Back Cover Progress

 

No, my next book is not done yet.  Yes, this is a progress report, but only about the covers.  No, the above picture is not on the cover, but yes, it'll be in the book:  I'm thinking it will be the title page.  I've been so busy I can't list all that has been accomplished in the past 3 weeks;  but one -- just one! -- glorious goal was finally finishing Fancy's chapter.  Only two more to go...

When we last saw the back cover, it was in November of 2023, more than a year ago.  It looked like this:

In December of last year (2024), deep in the night of the 27th, I drew this in my Notebook:

It doesn't look all that great, but believe me, I'd been turning over this arrangement in my head almost from the beginning.  Only with the completion of April's -- here represented by the Indian Pony on lower right -- did I feel the time had come to try depicting it.  The figures are arranged clockwise according to their placement in the book:  Ricky's the easiest in the upper left, then Duke's the next easiest to his immediate right, then Malaguena's laid out, and so on.

The back cover had to be perfect.  You know how heavy that sort of punishing weight lies on any sort of creative endeavour.  It dang near kills them.  Only the slow accumulation of all 8 pieces' chapters would give me the material for the back.  But it was happening.  After Malaguena's, the Peach;  after the Peach Rose, April's.  After April's, Fancy's.  Through very little fault of its own, Fancy's would take a staggering eleven months, from May 2024 to now.  Most chapters took far less;  indeed, the Peach Rose had taken only two.  But all that time has not been wasted.

In a hotel room in Florida in January this year, around the 10th, I drew up what you see here.  Oh it still needs work:  The Snowshoes balloon is in the wrong place, I'm not happy with Fancy's or April's positions, everything's unfinished.  But oh, what a huge leap it was!  I wrote along with it, and below is the transcription.

"2412.27   For months, years, I've shuffled that thing around in my head.  Tonight, without benefit of PhotoShop ---on a hotel desk in Florida --- using drafting paper & pencil & eraser, I worked it out.  There were some intermediate stages.  There is still MUCH to be done.  But the 'design sheet' stage is now accomplished.   

Oh Oh OH!!  The power & the glory!!  The sheer lovely excitement of creativity.  There's nothing like it.  And this is all my own.  This is what I was born to do.  This is what my whole career has been leading up to.  I'm amazed at the many sneak peeks, leaks, outright giveways I've published over the past 2  1/2 years.  (2 yrs 7 mos)   Anybody w/ an evil copying bent could've pinched the Peach Rose by now.  It's in the blog and so is Ricky's.  But blogs get short shrift.  Or else my target audience is not geared to reading them.   After all I am not geared to reading my books online.  It's all I can do to use the Kindle,...

...I don't care.  Here, tonight, by drawing and tracing & transforming, by plain raw pencil & paper, patience & erasure I have done what so desperately needed doing.  The back cover is advertisement, index, promise & ornament all in one.  Instant judgement attends it.  I see it in paper, glossy of course.  The power of it.  No one will be able to resist this book... "

 

The goal is two in black-and-white (Ricky's and April's), and two as drawings of just the tack (Malaguena's and Tissarn's).  The rest, four pieces - Duke's, the Peach Rose, Fancy's and Rinker's - will be full color photographs, so like the old Guide.  Above is the intended photo for Ricky's.  I think my drawing exaggerrated the forelock!

Here's another sneak peek:  Peach Rose, the rightmost upper middle.  It's going to take some fiddling to fit her in that narrow space, maybe even unto a re-shoot.

And finally, (drum roll...!) a REAL sneak peek:  the current state of the Front Cover!!  Of course it is not finished.  My dream vision was the horse passing through the bosal, emerging on the left, hidden behind on the right.  He will not have grass blades on his hooves and his tail-tip will be covered by the border.  But this is basically what the Front Cover will look like.  Except, ahah, for the white background.  Remember the Guide cover, with its colored-pencil rainbow shadings all around, fading to white in the center?.... yeah, like that,...

This was my vision, seen in a dream all those years ago, even to the specific model horse.  (So it can't be older than year 2000, hah!)  Heaven knows it's been long enough.  The tiny dates at the bottom of this cover refer to when I first drew this cover, and then to the refinements.  I actually cut out the central figure the old-fashioned way, knife and scissors.  His photo was taken in Sheyenne National Grassland, ND, in 2023.

So, what's next, and when can we expect publication?  The short snappy mean answer is "taxes,"  but then, "Cover work, Rinker's, Tissarn's.... and maybe sometime around BreyerFest, or soon thereafter."   You shall hear about it here, on FB and at BFest, for starters.

For the longest time I thought Rinker's would be the last in the book.  His hackamore is the most stunning and it has many new elements; the bosal uses a 3B, not a 4B like the other two, and his mecate could be a separate chapter all its own.  The back cover reflects this.  But now that I'm here, I believe Rinker's and Tissarn's to be equal in their complexity.  I'm thinking Rinker's needs to be next (7th of the 8) simply because his is a bosal hackamore and we've just done 2.  Why not put them all together, a trio, same as I did for the harnesses in the Guide...?  Each one is an elaboration on the previous, more and more detail, harder and harder to build.  Tissarn's isn't a bosal hack but a Mechanical; and hers has knots the other 7 pieces never even dreamed of.  She will get more formulae than all the rest.  It is hers, and not Rinker's, that is the hardest.  This will not shift my layout of the back cover, but accurately reflect the many changes the book has undergone.

Changes,...  societal unrest is bad for artists, that has not changed.   Yet I refuse to give up hope.  This dream of mine has been underway for almost 3 years.  I am starting to curse it, and that's a sure sign we are nearing the birth.  I am getting ready to be seriously wanting to do something else.  Hang in there:  we're down to months not years.

And thank you for your patience.