Duck and Cover ~ Time Before the Wolf

     I was mulling over what kind of cover I should try for my new book (still needs works, should be published in a few weeks), when suddenly, in the middle of the night I woke up with an image. The very next morning i was playing around with some art to make it come out. It defiantly needs work, but I got the rough draft finish. Here you go:

     I had to draw it by hand first, and then, like before, I redrew it into Paint and worked it out from there. The cover is meant to capture the many different aspects of the book, which it does. Although, according to my sister, the caravan going into the city looks like camel dung and the bird (the little blue speck to the just right of the sword) looked like a water oasis. Because of that, I'm going to have to have touch-ups. Here's what it looked like before color:

     What do you think? I thought, "Very snazzy", especially since this was the third day I started using the Paint program on my laptop...I didn't upload it sooner because I kept uploading other things, and I'm trying to make only one blog a day....it's sorta working out.
     Onto the next topic of discussion; my second picture for TBW (Time Before the Wolf). Please, be merciful, I can hardly doodle, especially people...Here's the original:

    After staring at this for a while, I turned to my sister and asked what looked so wrong about it. Then I realized, "Oh, legs don't bend that way!", Here's the colored version:

     This is the main character in the story, C'ylirs Kaleng, or as she;s better known, "Piper". So, I showed my sister this picture, and this is what she did to it:

     She really loves abstract and surreal art, so that's why the moon turned into a lyre and the smoke grew eyes. We finally settled with this:

     We removed the moon and shrunk the window. Which do you think is the best? What kind of pictures would you like to see for my other book, The Fox and the Flute?

The Fox and the Flute

      I think I was about eleven or so old when I woke up from a very bizarre dream (actually, it happens a lot). At the time I thought it was a great story idea, but I didn't know what to do with it, so I put it aside. Now some years later, I was sitting in school, dazing out when the memory of it came rushing back. I had already finished my first two stories, both which were so poorly written I can't bring myself to publish them, and I wanted to start my third. After all they say practice makes perfect. And just to make sure I was prepared to write better, I studied the writing of contemporary authors and studied story building.

     This is how the dream went: I was a clerk in a really messy trinket store, working beside a rabbit organizing things. When all the sudden a fox in a suit came in and grabbed a trinket that produced money and tried to run away. Infuriated, I chased after it. But the moment I stepped outside I woke up.
For some reason that became the inspiration for this book.
     Anyway, the story starts in a fantasy world where the main character is a contract writer who was placed under house arrest. When all the sudden her life is disrupted by a fox in a suit who steals from the her grandmother's shop (where she's working) and runs off. Along with her guardian, she goes chasing down the fox. Later, she's joined by several other fun characters and the quest takes her on an adventure in foreign lands with crazy things happening. The motto for the story was originally "a dream with a drop of reality".
     I included a map with the book and it looks something like this:

My First Book

      It took me a long time, a lot more effort than I thought I could give, and mostly, it took patience I really don't have. Alas, I have finally been published! After finishing the rough draft just barely on my deadline on the past Easter, I thought I got over the hard part. But no, life has more surprises. Day after day, I have been correcting and editing until I couldn't take it anymore and looked to Smashwords to get published. But as a just-in-case preparation, I read Mark Coker's Style Guide, and boy was that helpful.
     To get published I had to re-format the entire manuscript! About to give up, I went and read the guide three times and gave it a try. Well, I finished, but then I realized, "Ah, what about a cover?" So I went and looked at the pricing for cover-designing people and fell out of my chair. All I could think was "Sheez, what do I do? I can sculpt a little and make pretty things, but jeez, a cover? And everyone's gonna see it too..."
Finally, I looked all over the internet, studied covers of books I owned and some on Google Images (^_^), and finally came up with a design. Excited about what took my four or so hours of striaght-no-breaking-taking drawing, I put it in the print, trying to scan. Kamput, my printer died. Officially died. I would give it a proper burial, but it was so cheap, cruddy, and a pain in the butt I settled for tossing it in the trash. So, no scanning. Fine then! I stole my mother's mouse (since I use a laptop, I usually use the flat-pad thingy) and clicked on paint. Now before you lies hours more of "click, click" paint!
     Long story short, please check out my fantasy story, The Fox and the Flute! In next blog I'll tell you more about the story! Here's the link to Smashwords: The Fox and the Flute