More about book covers

 An article in Saturday's Telegraph Review section led me to Google Suzanne Dean - the book designer cited by Julian Barnes in his Man Booker Prize acceptance speech.   It is an ever-fascinating topic to me, not so much at the high class, thing of beauty end (although I appreciate that) but how well books which appeal to me actully signal that fact in their cover.
Links for more about Suzanne Dean and book design are at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8929045/Suzanne-Dean-the-secret-to-a-good-book-cover.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/02/beautiful-book-covers?newsfeed=true

An experience from my childhood:  a cheap edition (Dean) of a classic story in which one character calls herself 'George' - depicted in the line drawing as a blazer-clad schoolboy with cap. (And having Googled this I find it was a Famous Five, which I read very few of, my father disapproving - the book itself I threw away in disgust.)

Another cover

Displacement activity doesn't take place only when I'm not allowed to write but also when the words stop flowing.

'Making good' - as with 'Damage limitation', the title came into being while creating the cover - is about thirty-four thousand words done - maybe a quarter of it, and currently I don't know where it is going. 

I've been this way before:  had not even expected to be writing a sequel until halfway through the penultimate chapter of 'Damage limitation' and have enough in the way of other projects for it not to be a problem.   

Yet.  

Fingers crossed it won't be long-term, because I get very ratty if I don't have something in progress.

NaNoWriMo2011

Hmm ...

I'm at the stage where I simply want to get started, have all these ideas which might fizzle into nothing unless I put them down and develop them, marry them to the right character, interject it into a conversation.
In the meantime, I am designing a cover for my novel.   The original BookBlurb Friday cover featured a bar of chocolate (which I simply ignored at the time), and stencil font writing, which I thought reflected what might be seen in the hold of a ship.   However, I got side-tracked by a photo of sand ripples on Warebeth beach near Stromness in Orkney, and played around with that.

It might not be the final one - how commercial 'grab-off-the-shelf' is it for a start? ('not very' I fear) - but beats chewing my fingernails.
And what a fascinating subject is bookjackets anyway - how do they KNOW what will appeal to me?

Instilling confidence in the writer

On Sunday my youngest son phoned 'What are your plans for tomorrow?' he asked
'Writing' I tell him then, conscious that that won't actually move the conversation on much, I tell him
'I'm a bit stuck at the moment - not sure what Bridie is going to do next ...'
'Bridie!   You can't have a heroine called 'Bridie' - you'll have to go though the whole lot and change it!'
'Umm ... why?'
'Because you can't - and I bet she's blonde too, isn't she?'
'Umm ... yes as a matter of fact she is ...'
'Well you'll have to change that too ...'
He doesn't seem to have realised that this is book four with her as heroine - and he hasn't asked to read any of the preceding ones either - but of course he knows best ...