Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Secret Covers

Sometimes when I want to write a story but I don't have time, have to finish other projects and/or want to wait and let it simmer a bit more, I make secret cover art for it anyway. Sometimes it's to try out art for stories I plan to make into freebies, but more often it's just for my own amusement. I'll print out a secret cover for my personal journal, the idea file or any notebook I've started on it, but otherwise no one ever sees it but me. I feel like I've made a million of these secret covers, too.

In the spirit of spontaneity, and (hopefully) me being a bit more transparent, here are the three latest secret covers I've made:



My sequel to In the Leaves, for the day when I can get back and write more of Sally's story. Definitely writing this one.



This cover is for some notes I found on a novella series I planned to write to continue the story from Frostfire (and alas, never got the chance.) It's unlikely that I'll ever write all five stories I outlined, but you never know -- and the ideas were really solid and fun.



I have a story sorta/kinda based on/partially set in/orbiting distantly the StarDoc universe that has been bouncing around in my head for a couple years. Lately I've been revisiting the idea while I drive around running errands, so I jotted down some notes and decided to make a cover for it. I have seriously mixed feelings about this one. I also have ten million excellent reasons to never revisit StarDoc in any way shape or form. This might end up being the novel that they only find after I'm deceased, along with the twenty-eight others no one has ever seen that I have hidden away. Kidding. There are only like seventeen.

Do you ever do weird stuff like this? Confess your secrets in comments.

Image Credits:

Far Seer -- massonforstock
Frenchman's Pass -- zacariasdamata
21 -- Molodec

4 comments:

  1. I love the idea of the secret covers. But I'm not good enough at it to make me happy.
    The only out-of-norm weird I can think of is arguing with the notes I make on my wip rough draft. I noticed the comments were becoming more and more snide as frustration over the ms built ("Hello? Earth to Raine? Two chapters ago the hero's eyes were gray, not brown"). And I started commenting on the comments. Talking back.
    "No need to get nasty. So I forgot the eye color. Sue me."
    "You don't make enough to be sued. And you won't earn it writing like this."
    "Hey! I don't have to take this from some pink balloon on a virtual page."
    "Yeah? How 'bout I disappear & take half this ms with me?"

    A little weird, maybe. But that comment balloon came be quite the bitch, y'know?

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  2. I LOVE Frenchman's Pass. What a great cover. Dark, brooding, eerily moody. I want to read that story based on the cover alone.

    Since I don't outline, making a cover probably wouldn't work early on, but I do collage with pictures as I come across them. Sometimes, I'll see something in a magazine or online that starts talking to me and that's how the story starts.

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  3. All sound intreging, but I so want to see where you go with Sally.

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  4. Since I do covers for a living, I rarely make any just for my eyes only. (Too lazy, I think.) LOL.

    Some people I know do this to give them inspiration while they're writing their book which gives it great purpose even if no one sees it.

    ReplyDelete

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