"Together-ness"

I don't think collaboration is a skill that automatically comes with the writer tool set. A lot of the quotes about writing and being a writer mostly involve ideas like stillness and solitude. But no matter how good the words in the book ultimately are, the initial cover presentation accounts for a lot. I guess it's very similar to attracting a desired mate. In most cases, they see us first. Before they know anything about us, they interpret how we choose to express ourselves outwardly. I can't speak for other writers, but I don't draw all that well. Certainly not well enough to produce a cover. Nor do I have any talent at all at photography or graphic design or painting. I tell people, in fact, that it's because I can't express my ideas in a representative fashion that forces my words to come out the way that they do. So, all of that is to say I had to tell someone else about what I wanted my cover to look like. This was the initial sketch the artist produced just to verify we were on the same page.

What I described was a modern city bus, because it is somewhat of a theme in the novel and because I could think of nothing more everyday than a mass transit ride. I also liked the metaphor of the bus: all the characters are in it, but they aren't necessarily together. Going along with the idea that an urban fantasy cover needs to be firmly seated in the modern world, while espousing some element of the mystical or magical, I expressed that I wanted the banality of the bus, with some hints at the supernatural. In the sketch you can see that one of the characters has a reflection in the window that doesn't match what the character looks like, and another has a travel bag with some interesting light effects coming up out of it. 

All in all, I think we ended up on the same page, but it was still really interesting to me how far apart my mental image was of what I was saying and what the artist's ended up being. We discussed the narrowness of the image. What I didn't realize was that buses are not the same everywhere (the artist is Nigerian) and that books are nominally taller than they are wide, so my mental image of a wide image made no sense for the product I wanted to use it for. I imagined every bus I'd ever been on, from school to city, and the squareness of the windows, the arrangement of the hand rails, the lights in the ceiling, said train to me. We did not have the same conception of what gives a bus, "bus-ness." I was stunned for a bit at the inadequacy of language. And I was gratified at the sensibility of getting an initial image into play to make sure all parties were even facing the same direction. I didn't know how many different things could be simultaneously miss-communicated.

And that says nothing of the other elements I hadn't accounted for. The artist decided to highlight in color the principle characters whereas I had imagined they would be the only people visible. But with the change, there was opportunity for the other figures left dark and grainy. I try to use every detail to my advantage when doing things like this, so I instantly had ideas of how to keep the other figures in shadow but to use that to further enhance the mystery of the image and understanding of the book in the midst of reading it. And I never would've thought of any of that had the artist not made certain decisions, not for my sake, but to bring to light the things they heard me describe as important. There are plenty of ways to get a chicken across a road. It could be carried in a basket or in one's stomach. Both have very different outcomes while both satisfy the ultimate requirement. 

So, the revisions are coming along. I am mostly happy with them, even though I have some decisions ahead of me to make, ones that I didn't image would be giving me this much trouble. But it's been so many years, I truly am looking at the stories like an outsider. There are ideas in the writing that I feel strongly are there because I had strong feelings, but I can't remember what I was really trying to say. The words are the words of a younger, more impetuous me. I feel almost like a parent, cleaning up behind someone who doesn't know better. I love what they accomplished, but I also shake my head sadly. And the cover is coming along, as well. It took weeks to find someone, and I guess success will be decided on receipt of a finished product, but I feel confident so far. The communication is open and semi-constant. The most recent lesson I am learning from all of this is trust. Simply believing in someone else to do their part. One part letting go and one holding faith. Collaboration.