that he'd replaced them with color renditions of the cover and the lettering. I flipped--it was so good. I showed it to my kids and husband only, and we discussed which lettering we liked best, etc. None, however, were the lettering you see here, and this lettering has so much more impact.

The back cover blurb, etc. are still to come, and I'll be sure to post. However, let me just say that once again, I hit the jackpot with covers. Thanks Charles and Gwen!

Conventions and Cover art

The Catholic Writers Conference Online was a spectacular success! We had 283 attendees, 48 one-hour chat presentations, 12 week-long forum workshops, 37 pitches given to six publishers and more kudos than I counted. Here's what some folks said:

This is a great conference. It's easy to navigate and your detailed instructions are the best. The downloadable handouts and docs are so easy also. The workshops I've been in are packed with such useful information. I give it an A+.
---Karen Coiff

Great job to all who put this together. The exposure to fellow writers and pros in the field has been immensely positive and helpful to me! I've been amazed at the wealth of information and knowledge available. And to think I didn't have to leave my home! I look forward to next time. Thank you so very much and may God bless you all.
---Katherine Shine

Congratulations on this year's conference. I thought it was very well done. A lot of worthwhile information. You are providing a wonderful service for many, many people.
---Jackie Lindsey, Our Sunday Visitor

We're already hard at work on the Catholic Writers Conference--Live! set for August 5-7. The 2010 CWCO will be Feb 22-27.

Roe has sent the cover sketch for Magic, Mensa and Mayhem! Isn't it a hoot?


I'm still not totally happy with Vern's face, but I think it's the angle more than anything. Roe certainly listened to my concerns about Coyote-what a difference! He's inking now. I'm dying to see the finished product! The back will have an endorsement from Jody Lynn Nye and a quip from the Publisher's Weekly review. (More on that later; publisher asked me to hold it until late Feb.)

Fun Working with a Cover Artist

I've said it before and I'll say it again: one great thing about working with a small press is getting to work with the cover artist.

Roe has already considered my suggestions and come back with the next iteration of Vern. I love it. I feel like he's caught the fun side of Vern's personality, which, really, Vern has just been discovering himself.



The only thing I still didn't like are the eyes. In part, I'm not thrilled with the "googly" factor (the circle and lines surrounding the eyeball), but more than that, I've made a big point in Live and Let Fly that Vern has 270 degree vision because of the position of his eyes--but that he can only see directly in front of him because of magic. In Live and Let Fly, as his magic drains, he starts going blind in front of his nose.

I'd already sent Roe some links to illustrations of the eyes I was thinking of, so to make sure he understood what I meant, this time, I decided to draw them myself.


As you can see, I traced over his sketches and made my changes. I'm a good tracer. :) I know he'll make it look terrific.

Someone asked me about the style we'd chosen, and why we didn't go for something more grand. We deliberately chose a cartoony/caricature style because it best suits the tone of the book. I spent an hour in the bookstore looking at the different cover styles and deciding what they said to me. Even the painting-style covers of books I knew were humorous did not say "slapstick," and they tended to blend in with the high fantasy or even get pushed out of the limelight. However, these covers stand out:



Myth, Inc. by Robert Asprin (RIP) and Jody Lynn Nye are similar in tone to Magic, Mensa and Mayhem and Phil Foglio's covers reflect the book perfectly. I wanted the same for MM&M. In fact, if I'd thought I had a chance at getting Foglio, I'd have jumped, but I'm glad I got Roe Mesquita. He's great to work with.

Picking Book Covers!

One of the joys of working with independent presses is that they often give the author a say in their book covers.

Book covers are very important. You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but an attractive cover that reflects the theme of the book will draw readers. In the bookstore, that will get a book off the shelf and into someone's hands--and from there, you the author can sell the story. Now, this is my educated opinion, but it's been corroborated by authors with more experience than me and some case studies. Here's a series of articles on book covers by Laura Resnick, and an abstract asserting that the reputation of the author (in the case of technical books), reputation of the publisher and the attractiveness of the cover influence readers.

Rob and I have been fortunate that we have worked with publishers who listen to us. the eye-catching cover of Infinite Space, Infinite God was a last-minute decision when the more complex cover just didn't work out. (It would have made a gorgeous print, but didn't work as a cover.) Leaps of Faith started out with a ship entering a space station. Unfortunately, the station looked like a giant PacMan brain to me and I had visions of Monty Python for some reason. I let Cynthia know, and she made some simple changes--using a planet instead of a station--and the cover is very eye-catching.

Dindy at Swimming Kangaroo is letting me take an even closer hand with the cover of Magic, Mensa and Mayhem. She has given me a list of four very talented illustrators to choose from. they are all terrific; so much so that none stood out and screamed "I'm Vern's illustrator!" I spent most of the weekend poring over their art, looking at their websites, consulting with my artist daughter and with Rob. I narrowed it down to two and sheepishly sent Dindy a note with my thoughts. I concluded with the wish that the two I chose would Vern in the style we were thinking of. I really didn't expect that she'd then take that request to them, but later that day, she asked me to send her a description of Vern for the two authors to try out.

So the exciting process continues!

Magic, Mensa and Mayhem comes out March 1, BTW. I can hardly wait!

BTW--here are the finalists I chose:

Brian England
http://www.eiotech.com/html/color/portfolio1.html

Megan Stringfellow
http://stringfellowart.net/wordpress/