I'm both wracked with doubt about the current project and also passionately loving it, which seems to be the writerly condition in a nutshell.

​That cognitive dissonance of huge self-confidence (it's brilliant! I really got it this time!) pairs well with a deep, DEEP anxiety about how the project will appear to other people (ain't nobody, no how, no where, EVER gonna like this steaming hot mess I have created).

But, as with so many worries in this world, one must look away from the void and carry on. So while the project is getting edited (squeee! it's with the editor!), it's time to move on to book design.

This is a fairy-tale inspired short novel. Think The Last Unicorn, Greenwillow, The Princess Bride, Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner. All of which one can judge by the cover...

On She Taught Me Everything, I calibrated the book interior design from the cover. I commissioned an artist to make the cover and then coordinated the font and spacing to that and the general literary genre.  As someone described the job of book design, "You want your book to stand out, but not too much."

Overall, I want this new creation to feel pretty—bougie even—intriguing, consciously a touch old-fashioned. I do NOT want readers to expect a spicy-romantasy (be still my beating loins!), even though it's about true love. 

Look how a font sets the stage, even with place-holder Latin instead of content for the chapter:

That first, swirly font tells me to expect either a breezy self-help book or, possibly, a romance set in some retail world. So no.

And the second, hmmm, maybe a gritty speculative fiction? Something urban? Also no.

The chapters in novel #2 have text titles, not just numbers (see also "consciously old-fashioned"), which affords a chance to make the chapter openings a little extra.  

I am not a designer, but I do have opinions. Here's a chaotic look at how I'm shopping fonts:

The choice really sets the stage, I think.

Plus, get this, turns out it's the work of a few keystrokes to insert a bit of graphic art into a wordy document. Which translates into interesting chapter openings!—at least for the paperback book version. The ebooks, well, it's more of a hit-and-miss situation for artwork.

We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

First steps:

Nothing is set in stone, but I am liking this experiment so far.  

Like a Balrog, the thought reaches me from the void: But What About That Title?

Sigh.  Yes.
​It's still between titles. I'll be going to the beach to think about it soon.

I'd been working on novel #2 for most of the summer, Irish-fading from regatta parties to get to my portable writing study, listening distractedly to friends while thinking about that story,  welcoming rainy days for the chance to sidle past regret as I put my head down and set my fingertips to the keyboard.

Stealing time from real life. 

The book is past Draft 1, which means I kinda know how the story starts, goes, finishes. I know the theme and the setting, and I've gotten to know the characters.  It's all flexible: characters might get cut or split into two people, events might change order or get worse, and so on, but I have the general shape.  

​Draft 2 should be hugely better, with plot holes filled in, structure revised, themes bolstered, and characters grown rounder.  ​I tend to underwrite sections as the plot takes me, and overwrite scenes that I have known for a while. But it's not always easy to get there.

To a great extent, writing equals me daydreaming about my imaginary friends. So late this summer, I sat on station, butt in chair, hands poised over the keyboard, imagination flapping around the story when it occurred to me, obvious as a brick to the back of the head: the friendship between the two young women in my story was big and important, but it got very little screen time in the story as written.  

Aha, I thought, how can I show the depth and importance of this connection? More scenes? More conversations!  More!  
 
My characters—then called Annie and Lila—were already sitting together and chatting while sewing in chapter 5; I sat back and eveasdropped, knowing that they are best friends. Lila's nursing a crush on one of Annie's brothers. Annie's beloved has disappeared. The chatter goes back and forth, with Lila eventually crossing a boundary to ask a painful question of her old friend. 

I jotted down their conversation as I imagined it, not judging when they nattered on, knowing I—mighty queen of this universe—could take a nip and tuck at will later.

Here's some of what I kept pressing them/myself to know: How to express the tenderness between best friends? How to show that they've been friends for ages? I knew what Lila was jonesing to ask Annie, but how to show Annie's feelings, the pressure she feels, and and how to present this all without sounding 21st Century-ish?

As I wrote "Annie said," "Lila said." "Annie replied," and so forth, I realized two things: first, Annie is far too modern a name for my maiden hero and second, the names Annie and Lila are not nearly distinct enough from one another. These are my own dear creations, and I'm getting them confused? That cannot be good.

It's quick work to do a global change, but to what? O high-speed internet on the farm, how we do thee entreat? Clicketty-clatter ensues.

A morning passed as I stopped by baby name sites, checked etymology, and consulted the mighty Goog.

Annie has become Auda, a name with a Scandinavian twist, as befits the setting, and Lila has become Lilan, a name that appears in a variety of cultures and calls to (my) mind the flower. These names, I hope, make sense in the vaguely Northern, pre-Industrial, magic-exists, wool-processing, flax spinning, small village setting. I like to think these names give them a bit of depth and roundness.  

And to my shortcut-favoring brain at least, the names appear different enough on the page to keep me from confabulating the two.

​Victory is mine! 

​One scene down, half a dozen more to go.

Have I been slacking at book promotion this summer? Yes, yes I have.  

Is it because I'm lounging on the divan, popping bonbons into my gullet and binge-watching David Attenborough? No, not at all. 

First, I don't have an actual divan. Second, I can't eat dairy. Third, well, honestly, I do enjoy his lovely voice, but television is not my vice. 

Instead I have been listening to a playlist heavy on Anaïas Mitchell, Allison Kraus, Hozier, and Rhiannon Gibbons, working on the next thing.

The next thing.  
​If I were a younger writer, I might have put this next thing aside and focused instead on writing another novel like She Taught Me Everything. A contemporary family drama, say.  It would be a smart career move, to focus on building a brand for my readers to more easily identify me. Excellent strategy long-term.

But I am not a young writer. So rather than thinking about building a brand within a genre, I have passions. Ambitions. Wild horsey dreams.

​Plus this other chunk of words: what I've labeled on my computer as the "Woodkeep trio."
​
These are three (actually five now, but okay, it started as three) related stories clamoring to become as big as a Rubens, and which ask significant chunks of time from me. ​

The three (five) are very different from She Taught Me Everything --like set in a pre-Industrial magic fairy-tale world different.

If I've lost you at fairy tale, so be it.  

The folks clamoring in my imagination don't care about genre conventions. Who am I to argue with fictional characters and their demands? They have a story to tell, dammit!  
But enough excuse-making. They are who they are.

Two Scottish ballads haunt me. One is Tam Lin, about Janet, a spunky noblewoman who will NOT be told what to do. Forbidden to go to Carter Hall, she hikes up skirts and skedaddles, "for young Tam Lin is there."  
As night follows day, Janet finds herself pregnant, and thinks to end the pregnancy with some herbs at Carter Hall.  Tam Lin confronts her and when she says that she will NOT be having a baby with some freaky-deeky fairy knight, he tells her that he's just a poor human, held prisoner by the Queen of Fairyland.
And if Janet is willing, she can save Tam Lin from a fate worse than death this coming Halloween...   

The other ballad is Thomas True or Thomas the Rhymer, in which a guy is snatched up by the queen of fairies — that hussy! — and when he tells her that he wants to go home to the world of humans, she says fine, be that way, and she lets him go...giving him the gift of speaking only truth. Nice gift! 

And that's partly what is inspiring me this summer. These two ballads, along with The Princess Bride, the concept of true love, and a cat. Not a real cat, because allergies, but a cat. 

I don't have a title yet (working on it!), but I do have a date with my editor. Which means, I must hustle back to the—oh, yeah, I am already at my computer.