A year ago last December I put out my first book on Kindle. I was beginning a process that I knew little about even though I'd been writing full length manuscripts nearly all of my life. I had very few expectations for how ePublishing would go, but I had decided to do it. Now I'd say I was naive and really innocent about the marketing process, about what I'd be doing, about what was required. I can't say I know it all now. I keep learning.
When I watch the video at the bottom linked below, it makes me a little teary as I think of the covers that first depicted my stories. I still love them even though readers did not. They were mine and as mine I never saw them as they would seem to others.
My books and I have come a long way since then. The characters have stayed true to their stories. They still have that same energy that I think these first covers depicted. I am still proud of these stories, the ones that did well and the ones not so well. Each is all I can make them be. I've changed what I can to meet the needs of a buying public but I have held true to what I saw as my reason for writing.
They are stories of love, the kind of love that fights to make it work, that stays the distance. It's about new love and that which has been lost only to be rediscovered. The stories are about lovers, who against all odds, struggle to solve problems that stand in their way. Always there is adventure and danger as a part of the plot.
My original covers are still true to my heart even though they are all gone now to be followed by covers that are good too-- just less innocent perhaps-- as am I.
The water is wide, I can't get oer
Neither have I wings to fly...
Give me a boat that can carry two...
and both shall row, my love and I
Last week I watched The Magic of Belle Isle. At one point the hero, who is crippled, imagines in a dream that he is waltzing with the woman he knows he can never have in reality-- certainly not that way. Later the heroine speaks of that waltz that never really was. How did she feel it? It was the energy. I think that kind of waltz is what romance novels are about.
photo is of one of my sculptures
