This week I got started on the design for the cover (not doing the work myself). It is primarily a patch-up from stock photos with less manipulation possible than I want. I spent a lot of time with the designers trying to get them to see the concept. Of course, there are all sorts of design elements of which I was unaware. That whole thing with indenting vs a blank line separating paragraphs was lost on me. The eye does not see what the mind does not comprehend.

Apparently important.

I sent the text out for some paid reviews to get something for the covers and to provide links on the webpage. (ANY ONE WANT TO REVIEW, PLEASE CONTACT).

Finally and apparently, a new obligato is a “short book teaser video.”

At this, I feel really at sea. Needless to say I have no talents in this area, a lousy and undependable speaking voice, no encouragement.

Given a few days I will rebound. This is perhaps maudlin and odd, at least to me. After so much time, effort, you would think I would know this story so intimately that there would be scant mystery in it for me. As a gardener, I find I have LESS pleasure in the final product than others who come upon a garden unaware. I know the sweat, expense, and craft I expended. I know the garden’s “tricks,” and cannot look but critically at the result.

With “Outland Exile” it is not so. I read a passage, a circumstance, an emotional foray of the characters and I find myself moved…again. The thing has its own life and I am now just the caretaker.