The Ink-Pot and the Palette

I now have most of the props for my book cover photo shoot. Spray paint, pins, hot glue, RIT Dye, masking tape, old curtains, bits of hardware, an actual riding crop off eBay--I really haven't had this much crafty fun in ages.

The lighting is pretty good. I'm pleased with the complementary orange/blue color scheme--which was a happy accident. It was time to put a body in the chair and start testing poses.

So I asked my sister to don the shirt and drape the (very skinny) "buckskin breeches" (linen drawstring pants, still awaiting modification) over her legs, and strike the attitude.

I liked the effect, so I pasted on the head of the actual model I hope to hire for the photo shoot.

(The professional graphic designer will be charged with a real layout and real fonts. It's still up to me to tweak the costume. The draped column might have to go.)

What do you think?

I need a book cover!

There are quickie template-based designs online, and there's $5000 for original artwork, and there's not much in between.

"Well, what do you want to wind up with?" asked my sister Helen.

"Basically this," said I:

"...but a) without Jared Padalecki's face; b) not stolen from a copyright fashion shoot with Johnny Depp; and c) featuring a poet shirt and buckskin breeches rather than that 20th century tuxedo."

"So let's do our own photoshoot."

( Wait. What? Do it ourselves? )

Beta readers are coming back with very few notes on Restraint. The rewritten story works for them. I think it really is finished. Seth Godin (whom I had the pleasure of meeting at a workshop in NYC a couple weeks ago) basically said, "Ship it."

( Now comes marketing. )

I am officially Not Writing this weekend. The novel needs a rest from me, and I from it. So what the hey, I'll just write about it.

My novel (working title Restraint), nominally a work of fanfic, is so AU that turning it from fanfic to original fic would require little more than a global S&R on two character names. The question is, should I go that route?

Logic says it can't hurt to try. There can't be much money in the niche market of homoerotic romances for women, so if I can't sell the novel to a publisher, I lose virtually nothing by turning it back into fanfic and publishing it here or on LJ.

I'm more worried about what happens if I do sell it: bad editing, being outed in my real life, giving up creative control, and losing the story's original audience--passionate fellow fans of the characters whose names I can just as easily globally change back.

Earlier in my life, publishing a "real book" was a shining goal. Why? To be read. To tell my stories. To get a little feedback. Basically, to justify the act of writing. Not only can I have all that right now on the web, unmediated by any business model, but I don't even want a "real book" made of dead trees anymore.

While I decide on my route, I need to finish the thing. My writing break ends on Monday, when I embark on a dull business trip in service of the work that does pay. There's nothing like a hotel room in the evening for getting some writing done.