The Making of a Cover

     My friend Maggie, an ammeter photographer, came over around noon today, camera in tow. We walked down a trail to a nearby lake and roamed until Maggie found a spot without a branch or a weed out of place. I crawled through what was very likely poison ivy-infested grass to get to a pile of rocks that looked like it was placed there for us.
     I stood there, looking out at the lake, imagining that I was the main character of my novel. I told myself that my best friend had just died and now I had to look out at the world and somehow make sense of it all, alone. Maggie was taking pictures of me from behind, so my acting probably did no good, but we managed to get two or three acceptable shots.
     Then we figured there was little left to do except photoshop my hair red, like my main character's. Being as inexperienced in graphic design as we were photoshop, this took about three hours and four cans of soda. Eventually, we achieved the shade I had envisioned and picked a font somewhere in between mystery novel and chic-lit.
     It turned out amazing and has only gotten me more excited for this whole process. I'm planning on publishing my novel through Amazon within the next few weeks and will probably charge somewhere around $2.99 for it. Here's the cover: