Life, I believe is about imagery. Everywhere we turn our senses are flooded with sensory input... sounds, smells, feeling, touch, and most powerfully for me, sights. I've recently come to realize how much of life I see through my inner eye, the one that sees what cannot be seen. When I'm reading or writing, the scenes play out like a movie, in full technicolor in my mind's eye, filling in details written or unwritten, as I image them to be. What I find amazing is that vision is so personal and so different for each and every person experiencing it through their own inner eyes. What they see may not resemble what I see at all; a sort of disconnected, separate vantage point from where we see the inner and outer world.
And yet, when an artist is called upon to capture something as illusive as a description, I'm often blown away by how much of the inner eye vision must actually have been shared. This was the experience I had working with the cover designer for my book, Fire & Ice. Amanda Matthews is an artist I'd never met nor spoken to, appointed by
Astraea Press to design the cover for my novel. I must admit I was more than apprehensive, and being so visual, I worried and wondered, how on earth I could convey the essence of my story to someone else in a way that will give them all they need to know to successfully create a visual. A visual I really didn't fully have in my mind, which was likely a good thing. I was willing to let myself be open to the possibilities, but in secret I was preparing for the worst.
I provided a few scant detail about my story and the main characters within it and someone was supposed to create something as important as a cover from just that alone? Well, eventually there was an email from the artist, in which she detailed why she made the design choice she made. I carefully read and reread every word before going to view the image she had designed for my book cover. My baby. Every hair stood on end and I held my breath as I opened the file. And as I saw the image I nearly dropped the laptop for wanting to jump up and down.
It was amazing! Simply breathtaking! There was no one else at home that I could share it with. I immediately called my mother who as it turned out couldn't see it because of computer troubles. So I was alone, staring at the incredible image created by someone else far away that felt as though she had plucked it from my mind's eye, without my knowledge it was in there. But in truth it came from within her mind's eye, her vision so powerfully and poignantly matched my own. And so I was reminded of the many many reasons I believe, that in some small way we must on some level be a little connected to one another. Inner eye to inner eye.
Stay tuned for the big cover reveal within the next few days! The ebook version of FIRE & ICE goes on sale the first week of July.
Want to contact
Amanda Matthews? Check out her site here:
http://amdesignstudios.net/
