Ghosts of Covers Past

I expect to post the cover and description for my next book soon. Some authors like to create a lot of hype and fanfare around a cover reveal. I’m not going to do that. I know that anyone who gets excited about seeing one of my covers will likely be disappointed. Let’s be clear that I’m only talking about the cover here. We should all definitely be getting excited about the book itself. The story will be wonderful. I promise.

But the cover…

I decided that the best way to keep expectations in check (as well as the best way to embarrass myself) would be to show off exactly how bad the cover could have been. Since I never delete anything I was able to go trolling through the digital wasteland of covers past to pull out some examples of covers that did not make the cut. These are the rejects, the covers that I created on the way to… something else.

The first thing I did was find the very first cover I ever made. Here it is.  Finding this cover made me very sad. There’s no question that it’s terrible. But what I eventually chose for the print version of Dear Jane Letters is no better. That’s what makes me sad. In fact, I’ve come to dislike that cover so much that I almost wish I’d have gone with this one.

I found this interesting picture in the folder for Zero Station.  I say it’s interesting because I don’t even remember creating this. I have no idea where I was going with the concept. It looks like a sound wave and there are some communication themes but… where was I going to put the title? Is there any chance that’s actually a capture of me saying the book’s title? I don’t know.

I found more bad examples for the next few books but let’s skip ahead a bit. I don’t have an amusingly bad cover for The 4th Floor Lounge to show off but I did find something in that book’s folder that made me laugh. I use this brilliant naming convention where each concept along the way is saved as cover1, cover2 and so on. Usually the file I upload with a book ends up being something around cover8 or cover9. While I didn’t have nearly that many tries, the final cover for The 4th Floor Lounge was saved as cover240. I’m thinking I was pretty frustrated at that point.

I was late putting together a cover for Meet Cute: 5 Romantic Short Stories. I needed to print up a few books to pass out for editing and feedback and used a placeholder cover. When I unveiled the first attempt at a background people said the boring one was better. Aren’t I lucky to be surrounded by friends willing to offer such ruthless honesty? In this case, I was too stubborn to listen. I only toned down the image for the final.

I wrote about my trial and error process while I was working on the Hartford covers and since I specifically mentioned the one that gave certain people the wrong idea aboutJealousy & Yams, I have to show that reject here. That’s boiling water, people. Not soap. Not that it makes a difference.

And last we have this almost cover for Collecting Zebras. If you compare, you’ll see this is very close to the actual cover except for one significant difference. I forgot how close I came to naming that book My Last Zebra. The title was a last minute change. Was that a good call?

I don’t think we can say that each of my book covers is necessarily better than the last one but I think we can see improvement from beginning to end. And probably some improvement within the pages as well. I hope people I know and people who read my books will continue to tell me what they like and don’t like. I’m always open to feedback. I’m stubborn but still willing to learn.

Thanks for coming with me on this trip down What Was I Thinking Lane. I’m going to hide now while you all stop laughing.

A Work in Progress

Things I am NOT ready to reveal about my next book:

The title. This book has had several working titles and I am not excited about any of them. I’m hoping for inspiration soon.

The cover. With every book I write, there comes a point in the project when I think to myself something like, “Oh, crap. This one’s going to need a cover, too.” I know all books need covers but I’m only thinking about the story when I start one. Eventually, I have to let myself think about the work. And covers are work.

The blurb. I have a first draft description of the book, which is earlier than I usually achieve this step. But I’m hoping for feedback from test readers before I commit to the current text.

The release date. I’m guessing August but that’s tentative.

Things I AM ready to reveal about my next book:

The subtitle. This book will be the first of four in a series called Coffee and Donuts.

The heroine. The story is told in first person by Alexa Fenley. Alexa was not raised in the church, and I believe that makes her my first convert. She is at times far braver than I would be.

The guy. No surprise there’s a guy. It is a love story after all. Oh wait, that’s not a surprise either.

Four random quotes. The following are out-of-context things that Alexa says in the book.

“I’m not a squealer. There are a lot of secret thoughts jumping around in my head right now but none of them have to do with how pretty those animals are.”

“I only decided you might not be an ax murderer.”

“These hallways are confusing. I thought I could find my way faster if I just walked around the building.”

“You get to ask me my favorite leaf but what you do for lunch is too boring?”

A Book I'm NOT Going to Write

It happened. For a lot of reasons that mostly boiled down to wishful thinking, I didn’t think it would ever happen to me.

I didn’t believe it when I got the summons. I didn’t believe it when I called the number provided and learned that I was just inside the cutoff of people who actually had to show up. I didn’t believe it when I sat in the room of nearly two hundred people and was told that only two trials needed juries. I started to believe it when I was the last person seated on the second jury.

And you better believe there was a whole truckload of internal grumbling about it.

I know. It’s very un-American of me to be annoyed at the inconvenience of dropping everything else (and figuring out how it would get picked up) for the three days I had to be at the courthouse, not knowing each day if I would need to be there the next. I talked to some family about the events later – when it was legal for me to do so – and I conceded that it was at least somewhat interesting to have this new experience.

That’s when the teasing began. Everyone said that now that I knew what jury duty was like, that was how the characters were going to meet in my next book. There were ridiculous jokes about passing love notes in the jury box and that #4 would forever be someone’s pet name. The word sequester was laced with so much innuendo I may never again be able to hear it without sexual undertones. (Thanks for that, guys.) One of my sisters defended me by saying that I would ignore those suggestions because I write cute books. Though she doesn’t use cute as a compliment.

Once the talk died down my mind went where it always goes, to the happy place where I’m telling myself a story. I had to at least consider the courthouse. People could meet there.

The story immediately took a dark turn. I envisioned that the juror fell not for another juror but for the defendant. She planted a bomb in the courtroom and it somehow took out everyone except herself and the object of her affection because that’s how that sort of thing usually goes down in fiction. They went on a wild run from the law. I thought it best to try to work it so that the reader wouldn’t know until the very end whether the defendant was a guilty man pleased with his escape or an innocent man playing along because he was terrified of the psycho juror.

But I’m not going to write that book (and not because it’s probably been done a few dozen times) or several other ideas that I’ve thrown out since. I have more ideas than I have time to write so I only start on the projects that interest me the most. Unfortunately for some people, those are usually the cutest ideas. I spend a lot of time with my characters and I need to enjoy their company. I would not enjoy spending months trying to get inside the head of someone willing to commit murder. I don’t think I’d even enjoy the few hours it would take to read it.

I plan to continue to write books where people only die of natural causes, if they die at all, and no one has to set foot in a courtroom for any reason. I’ve been to the courthouse and no matter how you use the word, cute just doesn’t describe it.