Words by Jocelyn Actual
On a worn but still comfortable couch, an old man sat holding a book, which was even older and more worn than the couch. Next to him sat a little boy. Everything about the boy hinted of fresh-scrubbed sharpness, from his glowing skin to the clever look in his eyes. He listened attentively to the story the man read aloud.
“...but this seemingly peaceful town had a serious problem,” the old man was saying. “They
I have grown a forest that crosses a continent, tangled green and thick with trackless depths, for you.
I have spun families and traced generations, who wander and rule and rage and despair, for you.
I sat up nights, and days, and weeks, and years, listening to the faintest whispers and calls of the bodiless, for you.
I have left clues for you.
I have measured and mapped bright hills, snakes of rivers, and seas of tall grass that no
Read MorePreviousinstallments of the cover art odyssey pulled the curtain back on the designing of my ebooks, The Way through the Woods, and the short story Ashes, Ashes. Kpolly took care of that, with a bit of help from Brian Peterka, and I'm delighted with the results.
However, I wanted to offer a freebie, in order to snag wary shoppers and casual browsers. A few years ago, I wrote a piece of flash fiction called The Verse. I enjoyed writing
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Philip Reeve is fast becoming one of my favorite kids' lit authors. Fever Crumb was a cool, steampunky story, and this one, meant for slightly younger readers, is just as compelling, even though its a completely different genre. Just why is it so awesome?
No Such Thing as Dragons plays with both historical and fantasy conventions. When he reaches age ten, the protagonist Ansel, mute since his mother’s death, is bundled off to work for blustery dragon-slayer Brock. The
Read MoreThe last post covered the work of Mr. Brian Peterka as he ironed out some font issues. Once the winning font was chosen, I could go back to Kristopher (aka Kpolly) and get the covers for both books done.
Both books? Yes. Remember that the challenge was for him to create an image that could represent not only the four-story collection, but also a specific story from it, which I'm selling as a literary appetizer. Previously, we had talked about
Part One of this Odyssey covered the actual "art" part of my book cover design, completed by the talented Kpolly. You'll remember that we left him roaring in frustration because he had done all that nice work for Nobody, since the font wasn't quite working out.
Kristopher didn’t feel comfortable downloading a bunch of fonts (and thus charging me more) simply to experiment with new styles that may or may not work. Such work was not in his job