Wow! Thanks for all the passionate opinions about Jim's new album cover possibilities. Everything from "pick up that red line in #5 and make the print that same color" to "#9, because there's a sweet little boy vulnerability to the back of his neck, like he's working a puzzle."
Y'all are good writers. And thinkers. Thanks for playing. We'll let you know how we proceed, although by far #6 got the most votes here at the Pomegranate.
Next: Novel permissions. Every song, photo, clipping, and sketch has an owner (save what's in the public domain). Sometimes more than one owner. And every one of those owners gets to set a price for giving us permission to use his or her song or photo, in the new novel.
We have a very generous permissions budget for the new novel, but now that permissions are almost all in, we can see that this budget is not going to get us everything we want to use. Time to think hard about what we can keep and what needs to go.
This is like cutting up your perfectly-formed baby.... what arm can you live without? What leg? How can I patch that baby back together to be almost as good as new? Or even better? Time for creative thinking and a new work-around for the song lyrics particularly.
I slept on this last night, and I think I have at least a partial solution. So here I go to the drawing board to see what it may look like. And... lesson learned. I have two more books to finish in this trilogy. They will all follow this format, very heavy on visuals.
What I have learned through this is that I do have control of what images and songs I select, so I will keep that in mind, going forward. Meaning... with this novel, I chose my heart's desire. Now I know what my heart's desire costs me.
Sounds like life, doesn't it?
permissions and the heart's desire
your opinion please
I've been at 800East this week, Ken Gregory's recording studio, with Jim, who is ready to release his new jazz album. Yesterday I took 310 photos of Jim at the piano in various poses. We're hoping one of these photos will become the cover of the new CD, which is titled "I'm in the Twilight of a Mediocre Career." He's not. :>
I've shot the cover of this CD, and this one, and this one. You can take a look, to see what we've done and what we're going for (and you can listen to Jim's tunes, too!).
There are only so many ways you can shoot a piano player at the piano... or are there? The outtakes are hilarious, but I'll save those for later. For now, here are some of the cover shots we're considering. Tell us what you think, please -- write, or leave a vote in the comments!
1. Jim wants a shot of him playing the piano, but this seems too busy to me:
2. He really wants black and white, and we'd have to photo-shop that rug out of the picture. And there's no piano (and too much sunlight on the cheek, I think):
3. Too dark, but it could be lightened:
4. Too light, but it could be darkened (and I don't like the headphones, but Jim wanted some with headphones):
5. I'm not sure what we saw in this, but we marked it:
6. I like the play of the sunlight here:
7.... and here (and there's a goodly swatch for text to go in the piano top):
8. I dunno about this one (but Jim likes it):
9. This is our current favorite:
That's a few of them... I think maybe the strongest ones. What thinkest thou? And thanks for your opinion. This is Jim's strongest work yet -- we're excited about it! Photos of the band at work, coming up when we start to make the inside collage in a couple of weeks....
wading through the week
Something I learned from good friends when I became so suddenly single in 2001 was that grief takes its time. It has a season. And best to honor that season instead of pushing it away or trying to shove it into clothes it's not meant to wear.
So I didn't write this week. Way back in September, I set myself a goal of writing every day in October, and I did that until Norma died... and then I stopped.
Well, that's not entirely true. I did write a remembrance to represent her many students, and that piece will run soon in Hunger Mountain, the Vermont College literary journal.
But I stopped working on the novel, and that felt right. Instead of trying to make my mind parse sentences and construct plot and feel its way through characterization, I let my mind rest a bit this past week, and I allowed my heart to grieve.
Sometimes you just need to do that, and you are better for it afterward. I thought of a line I love from Delta Wedding, from a scene where India, Dabney, and Laura visit their old aunts: "They all sat down on the two facing sofas and had a plate of banana ice cream and some hot fresh cake and felt better." Yes.
In the soft grieving time of last week, I stayed connected to family, I did domestic things that ground me, and I attended to administrative tasks that, when I'm writing, I can't find time for.
We had steady rain for two days, and that felt appropriate. Then the rain moved on and the days bloomed crisp and beautiful. We moved the kitchen table to the front porch, started a wee fire, and carved pumpkins. Then I roasted the seeds. I've been munching them all week.
We delighted in an overnight with Jason's puppy Elvis-Andy-Bebop (my how he has grown!) and didn't even mind when he romped through the fall garden. The fall garden needs so much work! But I didn't feel like putting it to bed for the year yet, so that's something I'll do when I have more energy.
I made sure my staff approved of the jack-0-lanterns in progress. "Please stand by."
I baked a quiche with what I had on hand: cauliflower, red onion, mozzerella, walnuts, and apple slices. It was good, and filling.
We ate it around the first fire of the season indoors. Then we sat around the fire while picking on banjo and guitar, and singing the songs we're working on. I'm improving! Playing an instrument uses an entirely different part of the brain, I think -- I can feel it stretching.
So that was the handiwork of the week. Food prepared with presence, music played with enthusiasm, a puppy loved with abandon, family nurtured and nurturing, pumpkins transformed* into jack-o-lanterns, and hearts patted into some sort of functional shape again.
Grief wounds the heart. Love heals it. So does art. The art of taking care of one another, the art of creating something new. Y'all take care of one another. Create something new.
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*the fabulous Nikki McClure created the jack-o-lantern pattern above and Hannah carved it. You can find the pattern here, or at apartment therapy, if you want to take a crack at creating it yourself.
