Author: Lisa

Cover Art

/ Lisa / 6 Comments

I’m not an artist, in spite of my brother once telling me I painted with words. That was the kind way of saying that attempts at drawing sucked. I even bought a book on how to draw with pencil. I mean, if I can write with a pencil surely I could draw with one. Right? That ended up being an excuse to buy some nice pencils and cool leather-bound books with parchment to hold all the drawings. Nothing was unrecognizable. And I followed the directions!

Added to the lack of drawing ability, I also am terrible at colors. No clue what goes together. When it was time to paint our house the only reason it came out good is that I got one of those little paint booklets that tell you what colors to put together. Since our house was built in 1928 I went with the ‘Historic Collection’.

With that background, you’ll understand my frustration with book covers. I have a wonderful cover artist, but she can’t read minds, unfortunately. For the upcoming Ghost Roads, I knew I wanted to hint at the mystery, I knew I wanted to tell a story, and I knew I wanted something to grab the eye. Using story elements from the book, I asked the cover artist to put a forest service road going up into woods that were on fire, with a skull or bones in the road, and a feminine shadow overlying the bones.

The theory was good.

I got the rough draft last week. I loved the way she did the fire. Everything else? Not so much. And it’s taking me a long time to figure out why, so I can tell the artist and not waste her time. I doubt she’ll appreciate things like ‘Oh, I don’t know. Something’s not quite right.’ Or ‘Could you maybe start all over?’ Or even, ‘You did what I asked for but now I don’t want it anymore’.

To avoid being fired by my cover artist, I have struggled to figure out what I don’t like about the artwork. And I’ve come up with this.

A cover should be a short story, not a novel.

I believe I’ve put too many elements into the cover. As my editor, author Susan Schreyer said, the eye doesn’t know where to look. As my publicist who’s building my website said, ‘Hey, a Nancy Drew!’ And trust me, he wasn’t saying that in a complimentary fashion. He was laughing pretty hard, actually.

I also wasn’t wild about the fonts used. My publicist thought, ‘Nancy Drew’. I went more with ‘Scooby Doo’.

I’ve responded finally to the cover artist, who was getting worried by the internet silence. After she has done all this work doing exactly what I asked for, I’m now asking her to shift it all around and remove some elements.

The thing is, I still don’t know if what I’m asking for is the right thing. After all, my idea of painting is paint-by-number. Or tracing. I can trace.

Anyway, the changes should hopefully be a short story and we’ll see how version two goes. Oh, and I did offer to pay her more since I’m being a problem customer.

What are your thoughts?

First attempt at Ghost Roads cover.

First attempt at Ghost Roads cover.

The Big ‘Why’?

/ Lisa / 3 Comments

Typically I have no problems coming up with story ideas. And typically the question ‘what if’ sends me gleefully off to the writing space.

With book three waiting only on cover art, two manuscripts that need heavy revising, a stand-alone story just starting the first draft process, and a current editing job, I am busy with words. Yet I need to start book four and this time I only have a glimmer of an idea, which is a first for me. Another first is that I’ve tried out some ideas, floating them to my editor and friend, author Susan Schreyer, who has very kindly given me feedback. Most aren’t going to work. I’m not surprised because even as I was telling her my ideas I felt no bubble of excitement. You know, that urge to rush gleefully to your writing space. Instead I shuffle around and look for dirty laundry, dirty dishes, or as an extreme last resort, dust bunnies.

You know how it is when you try too hard to pin an idea down, and it squirts out from under the pin and jets away? That’s how this current idea is acting. And instead of the ‘what if’ question that has always, in the past, spurred me on, I’m finding the following word taking up a lot of space in the writing brain.

Why?

I’m trying to figure out why someone would deface or vandalize a memorial to a group of miners who died in a mine fire. I’m looking for a deeply personal reason that will tie past to present, and goes beyond the simple act of protesting what either the memorial stands for or the mining business.

If I can figure out who would do that act, I’ll have my reason. But then I pause and think, well, if I have the reason then I’ll have the character. I’m currently stuck in the loop – if I find out this then I’ll have that, but I need that to find out this.

Probably what needs to happen is that I stop talking, stop worrying, work on the other writing projects, and let this idea ‘daydream’ its way through my subconscious. A walk in the woods, where I can just let thoughts go and let that inner writer wander as well, will also help.

In the meantime though, I’m wondering, why?

The following photo, from wikicommons, is of the Sunshine Memorial, near Kellogg, Idaho. The miner is surrounded by ninety-one miniature headstones, each with the name of a miner who died in the mining disaster of 1972. I was down in the Sunshine mine just a few years after this fire and have a healthy respect for anyone who can do that job.

A Sunshine miner

A Sunshine miner

Markers of Age

/ Lisa / 6 Comments

What are the little realities in life that make you suddenly pause and think ‘how can this be?’ (with a slightly panicked tone of voice)?

What little clues rear up and bite you in the rear when you’re not looking, that make you whip around in shock, thinking, rather hysterically, ‘hey now!’?

Let’s list them, shall we?

When your little sister is older than you and you don’t know how that happened.

When your baby comes home for a visit. Think about that a moment. And then, when you ask your husband if he has any cash so you can get a coffee to keep you awake for a work meeting, and your son pulls out his wallet. It’s just SO wrong when your child gives you money instead of the other way around.

And let’s not even talk about gray hair. Well, okay, let’s talk about that by gloating first and saying that both older and younger siblings as well as friends, have had gray hair a long time. At least it happened to them first. And if you’re reading this, neener, neener.

Then there’s the little things.

Realizing that you’d rather go to bed when it gets dark than stay up all night debating what’s wrong with the world and making plans to save it.

Learning, way too late in life, to say what you mean, speak up for yourself, be blunt, be honest, and no longer care what others think. If only that wisdom could have been in my brain during the tortured high school years.

Realizing that you have friends who have been best friends for longer than you ever would have dreamed when you first met them. Over forty years now that I think about it, which blows me away because in my brain we’re still in our twenties.

And speaking of that, the weird dichotomy of your brain convinced you’re considerably younger than the calendar says.

Outliving your parents and realizing you’re never too old to be an orphan, and how wrong that is.

When the doctor says specific, humiliating physicals are needed because you’re now at ‘that age’.

Or, if you have a doctor with a sense of humor, like I do, tells me that out of the Celtic female trilogy, I’ve flown past ‘maiden’ and ‘mother’, and am now a ‘crone’. I told him I prefer ‘wise woman’. He laughed.

When you read obituaries and see the deaths of those in their seventies and eighties and realize those ages are starting to appear on the horizon. Still distant, but starting to peek out at you.

Okay, I’m depressing myself. Think I’ll go borrow some money from the kid and figure out something to do that will embarrass him.

That’s the flip side. The ability to throw off society’s expectations and do whatever you want, knowing people will whisper ‘poor thing, must be getting senile’ and that they’ll be too polite to make you stop.

Hmmm. This could be fun.