Well, the publisher has approved final cover art for “The Obsidian Mirror.” As you can see below, not too different from the last one. We still don’t have the blurbs, publisher’s logo, etc., but that’s out of my hands for now. I like this one!
Sometimes I have to shake myself to see if I am dreaming. I am fulfilling a lifelong ambition: writing and publishing a novel. It has been a daydream so long that I had given up on it—until I actually wrote a book.
But now, I am listed as an author on the publisher’s website. I am working on the graphics. I am working on the marketing. I should be working on final-editing the manuscript, but haven’t quite gotten there yet. (Tomorrow. I promise!) Sometimes I wonder if this is real, or just an extended daydream—but then my publisher asks me to do something else, and I’m sure these tasks were not part of my original roseate dream, so I am becoming more convinced that this will really happen.
And then I go back to being amazed.
Well, anyway, here’s a mockup of my latest cover design, front, back and spine. I haven’t gotten feedback from the publisher yet, but I kind of like it. But no man/coyote graphic. <Sniff><Sob> I am very attached to the shape-changing coyote, but he just isn’t working out too well as a cover. I am sure I’ll continue to use him, but perhaps not on the book cover. If you were kind enough to weigh in on the graphic, thanks. I agree with the majority that the original one is the best.
Many of you were kind enough to comment on three different versions of Chaco: my supernatural character who can appear either as a ridiculously beautiful young man, or as a coyote. (But not just any coyote; he is Coyotl the Trickster).
My publisher had asked for a somewhat lighter feel to the image because the tone of the book overall is light. Chaco is (usually) a cheerful guy.
The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of my original, Chaco #1, with 10 votes, #2 got three votes, and #3 got two votes. I also favor the original.
However, my friend Erica Chase asked, “Is there a happier looking coyote?” I thought this was nothing short of brilliant (typical of Erica). So I went looking for a coyote whose expression was less threatening and more upbeat. And then tried to match the coyote with an image of a young man that more or less matched (or was at least complementary to) the coyote’s expression. The image below is the result, and if you would be so obliging, I’d like to know if you think this is an improvement. Or not. (To see the three images I posted for comment, please go to https://obsidianmirrorblog.wordpress.com/2013/12/13/vote-for-your-favorite-coyote/)
New Coyote/Chaco
I sent last week’s cover art to my publisher. One of his comments was: “…the book itself also felt a bit more light hearted than the dark cover with the serious boy (who was definitely not so serious in my mind, as I read anyway).”
The man (Chaco) changing into a coyote is central to my story. Chaco is Coyotl, the trickster folk hero of many Native American cultures. He can shift back and forth at will, and this comes in handy several times during the story. So I’d really like to use the image of the shape-shifting man-coyote. But my publisher is right: the tone of the book is on the lighter side.
I picked out a few more handsome latino men from iStock.com, where there is a plethora of such men on sale for very little money, and created two alternatives to my original. I present them here for your deliberation: which is the best Chaco: #1, #2, or #3?
I eagerly await your judgement!
Chaco #1
Chaco #2
Chaco #3
I’ve gone back and forth a couple of times with the publisher, AEC Stellar, and I think we’ve probably arrived at an agreement.
So now I get to do something fun: design my own cover art. AEC Stellar has people who will do this, but from my standpoint, one of the advantages of working with a small company is that they are willing to let me do my own cover design if I want (and it meets their standards). I realize that most people wouldn’t think this was fun, but I also paint in oils and design jewelry and I’m pretty good at Photoshop. You can purchase excellent photography and illustrations from an online stock provider for very reasonable prices and manipulate these images in Photoshop. I did a lot of this when I was working on marketing materials for Cisco, and I enjoy it.
Here’s my first concept. Do you like it? Dislike it? I’d love to know.
The book contract arrived. It seemed pretty straightforward to me, but I’ve never laid eyes on a book contract before, so what do I know? I followed the advice of my book consultant and shelled out some bucks to have someone knowledgeable review it.
I recognized that the contract was unusual. The publisher is unusual. It required some shared expenses. Having talked with the publisher, I was aware of this, and given that the author gets 50% of the net (as compared to maybe 12% from standard publishers), that didn’t seem unfair to me, especially as this is a new, startup publisher.
The reviewer sent the contract back with many, many comments. I looked at them all carefully. There were a few that I didn’t agree with, but some of the others seemed more than reasonable. For example, the contract specified that all rights to the work in other media such as TV, movies, audiobook, etc. would belong to the publisher. Now, the likelihood of my little novel being made into a movie is remote, but I didn’t see why I should give up the rights to my own work, even so. So I marked up the contract accordingly and returned it to the publisher with a polite note indicating that everything was up for discussion.
That was yesterday. No response so far. Of course, I reasoned, he needs time to look it over. I took my time, after all. But still. Is he pissed off? Insulted? Did he even see it yet? Am I stressing unnecessarily? Or is this an indication of thunderclouds on the horizon? Should I stop thinking about it? Should I call?
Or maybe I’ll just go for a walk on the beach and forget about it.
Okay, I’m hoping that I write and publish so many books that I will become jaded. But right now, I am so excited I can hardly see straight. So if this blog post is incoherent and sounds as though I were abusing some mind-altering substance, this is why:
AEC Stellar Publishing got back to me about “The Obsidian Mirror,” and they want to talk contract. Here is what Ray Vogel (surely the most luminously intelligent and talented man alive) of AEC Stellar said: “I did think it was very well written. The characters were unique and complex, and the story was a fun adventure that I could see appealing to just about any age.”
Which is precisely what I was going for. Thank you, Mr, Vogel. Thank you, AEC Stellar Publishing. Thank you, World. Thanks to all of you who have been with me on this journey and given me your positive energy and good wishes. Thank you.
Last week, I was reading “The Barsetshire Diaries,” a blog about retired life in an English village by Lord David Prosser. (Is he really a lord? I have no idea, but he is certainly a noble man!) Lord D. published an interview with Sorin Suciu, the author of a humorous fantasy novel called “The Scriptlings.” Sorin mentioned he was with a new publisher with “an author-oriented business model and a heart of gold,” AEC Stellar Publishing.
Humorous fantasy? I stopped reading and went to AEC Stellar’s website, where I queried “The Obsidian Mirror” online. “Obsidian” isn’t written as a humor piece, but it does have a lot of humor in the writing—my way of sweetening the underlying theme of ecological threat and conservation.
The next day, to my astonishment, I received a request for the first chapter.
The day after that, I received a request for the entire manuscript and an analysis of my writing. Though disappointed by my score in “Writing Craft” (80.9%), the verbiage did say, “You appear to have a good grasp of the craft of writing… Your style of writing is likely to be well received by readers.” My score in “Marketability” of 88.6% made up for it. (“We believe your book is likely to succeed in today’s marketplace.”)
So now I am waiting on pins, needles and tenterhooks to hear back. I was told it would be three or four weeks, which seems lightening fast, considering that my submission to Harper Voyager in October of 2012 only just came back with a rejection notice. Apparently, the rejection was conveyed on the back of an unusually pokey snail.
Please wish me well. And many thanks to the inimitable Lord David and Sorin Suciu.
* * *
On a completely new topic, my daughter, my husband and I took advantage of a rare afternoon when we were all free to go for a walk on our favorite beach. It’s October, and the midweek population of beach-goers was negligible, despite the golden, warm weather and sunny skies.
It was low tide, assuring a flat, firm walking surface by the water’s edge and lots of flotsam to peer at. The small crabs are all gone. I suppose they have their season, spawn, and die, for there are many tiny, empty carapaces scattered about on the sand.
Dolphins surfing. Photo by BabyNuke.
We walked for a mile and a half or so before turning back. Almost immediately, we began to see dolphins (or porpi) swimming just beyond the breakers. They rolled and splashed, and a baby broke joyously up from the waves, curved in a graceful arc and disappeared again. We began to see dolphins surfing in the waves—something I had heard about but never seen for myself. As a wave rose up, the sun shone through, making it look like green glass. Inside the breaking wave, silhouetted against the light, we could see dolphins surfing along the curve and subsiding again as the wave foamed onto the shore. Then we began to see dolphins leaping out of the water, launching their entire bodies into the air, diving, then doing it again and again like enormous skipping stones.
Some days just make you glad to be alive.
Yesterday afternoon, my husband, Tom, and I went for a walk on the beach. This is something we do frequently, now that we are living by the ocean. Actually, we live on the shores of Monterrey Bay in Northern California. For those of you unfamiliar with NorCal, it is not a hot, palm-tree-fringed coast. The Japanese current comes down from Alaska, and the waters are cold. Most of the summer, fog covers the coast in the morning, pulls out for a bit in the afternoon, and pours its chilly self back onto the land in the late afternoon or evening. When it’s 100ºF inland, it might get up as high as 80ºF here on the coast. Mostly, summer temperatures are in the 60s or 70s.
But yesterday afternoon, it was warm and the fog hung far out on the water. The sky was cloudless. I spent some time tipping crabs. There are hundreds of small crabs that thrive in the wave zone. They often get tipped upside down by the receding water and wave their eight legs in the air frantically, trying to right themselves. If another wave doesn’t come along to right them, they eventually give up and pose upside down, legs rigidly extended. If the tide is going out they are sometimes eaten by seagulls or just die from exposure. I have a hard time resisting their little flailing legs and I tip them back upright to give them a fighting chance. Yes, I know they’ve been getting tipped upside down for millions of years. Still.
I love shells of all sorts, and collect them whenever I am visiting a beachy place. The shells in our area tend to be a bit drab and there isn’t a lot of variety, but
I look for sand dollars. They wash ashore frequently in this area. When alive or recently deceased, their shells are purple. I check to see if they are alive, which isn’t easy to determine, but if they still have their hair-like legs on the undersides of their shells, I pitch them back in the water. (I make it a point never to take a live shell. I never buy shells, because these are harvested live to assure they are unbroken and unblemished.) If the sand dollars have lost their legs and the “velvet” that coats the outside, they are truly dead and I pick them up if unbroken. The shells are quite fragile, so finding an unbroken sand dollar isn’t unusual, but it is the exception. I’ve been placing the shells to bleach in the sun on my front porch. They range in size from about one inch across to three or four inches.
The water was full of life—and not just surfers and screaming children. There was a huge pod of dolphins roiling the waters, their dark backs and fins rolling smoothly out of the waves like synchronized swimmers—which I suppose they are. There must have been a hundred or more of these beasts just offshore. A small seal or three poked their heads out of the waves. They come in quite close to swimmers, and they sometimes get quite a reaction from people who aren’t expecting a largish animal to surface right next to them.
And then we saw the whales. Further afield, perhaps a half a mile from shore, great spouts of water appeared above the waves. Like geysers, the spouts rose high in the air and lasted for a fairly long time. Several times, I saw whales breaching, leaping out of the water and falling back with a mighty gout of water rising as they hit the surface. I was told by one passerby that humpbacked whales had been spotted in the bay, but today I heard that blue whales were out there yesterday as well. They were too far away for me to tell which we were seeing.
People all along the beach were stopped, standing on the sand and shading their eyes as they stared out to sea. Everyone was smiling, pointing, talking to strangers. People were rejoicing in the sight of the whales as though they had just seen angels.
It was, in a word, magical.
It has been a long time since Tom and I lived with a preschooler. Lilah, the preschooler in question, is four. She sailed through the twos without becoming terrible, skipped through the threes without becoming awful—and then hit the Frightful Fours.
Her former response to being thwarted was to assume a deeply saddened and affronted expression, rather like Mother Theresa confronted by, say, Lady Gaga. Then she would turn her back on everyone like an anchorite abandoning a wicked world. She did all this in perfect silence, which I thought was a dramatic underscore to her soul-gnawing sorrow at being denied Goldfish crackers for lunch.
Now if Lilah is thwarted, she will frequently throw herself to the floor with a scream. She will begin pounding the unoffending floor with her heels or fist, punctuating this with more shrieks. This is usually in response to being asked to eat something (healthy) or being told she can’t eat something (unhealthy), but there are many other triggers.
This bothers her parents a lot, but it doesn’t perturb Tom or me very much. She’s kind of a piker compared with her Mom or her Uncle Sean, although they went through it earlier than Lilah. It does raise the question of discipline, though. As Tom and I are sometimes the only adults around, permitting her parents to carry on their work lives, we are sometimes on the spot when it comes to applying corrective action. And disciplining someone else’s child is a sensitive matter. She might be our granddaughter, but she isn’t our child.
When Kerry and Mike are present, they get to do the disciplining. Tom and I are merely interested observers who need earplugs. When they are not here, we have relied on the Grandparent Card a lot, but who knows how long that will last? Counting to three (very slowly) usually works. Once in a while, a short timeout helps. So far, so good, but one of these days, Lilah is going to pitch a complete hissy fit on us, and we’re going to have to deal. The only advantage we have is that it really just doesn’t bother us. Raising her mother toughened us up a lot.
A Gummy Bee
Now, what about those gummy bees? This is one of the great things about living with a grandchild—getting to hear a completely new set of wonderful mispronunciations. Her mother used to call flowerpots “flower pants,” which I always thought was brilliant. Her uncle used to go to “pretty school,” until Kerry finally scorned him into saying “preschool.” (Too bad.) Lilah has gummy bees: “I gummy bee a builder when I grow up.” “I gummy bee happy to see Auntie Cara.” I envision all these little gummy bees flying around her as she dances her way through life. They are all different pastel colors, and they have little smiles on their cute little gummy bee faces.
Because most of the time, Lilah is a delight. She has the most beautiful, sunny smile. She sings to herself as she plays, lining up her toys in the upstairs hall to “teach them school” or read them a story. She laughs readily and cuddles when she’s tired. She loves animals and art and playing games with Nana.
She can scream all she wants. She’s still my darling.
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