Re-covering

New cover for LC 'Episode Three'

A little creative project I promised myself was to replace the cover images on the Limited Capability serial ebooks, which began life with standard Amazon 'art paper' backgrounds.  I'm combining this fun project with the serious task of making the first corrections to the text from checking the prototype paperback - having recruited three eagle-eyed proof-readers to pick up anything I miss, I'm sure these won't be the only revisions!

Some covers will be fairly easy to find among my own photos - the atmospheric canal above being a case in point.  Episode One uses an image rejected from a selection I took for the paperback's cover (though that is also in for a revision) and I had much fun designing a brochure for a classy B&B establishment for Episode Two, when I should probably have been fine-tuning my 'Benefits for Older People' leaflet.  The firework display for Episode Five actually took place at the Shrewsbury Flower Show several years ago, while Episode Four's cover had to wait until the pelagoniums were blooming... 

Having re-read 'LC', it's given me something of a spur to continue the story and get back to work on the next (possibly last - but who can say?) volume of adventures for the Walkers and the Solent Welfare Rights Project, although I keep changing my mind about exactly how and when to start.  The best plan may be to leave that for a while, press on with the remainder of the story, and then consider how the beginning works from the perspective of the end.  Thinking back, Severe DIscomfort went through four or five different versions of its first couple of chapters before I settled on the final one, and that was only after completing the rest of the text.  So far, there's about a third to a half of the next novel done as a first draft, along with an outline for the whole story and odd scenes and episodes that have popped into my mind during random moments of gardening, which may or may not make the final 'cut'.  But I really do need to focus when I'm at the computer in the evening with time available to work on the book, and not get distracted by what's happening on Facebook.

In the last couple of days I have learned, through the miracle of 'Buzzfeed', that I am variously Wonderwoman (as indeed are three of my closest work colleagues), Galadriel, a Unicorn and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, should have lived in Renaissance Italy, the 1970s or Newcastle (as in 'upon Tyne' rather than 'under Lyme' - been hanging about in Daphne Randall's character too much while working on that short story!) and am also 16% 'stereotypically English'.  Actually, with a fair tally of Irish ancestors and the announcement that 'Cornish' is a now separate minority identity, that last one is probably not far wide of the mark!  Sadly, many of these fascinating insights into my soul are based on flawed or incomplete analysis, on the basis that there was no 'I don't know what the bloody hell you're talking about' option in the answers to questions about chic-flicks, celebs and hashtags, so I had to guess something. 

In short, they are a stupendous waste of time when you have ideas for at least two books running through your mind.  Or even if you haven't.  So I'm not doing any more of them.

Well, not once I've found out which Winnie the Pooh character I am...!