I'm not revealing anything.

I don’t understand cover reveals.  I mean, I do but I don’t.  We can’t judge anything by its cover, right?  The cliché can be applied to everything from people to presents to the Millenium Falcon.  (She’s got it where it counts.) But it most aptly applies to books and their literal covers. 

I’ve seen authors do countdowns (In 12 days, you can look at a picture!) and even try to turn the first peek at a cover into some sort of event (The first 100 people to look at the picture get entered into a drawing to win a bar of soap!!).  I’m not sure the cover is something to try to get readers excited about.  Aside from the fact that viewing a jpg is not an event, a picture is an art form completely different from a story.  The people who like the cover may not be the same people who like the story.  Plus, most authors don’t make their own covers so it feels a little like suggesting someone else’s skills might make your work good. 

On the other hand, creating a cover is a necessary step in creating a book, one that still sneaks up on me every time.  What!? I need to make another cover.  <grumble>  I know that cover reveals are mostly about saying the book is one frustrating step closer to being available to read.  That is something to get excited about.

I’m not revealing anything, but you might notice a new cover if you look around.  In fact, depending on how often you stop by, you might notice more than one.  Because I make my own covers, I can say with authority that the other ten or twelve versions of flowers and a pizza box were not as pretty as this one.  That feels like appropriately lackluster fanfare.  The cover may not look like much if you like a funny love story, but the book has funny and love where it counts.  I hope you’ll agree.

And if you’re looking at the wrong new cover, you’re probably confused about why I mentioned flowers and a pizza box.  An interesting note about the Heart Games covers is that they have puzzles similar to the puzzles on the inside.  You might actually get an idea whether or not you’d like those books based on your reaction to the cover.  It’s like they are trying to negate everything I just said.

The Pope said you should read my books.

Maybe.

Of course we all know the Pope has never heard of me or my books.  But when I first heard that he released a letter encouraging everyone to read more literature,  I thought it could be fun to write something pretending* the Bishop of Rome indirectly endorsed my work.  Studying his letter made me want to define some terms.

Fiction – Anything that is made up.  You know that disclaimer at the beginning of a book that tells you it’s the “product of the author’s imagination?”  That means it’s fiction.

Novel – A work of fiction long enough that it cannot or should not** be finished in one sitting and that is written for the primary purpose of entertainment.

Literature – A written work someone reads because he or she feels it is important.  Examples of good reasons to deem something important include wanting a good grade, to learn about a foreign or past culture, to exercise spiritual growth, and to understand how to rewire something without electrocuting oneself.  Examples of bad reasons to deem something important include wanting to feel superior to those who haven’t read it, when people you don’t know or respect have said it’s important, and wanting to laugh at how someone else is putting something together without actually helping that person do it correctly.

Reading – Enjoying a work of fiction or literature; they are not mutually exclusive.

Reading – Processing the words of fiction or literature.  There is a difference between reading for pleasure and reading for knowledge.  We should really call the latter studying.  You study a work when you approach it as important literature, which could end up having a positive or negative effect.  People regularly sit down to read something they end up studying or otherwise not enjoying.  Conversely, people can end up reading something they intended to simply study.  This is an example of unexpected joy. 

The Pope’s letter confused me by using the first three and last two terms interchangeably.   A line from his letter states, “There is nothing more counterproductive than reading something out of a sense of duty, making considerable effort simply because others have said it is essential.”  There are good reasons to make the effort to read (as in study) a work, but entertainment is the only reason to read.  He also says that, “Literature is often considered merely a form of entertainment…”

And now I need to add a few more definitions.

Entertainment – Rest for the brain, an essential part of a healthy physical, mental, and spiritual life.  There is nothing merely about it. 

This Post – What happens when I try to write something entertaining when I’m cranky. 

Cranky – A state of being brought on by other people not thinking exactly the super weird way you think.

Super Weird – Actually totally normal now that I’ve explained it.

Entertainment is important.  Therefore, a novel is literature to anyone who finds it entertaining.  But if you read one of my books only because the Pope said to read literature, then that will be counterproductive to entertainment.  Unless it becomes an example of an unexpected joy, and that is something we should all try to find.  Now who’s cranky?*** 

 

* Because I write novels, not literature.

** Because people need to eat and sleep, and if you read 300 pages in two hours you’ve probably missed something, like the point of slowing down to read.

*** No one.  We’re all super weird together.

Even the Hard Part was Fun

I had a ridiculous amount of fun creating stories and puzzles for the new series I’m launching this week.  Yeah, my escape room romance mashup is now a series.  That’s how much fun I had.  My playtesters pointed out lots of things I needed to improve or clarify, and it was intriguing to see how things I thought were obvious were interpreted differently by different people.  I greatly appreciated the feedback.  I appreciated a lot less the “help” I got from Word when I tried to turn everything into a nice, neat book.  This is a brief excerpt of a conversation that went on for several days.

Me: Why is it not an option to put page numbers on the outside of mirror margins?  I know I’ve done that before.

Word: That is so last version.  We do odd and even footers now.  It totally gives you more options, and therefore power.

Me: I don’t want power.  I want simplicity.  And now that I did the odd/even thing, there’s a page number on this page where I already removed the page number.  What happened?

Word: I relinked it to the next section when you changed the alignment in that section.  Isn’t that what you wanted?

Me: No!  I turned that off.  Are you ignoring my power?  Why is link to previous even the default?  Why would I make a new section if I wanted it to be the same?

Word: I moved an object in one of your puzzles two inches to the right.  I know it’s not connected in any way to the page numbers, and now it no longer lines up with the rest of the puzzle.  I think you wanted me to do that.

Me: Why? 

Word: Did you notice the arrow?  When you clicked save, I guessed you were telling me you wanted that arrow to point at something else.

Me: Don’t make me reach through the screen and pull you out of my computer.

Word: I relinked sections four – seven again.  Also, I know you said to apply the margins to the whole document, but you need to tell me that for all eleven sections or I don’t think you mean it.

Me: What does whole document mean to you?

Word: I just added a blank page somewhere in this document.  It won’t show up until you turn it into a pdf.

Me: Why did you do that?

Word: It’s fun.  Everyone likes surprises.

Me: There are four blank pages.  And somehow only one of them is included in the page numbering.  This is not a good surprise.  What did you do?

Word: I moved that arrow for you again.

Me: I’m going to ignore that until I get these page numbers chronological.  Then we’re going to talk about how you keep moving stuff for no reason.

Word: I can’t handle all this negativity.  <crash>