Got a graphic artist...

I spent all day, today, trying to come up with something that would be acceptable for the cover of A65, and this was the best I was capable of. It needs a lot more work -- cleaning up the lines, doing something about Casey's fingers vanishing into her dress (what was I thinking?), and Adam's glasses need to be silver rimmed or maybe gold so the half on Gertrude doesn't vanish into her color -- but I had no idea how to make it zing.

Then ten minutes after I gave up for the day, Zan Varin, the Irish guy who worked up the art for my redo of The Lyons' Den got back to me and is open to doing The Alice '65. Makes me relieved.

He's got a few commissions in the queue so can't work on it till next Friday, but that's fine; I can now focus on rewriting the story and prepping it for publication. I've got good solid feedback from my two  editors and response from another reader, so I'm digging in. If more people provide responses, I'm happy to consider them, but I want the book out by Thanksgiving.

Once that's done, I'll start setting up the book cover. Since I'm doing this in hardback with a dust jacket, first, I can prep the layout then add the artwork in once we come to terms about the final look. I've also been in contact with a more comic-book style artist who might be good for the paperback version. I have to talk with him some more.

What's great about Zan is, he can add a lot of zing to the cover -- highlights, shadows, depth, the works. This flat style I'm using just doesn't really do it for me. I was thinking of playing with it using CS's filters, but no longer needed. I hope.

But you never know till it's done.