With a new novel coming out soon, I’m thinking about themes, titles, and cover art. Self-publishing requires the author to wear a lot of different hats. Fortunately, I like hats.
Themes
The Time Gatherer is the story of a young man with an unexpected genetic gift, the ability to part the folds of time, and what he decides to do with it. Rock-and-roll, genetics, and a shadowy secret society all play a part, as does a 13th century time-traveling monk, but the big factor in George’s story is love. How to find it, lose it, and what to do after that happens. This new story asks a question: what can we learn from loss of love? In every life, loss will happen. How can that experience be transformed into helping others through similar losses? How can we find the way back to love again?
Love seems to be the sun my stories revolve around. Love of all kinds and relationships. What draws us together, propels us apart, and what we do after love has transformed our lives. My first novel, The Renaissance Club, used time travel in explore romantic love, its joys and sacrifices.
In my next novel, The Time Gatherer, My main character, a young man named George St. James, has a genetic gift for time travel. He can experience countless lives and cultures, almost at will. But even within such an extraordinary life, everything passes and changes, and no one is immortal. How do you transform loss back into a new form of love? It’s an eternal question. Coming out in November!
Muy second novel, The Invisibles, explores love and loss again, this time the love between siblings. I started it as a tribute to my recently deceased, much beloved brother, though the story evolved to focus on estranged sisters. You can’t have a story about how wonderful a relationship is — at least it can’t start there. So, like all stories, this one starts with a problem or two, and unlike most stories, a ghost. The ghost is a tribute to love also, because from the moment my brother died he started speaking to me. There, I said it. Lock me up. But it’s lovely.
Titles & Covers
I’m delighted that readers have weighed in with their thoughts on the title for this new book. I ran reader polls on my newsletter and got lots of creative ideas for titles and art. I actually now have three titles to work into this Timegathering series. When it came to a title for the next, The Time Gatherer won almost unanimously. I initially resisted it, because now three of my novels will have “The” at the beginning of the title. Maybe “The” should be my brand? (Kidding!) Because it’s another time travel story, cover art has to tell the prospective reader what to expect. It’s fantasy, involves time and history, and the main character is a young man. Another reader poll on imagery chose the background image in my new cover. A couple of other images appealed to some, but everyone liked this one. So it’s now my new cover.