From Cover Idea to a Published Story: All the Beautiful Things is a new novella that took time to write

 

 

We authors have different ways of formulating ideas for the books we choose to write. Sometimes we’ll have the idea for the story from beginning to end, an idea for a story based on something we read or dreamed about, or we’ll overhear something that sparks an idea for a story.

 

Or, we’ll get the image of a book cover in our head!

 

That’s exactly what happened with my most recent book, a psychological horror novella called All the Beautiful Things, just released by PsychoToxin Press. Getting the idea for the cover of the book grabbed my curiosity. If you’re curious, the actual cover of the book is pretty much what I saw in my own head! It was that cover, with my name on it, that got me thinking: Exactly what kind of book IS that??

 

It took me a while to find out. In fact, a VERY long while!

 

Sometime after that cover popped into my head, a scene with two characters was next! In the scene, there was a man and a pregnant woman. The man threatened to kill her if she ever ran away from him. He threatened to kill her, cut out the baby, then kill it too. The woman told him he would never get to see the baby. Her baby would live and she would name him QL. The man started mocking that name, saying it was a stupid name and making up fake names that “QL” stood for.

 

The story I ended up writing, though, didn’t include the man and woman. The story was about QL. I was so taken by this very interesting character that baby grew up to be. I got snatches of what QL’s childhood was like as well as his adult years. I also got that he was fixated on his neighbor, Danielle.

 

This all came to me in bits and pieces. At one point, I tried sitting down to write the story, but I could only manage one chapter. Everything else was closed off. So I put it away and went on to write other things and do other things. I just lived life while I waited until I had the whole story.

 

Years later, I came across that chapter again. By then, QL had been stored in the back of my mind, living out his story in my head.

 

What’s interesting is that after I read that chapter I wrote, the rest of the story came to me and I started the next chapter and the next. I didn’t stop writing it until I had the whole story written down.

 

And that is how I managed to finally write the novella now known as All the Beautiful Things. At the time, I felt the story was complete. It was rejected by several publishers. I remembered reading about a publishing company called PsychoToxin Press in the Horror Tree newsletter, so I decided to submit my novella to them. It was accepted last year and now, finally, the cover of the book that popped into my head one day is now the cover of an actual book, which I wrote! Yes, it took me a long time to get this story written and longer to find a publisher for the book, but I’m happy with how it all worked out.

 

I believe that things happen when they are supposed to happen. In an article I read in praise of slow writers, "The Virtue of Slow Writers," writer Lauren Alwan mentioned a book which also supports the art of taking time to write things and writes about a book included in the article “The Art of Slow Writing is a manifesto for giving a book the time it needs, for cultivating patience and connection.” I believe that All the Beautiful Things is a story that took the time it needed to grow and piece itself together. Some books get written quickly, but others need more time to be written. This particular book is one of mine which required some time, and I’m happy I gave it the time it needed, because I am satisfied and thrilled with how the story turned out.

 

Thank you to Christopher Pelton of PsychoToxin Press, cover designer Ruth Anna Evans, and formatter Cat Voleur for all of your hard work in getting All the Beautiful Things published as the book that it was meant to be.

 

Here is the blurb:

 

QL likes to collect heads. Not just any heads, mind. The heads of the things he loves. And he likes to keep them all on his special wall of beautiful things, so that even in death, they can still be his forever.

 

QL Buscemi grew up with a hard life. Abandoned at birth, he was raised by his aunt and uncle in an abusive home. That was until his fixation for collecting the heads of dead animals became a problem. Soon he started talking to a voice in his head and acting strangely around other people. Fed up with his issues, his aunt and uncle place him into a home for "special children," despite its reputation for neglecting patients. There, QL encounters even more abuse, neglect and intolerance for his mental health issues, which only get worse since he refuses to take his medication. He finally leaves "the center" after twenty brutal years.

 

Finally free to live on his own at last, a 31-year-old QL becomes infatuated with his pretty neighbor who lives across the street, 20-year-old Danielle Pinota, who is herself finally free of a home where she was a "second mom" to her kid brother. As QL's attachment to Danielle grows, he wants to get to know her better. And keep her close to him forever. But he has to be careful. He always hurts the things he loves. At least if he hurts Danielle from loving her too much, just like he had with his pets, she could still be his forever ... on his wall of beautiful things.

 

 

And here’s the ebook link

 

Print coming soon!

Cover reveal: God's Birds

God’s Birds is a children’s book I am in the process of self-publishing. I wrote this story many years ago and I am happy it is finally the kind of story that I feel it should be. Like my other children’s book, Wolf Whispers, it tackles the subject of grieving the loss of a loved one. Unlike WW, this one is for the bird lover and the birds in this story are not so much about bringing comfort to a person who is grieving but they’re actually a very special kind of bird. They say angels come in many disguises and I believe they can be birds, too!

This story was illustrated by my daughter, Jennifer Wilson, with black and white illustrations. It will be published in early May.

Here is the blurb:

Simon is a little boy who finds a starving bird in the park. He shares his food with the bird and later notices the bird closely keeping an eye on him every day. What Simon doesn’t know is that the bird had been with him all his life, watching over him wherever he went. Simon eventually learns that this is one of God’s very special birds.

 

Cover Reveal: Faded Reflection

Here is the cover for my forthcoming novel, Faded Reflection. It is a romantic suspense story and it will be published by Gypsy Shadow Publishing. Thanks to the people who provided feedback and helped me to decide on a cover! And thank you to Charlotte Holley of GSP for her amazing work in creating this awesome cover!

Here is the blurb for my novel:

Laura Williams takes a chance on Carl Gunderson, and it’s the most fatal mistake of her life. Carl is convinced Laura is the wife that he murdered – or thought he murdered. Apparently, he hadn’t left her for dead after all. Now she’s back in his life – and this time, he will make sure he finishes her off for good.


 
Faded Reflection is COMING SOON from Gypsy Shadow Publishing!

Cover reveal for A Million Doughnuts

Recently, the independent publisher, Great Minds Think Aloud Publishing, offered me a contract for my children's book, A Million Doughnuts. And the cover for this book was created today. Hooray! I am so happy with the cover and thank you to Kitty Bullard for her amazing work in cover design.

Now, I noticed something interesting about this particular cover. Not just that the title appears "doughnut-y." *g* But if you look at the boy's face, you'll notice that one side of his face is a darker color. Sure, you can think "shading" or something some other to explain it away. But for me, that really stood out, because half of my face is a darker color, given that it has burn scars on it! So I thought that was a really special coincidence. I do all the things that I do because I don't want to be one of those burn survivors who "hides away" from the world. Nope! None of that! I'm not ashamed to show my face with the burn scars on it. So, that particular facial difference right there really affected me on a personal level. Just as we need to accept more people who are not "beautiful" and who don' have the same kind of face as everybody else, we need more pictures of people with something similar to a burn survivor, because burn survivors should be SEEN!

Anyway, enough of all that. I am very excited about this book. I got the idea for it from a "doughnut song" that my daughter wrote 2 years ago. We were eating doughnuts for breakfast at a bakery one morning and she just started singing that song. She couldn't get it out of her head! I told her to write the words down and after I read it, I thought it was so cute that I HAD to use it in a story!

I did that very thing several months later. That song stayed in the desk drawer all those months until I finally had the perfect story for it to go into.

So, thank you, Jennifer, for writing this doughnut song and granting me permission to include it in the story.

I will post information about this book and the buy link when the book comes out.

The dummy manuscript

Recently, I submitted a children’s book manuscript to one of my publishers. With the way the manuscript was formatted according to guidelines for children’s books, the manuscript came in at 10 pages. The submission guidelines for this publisher stated that the children’s books they publish must end up being at least 35 pages long. (Wow, the page length for children’s books sure is changing these days! Gotta wonder how long a child would sit still for a looong children’s book.) I wasn’t worried about this page length, though, because, after all, the draft I submitted to my publisher may have been the final draft but it was not the only draft.

Actually, with a manuscript, I can end up having several drafts of that one book. And one particular draft can be the “dummy manuscript,” what I call the draft of how a book end up MIGHT looking like when it is published. This is a draft I put together for my own use, though, not for the editors or publishers.

I create dummy manuscripts because it helps me get a better idea of how the final book will (or should) look. I did this for the children’s book, and it ended up being 65 pages long! It probably won’t be that long, but at least it gave me the reassurance that it will be at least 35 pages long. Also, these “dummy pages” will come in handy for my illustrator, because they help her decide where exactly she wants to do her illustrations. She can see how the manuscript will possibly be arranged and figure out what should go where. (This information will help the publisher, as well, as she does the layout for the book.)

This process of creating a dummy manuscript could be helpful in either preparing the manuscript for submission, getting a better idea of how the story will turn out or organizing everything.

That last one is the case with the haunted cities book. I have a “dummy manuscript” for this manuscript, and it is only because there are so many pictures to complement the stories. I created this draft to help me keep track of what goes where and to ensure everything that needs to be there is included. I also add captions and footnotes so that I will have them on hand and where they should go when final production of the book is going on and the publisher needs those pieces of information.

For Shadow of Samhain, a book I have coming out any day now, I created a dummy cover for the novel. Sometimes, envisioning the cover for the book helps me to work on it better. I don’t know why, but it just does. The dummy cover somehow helped me to “see” the story better and bring it more to life.

So I either have a dummy manuscript or a dummy cover. But using these are not dumb. (Hah!) They are useful in the creation and organization of a book, whether it’s a novel, children’s book or nonfiction.  And as long as it works, it’s something I’ll keep doing with all the books I write. Other authors may have a similar method or something completely different, but for me, this is what works.

Cover reveal for Follow That Dream

My new poetry chapbook, Follow That Dream, will be published on August 24 by Great Minds Think Aloud Publishing, an independent press. This book was originally published nearly 20 years ago under the title Take My Hand. At that time, I signed with a vanity press to publish this chapbook. It has since gone out of print. I have edited and revised the poems in the original book for this new edition. Also, while I originally dedicated Take My Hand to my grandmother, in addition to two other people, that has changed this time around. I will be dedicating my next poetry book to the memory of both of my grandmothers. I just wanted both of my grandmothers to be honored with one poetry book. This one honors two friends I knew at a hospital I stayed at in New York.

Here is the cover for Follow That Dream. Many thanks to Kitty Bullard for her amazing work in creating this beautiful cover! Some of the poems in this book are fantasy and there's also one of a unicorn, so I felt that should be reflected in the cover image, instead of the poems of being a burn survivor going through several reconstruction surgeries at different hospitals. LOL




Blurb: “Follow that dream.” Take a few moments to read poems meant to seek refuge from the harsh realities of life, from pain, confusion and loneliness. Allow these poems to take you on a journey of wherever your imagination may lead you. The poems in this book share coming-of-age struggles and the fantasies created in order to offer a temporary escape from the real world.

Watch for the release of Follow That Dream on August 24th!

The cover for Shadow of Samhain!

Yesterday, I received a surprise in my email inbox: The proposed cover for my forthcoming novel, Shadow of Samhain. Yay!! I was so excited! My daughter and I both looked at the cover when I opened the attachment and hubby seemed to approve of it, too.

I LOVE IT!!

It is a lot like what I had put together for a "working cover" of the book some time ago. This one is so much better and, of course, a lot more professional since it was created by a professional book cover artist. (Thank you, Charlotte Holley!) I like how everything blends well together and the color contrast is just right. I also like how it is not so dark as to be unnoticeable.

And, without further ado, here is the cover:

Cover confusion

"Never judge a book by its cover." So goes a popular saying. But when it comes to a book -- specifically, YOUR book -- the cover is everything.

I recently had the chance to get a sneak peek at the cover for one of the books I have coming out this month. Because there's more than one book pending publication, I've had the chance to view quite a few book covers, and, in one case, quite a few variations of one particular book cover. (Don't get me started on how much work and strained patience there was for two certain people who worked so hard to get this particular cover satisfactory. They both deserve a good pat on the back for working so hard on it for so long!)

With one cover, however, it just didn't seem like the right one to use. I didn't think it did justice to what exactly the book was about. On a general level, I just didn't like the background, but on the specific level, I didn't think it adequately showed what the book is about. I even asked my daughter what she thought a book with that cover would be about and she said "haunted houses." There IS a haunted house in this book, and there ARE ghosts -- both of which are on the cover. But the book is not about haunted houses per se. And that's the thing that bothered me about it.

A book cover is not supposed to be about the author or what the author likes. It's supposed to be about the book; what it covers, a vague idea of what it's about, an image that captures the genre. You see a cover with two lovers passionately kissing and you know it's romance. You see a cover with a UFO on it, you know it's science fiction or about UFOs. You see a cover with a father holding his child, you know it's either a parenting book or a book about/for fathers.

Despite these opinions about book covers, I still felt bad rejecting this particular book cover. I tried to be subtle. I tried to be polite. I pointed out what I liked (the ghost) and what I didn't like (the background). I know people work really hard to create just the right kind of book cover, but an author should not have to feel guilty about saying the cover just isn't "right" for the book. After all, there are important factors to consider when it comes to a book cover, and the cover is THE first impression your book can have on a potential reader/buyer. An author should be happy with the cover that is plastered on something they worked so long and hard to perfect for publication. An author should feel proud of their book's cover. And if they're not -- if they're not happy with it, excited about it or ready to show that cover off to the world -- then the author should be given that chance to say something about it. Even reject the cover altogether.

I don't regret saying anything if a cover is not "right" but there is a twinge of guilt because when I say something, it can easily be seen as me putting down all the hard work that went into creating that cover. But it's not. I DO appreciate all that hard work. I will always be grateful for all of that hard work that goes into creating a cover for a book, even if I ask for a change or two.