I feared it would happen. Now that I’m making my own covers and uploading the PDF file, I’m wanting to do more complicated covers. I’m a writer, why am I designing the cover and getting complicated? Because like much of self-publishing, it can be fun. And it’s necessary to get a quality product.
One of the great things about writing full time is that there are so many different things to do on any given day. I’m certainly not bored.
Now, back to the task of representing Milwaukee, Ending Hunger, Connections, and whatever else seems capable of being represented. While making sure that the title of the novel, and the authors, are visible. It’s complicated.
My father died eleven years ago, on a Wednesday like today. I miss him. When I was ten years old, I showed him the first short story that I’d ever written, about a grape turning into a raisin. He shared it with several relatives at my sister’s high school graduation party. He didn’t often single out one of his six children for special praise, but did that day.
My father was a critical man, but hardly ever critical about my writing. I didn’t share a lot of it with him, unless it had a funny twist, since he loved making people laugh. Once I shared a serious piece about breaking 13 acres–where we’d turned it into farmland with lots of work. (There are huge rocks and tree roots that have to be removed–you make a pass of the biggest stuff, then another, then another, then another. I was a teenager at the time and wasn’t involved in the first pass, but all the others.) When I shared a short essay based on that experience, his comment was “I don’t like stories with lots of he said in them.” (I believe I left the identity of the people vague.) Years later, he said out of the blue, “Remember that piece you wrote about the 13 acres? I get what you were doing and it was great.”
I now own that 13 acres. I will never be a farmer, but I just couldn’t let that land go out of the family.
It’s been raining a lot in Illinois this April, but at least the grass is green. And it’s good weather for staying inside and working on editing. I have “The Shortest Route” almost ready to go. Barry is reading it, looking for typos before I print a copy to see if the cover looks right. I finally got a pdf cover that doesn’t have an error message. Turns out I need to delete the base layer–the one that shows the location of ISBN and where the spine is, not just hide it. It makes Barry nervous to delete the base layer–he likened it to removing the base directory on a computer. I assured him it’s not the same thing. Sure hope not, poof, the whole cover disconnects from anything else. That wouldn’t be good.
I’m also working on “Sticky Note Empire.” The year without working in an office has decreased a little my need to rant about certain aspects of software development. Probably not enough, however. I’m trying to cut anything that doesn’t advance the story, which wasn’t just the work stuff. There were a couple of nice scenes with local color, like the Fox Valley Music festival that took way too much time to show stuff. There are times when telling is appropriate. Especially when my novel was 130,000 words. It’s now down to 115,000. I’m hoping to cut another 15K or more if I can. And if that requires summarizing some stuff that I showed very well, so be it. There are times when it’s better not to show the details.
Rather like how no one really wants the details of another cold, wet day. But at least the grass is green.
I’ve struggled with how to give a character a particular tone of voice in a way that doesn’t cause a reader to go back and reread the line with the new tone of voice, like when it comes after as in:
“Why are you asking me this now?” Her voice rose to the high range of a soprano.
But if I switch it around, then it’s not the right POV, since another character wouldn’t know that her voice had risen until she says something.
I may have figured it out. Only use tone, or voice descriptions, between two lines of dialogue. As in:
“Why are you asking?” Her voice rose to the high range of a soprano. “Why now?”
That might just work. I’ll see.