Life Imitates Art - Miracle Edition!

One of these days, I'm going to release my novel "Balms & Sears."*  The road goes ever onward, as they say.  And for nearly two years now, this photograph, taken by Nine Koepfer, was going to adorn the cover:

You see, the novel is about Alec Ewell, who from at least four years old, has had the ability to heal.  Over the years (he's fourteen when the book begins), he has used that power, which his grandfather calls Balming, to heal animals and people, to the point where he can bring an animal back from the point of death.

When I first saw Koepfer's photo, I knew that's the image I wanted for my cover: a dead or dying bird, being touched or held in the hands of a child.  And I still love that image.

However, while I was editing audio yesterday at the family cabin, I heard a sharp thump from the windows beside me, and as has happened multiple times, a bird had flown into the glass.  Sometimes, the birds are fine, but often, they break their necks or wings or spines, and I find their still bodies on the deck below the window.  Last time, there was a dead woodpecker there, and this time, I went out to check, and found a poor, sad gray and white finch or swallow (let me know and I'll change it) fluttering on the wood slats, an unsightly bulge in its feathers behind its neck.

I've watched them die before, and this one was surely a goner, so I picked it up so it could, I don't know, slip away in a warm hand, or pass away quicker due to panic in the clutches of a deadly predator.

It occurred to me that this was like my cover to "Balms," and I grabbed my phone and took a photo, thinking that it could serve just as well as a cover, not considering that a) the hands belong to a middle-aged dork rather than a teen or child, and that b) I couldn't very well hold the bird in my hands or touch it with my index finger if I had to hold up my phone to take the picture.

I set the bird down where the rays of the sun could hit it as it passed, and went back inside, just in case I'd better wash my hands (I don't know that birds aren't clean animals, but the fact that it was dying made me think I ought to, even though the cause of death was a shiny reflection).  When I went out to check on the bird, though, it had rolled over onto its legs, which surprised me, considering its injuries, and when I went out a few minutes later, the bird was standing up, and seeing me, hopped off the log where I'd set it, and ran to the edge of the deck, where it jumped off, and ran off into the brush.

Later on, when I was carrying my junk out to the car, I saw the bird in a tree, obviously recovered enough that it could fly.  So, just like Alec Ewell, and like Judd Nelson in an unsuccessful 1986 movie, I've got the touch, I've got the power.

*It was SUPPOSED to have come out in September or early October, but alas, Rish B. Outfield was involved, so no.

Good For Your Goal

One of the goals I've set for myself in 2024 is to publish my novel "Balms & Sears," a project I started in (I think) 2016 and didn't actually finish until 2022.  But if you're reading this, you know me, and that means you know there's no chance I'll actually achieve it.  To paraphrase Mace Windu, it's just not in my character.

But Big Anklevich, perhaps sensing a tremor in the Force, sent me the completed cover today, which has traditionally been the final step necessary before publishing.

And I think it looks good.  It doesn't EXACTLY convey what I intended--that of a boy who can heal dead or sick animals--but I'd say it's about 87% of what I wanted.  Plus, it's in black and white, and that really works for me, for some reason.

Will this be the last push I need to finally put the book out there?  It, uh, might.  Here's hoping.

How Hard Is It To Levitate?

 I ought to ask sometime if you guys like these bad A.I. posts.  But it doesn't matter: I have to blog about something, and these accidents of God amuse me.

They also frustrate me, because it's a kind of magic that there's a program that can create cover art for me, but 75% of the time, there's something wrong with the image.  And with my story "You're In Good Hands," it's so far 100%.

I wanted what looked like a pencil drawing of a young teen girl floating over her bed, hovering over her bed, levitating over her bed with her legs crossed.  And so far, it always gets something wrong.

So, this one's not terrible--okay, wait--the face is terrible.  Plus, she seems to be hanging from the curtains rather than floating.

This one is worse: not only is the face deformed, and the feet misshapen, but she appears to be sticking her hand into a light socket.

I tried something different on this one, thinking I was asking for too realistic a portrayal.  And while, yes, the girl IS floating, and yes, she looks like a human being (you just wait), it's way too cartoony for my needs (also, her hair is yellow, right, despite me asking for b&w?).  "You're In Good Hands" isn't a children's book, though it does feature a child.  So, back to the Pencil drawings.

Okay, this one's on the right track--she's at least floating rather than hanging, but her hands are on backwards

So, it's at this point that I have to mention that there seems to be a tremendous Anime influence on this program.  Often, when I type "teen girl," they end up in school uniforms, and invariably (no exaggeration) one of the six images has visible panties.  And I'm not casting aspersions on the folks that like that stuff, it's just that I'm uncomfortable sexualizing Lara Demming, especially back when she's twelve years old.

Alright, this one got the levitation right.  Her legs aren't crossed, and it's not above her bed like I wanted, but it's definitely floating rather than jumping or sitting.  Her face is rather ugly, but that's probably fixable.  I don't *hate* this one, and that's at least progress.

So, this is the best of the bunch (so far)--she has a normalish face, appears to float rather than stand or jump, but she is dressed in some kind of ballet outfit . . . and her feet are hands.

And this is probably the worst of the bunch.  I'm not even going to waste words, except to say that this is the exact same prompt as produced the last two.

Nothing terribly wrong here . . . except she's just standing on the bed.  Again, my prompt was, "A teen girl levitates above her bed, her legs crossed"  Oh, and her feet are too small.

Just out of curiosity, I typed "her legs Indian-style" rather than crossed.  This was the result.  Whoops.

I went back to my original prompt, and this time, you could see panties in almost all of them.  One even had nudity.  This was the best of the bunch, and while it's not what I want--the pillows are floating too?--it's much, much closer.

This one's even closer.  It's almost exactly what I want, as far as what it depicts, the right number of arms and feet.  But she's making a Y in the air in front of the bed rather than what I asked . . . though I could be satisfied with this, if I had to be.

I had another odd one to share, and here it is.  Not an absolute abomination, but if you saw this in your room at night, you'd get no sleep, I assure you.

Again, not awful, though the girl's face is pretty bad.

oh my god

Okay, this is the one I settled on.  It had problems, so I tried to remove the portal to Hell at the bottom, make her face slightly less misshapen, and remove the third foot.  I realize the feet don't quite look right, but it seems to be the best I can do, especially considering how much time I've wasted on it. 

Oh, shoot.  Now I've wasted your time too, haven't I?

Many Covers of Eve

Oh, here's one I haven't plugged.

Back in 2019, for my annual holiday story, I wrote "The Many Faces of Christmas Eve," a tale that--say what you will--at least has a damn clever title.*  This is the one where the guy goes to a holiday dinner with the family of a girl he likes, and discovers that everyone at her parents' table looks just like her.

I put this out a couple of years back, and created my own cover for it, which, as bad as it looks now, was literally the best I could do at the time.

Yikes.

But what I did was, I took a color photo and, no pun intended, bled out all the color except for in the wine glasses.**

Maybe the problem is the Christmas font that I chose (and colored), or the fact that it's square instead of rectangular, but it does look bad.  Perhaps it's just too busy.

So, I asked the program to give me a table set up for Christmas dinner with an alien sitting on it.  But that was just weird--a conceit of the tale is that the main character doesn't realize he's dealing with aliens until late in the story, and doesn't see what they look like till the very end--so I asked for just a table set for a holiday dinner, as well as a spaceship flying by in the window.

It wouldn't comply, so I asked it to do just the table, and then asked it to do just the spaceship.  I figured that, windows being square, I'd be able to simply cut and paste the starship one into the window space of the table one.  It worked fairly well, though Big didn't think it looked very natural there.

Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong.  I had pasted a lamp at the top of the window, to hide that it was a combination of pictures, but I wish there was a way to add the reflection of the lamp in the glass.  Regardless, Big thought it made the top of the cover too busy, so he removed it.  Ah well.

Anyway, here's the new cover, and I gotta say, it's night and effing day compared to the original cover.  The story, I'm sorry to say, is the same as before.  It's available right HERE.

 

*I was reminded to blog about this when I saw a DVD of THE MANY FACES OF EVE at the library yesterday and picked it up, never having watched the movie before.

**Oh, and that bit of parsley or salad or whatever in the corner, for some reason.  Huh.

More Cover Wrongness

So, I recently posted that "Not Every Cover Is Art" blog post, where I showed some of the mistakes A.I. has created for me, in pursuit of cool covers for my stories.

Last time, I mentioned trying to get one of the Grim Reaper with a baby, and hey, I still have the images.

Now, that's just gross.

I like the Reaper, but those hands . . .

This one is really good . . . except for the flesh hands (and extra fingers).

Ummm . . .

For my story "A Gallon A Day," I asked for a woman drinking a gallon of water.

This one's close to fine, actually, except for the little Quatto hand . . .
which I could probably erase if I really liked the rest of it (which I don't).

Same woman, but new oddness.  Please note the monster-like claw
and some kind of futuristic water/breathing apparatus (and extra thumbs).

This feels like one of those Count How Many Things Are Wrong With This Pictures,
from the glass sort of in her mouth to the extra hand  to the water itself (what is going on there?). 
At least she has the correct number of fingers.  Do you?

This is the one that decided me to just remove the girl altogether.  The popsicle/water dispenser is neat,
but the gallon of water looked pretty enough by itself that it's what I went with for the real cover.

Here's another try for a "Friends in Paradise" cover.

It doesn't really work--but if she were turned toward the huge wasp, I might have used it.

Another attempt of a baby reaching out to someone.

Like the poster said, "For God's sake, get out!"

I asked for a doll dressed in black, wearing a veil.

You know, that Sydney Sweeney really is something after all.

This one isn't so bad, really.  It was supposed to be a teen girl hanging a banner in a high school hallway.

But look more closely.  How many things can you see wrong with this image?

For example, her hand is bent the wrong way.

And of course, the weird lettering (which seems unavoidable with English text, at least for now).

Her face is almost normal . . . just a little beestung.

The hallway is awfully narrow and compact, but I do like the reflection of her feet on the floor.

Wait, is someone sort of standing behind her in the hall there?

I wasn't kidding before: get out!!!

Not Every Cover Is Art, Kids

 I just wanted a chance to post some of the unacceptable images I've created for covers over the past two months.  Many suck, indeed, over half, but usually in a boring way.  Those I just ignore and forget about.  But every once in a while (let's say, 20% of the time*), the image is so awful or ghastly, that I save it, so that I never forget.

Take this, for example:

I've started small.  There's not REALLY anything horrible or wrong here.  Except for the shadows.  And, uh, what is that on the right?  That's a specter, isn't it?  And the little girl doesn't seem right--like, is there something covering her face?  Hmmm.

For my story "Troubled Child," I wanted a baby reaching for an old woman in a wheelchair.  It absolutely refused to do that, no matter how nicely I asked, so I told it to just create me a baby reaching out.  Simple, right?

The baby looks great, really . . . except for . . . oh my Lord.

This is actually a good image for a cover...

...except I told it I wanted an old witch reaching out her hand in a forest.

This was a cover I tried to do for my story "The Scottish Scene" (which still needs a new cover).  I asked for a witch standing in a high school hallway.  And it gave me . . . well, yeah.

I quite like this one, actually.  I told it I wanted an image of the Grim Reaper holding a baby (oh crap, it did so many terrible ones, with a baby Grim Reaper or a Reaper holding a mutant baby with two heads.  Do I still have those?  Hmm.  Remind me to look for them and post another one of these in a month or so), and finally, I just said, "Okay, forget that, give me the Grim Reaper standing in a mirror."  I thought it would give me Death reflected before a dude in a bathroom or something, but it created a side-view mirror instead.  And that didn't fit for my story, as cool as it turned out.

This one wasn't even A.I., but just met trying to create two hands reaching for a piece of pizza (for my story "Pizza Triangle," which I would've released this month, if I weren't so lazy*).

No, it's not very good, but you don't know these things until you try them.

I love this one.  No notes.

This one is endlessly upsetting to me.  Man.

I've really been struggling to get an image (for my tale "Roll with the Changes") of a young woman raking leaves.

This isn't bad, except . . . is that a giant spatula?

It really struggles with the concept of rakes.

Is that a hose, or what?

Maybe she's just gluing leaves to the end of a stick or something.

My dog, that's a lot of leaves.

I don't hate it . . . except the mini-rake seems to be growing OUT of her hand.

This one is almost alright, except for . . . those aren't rakes--what are they??

I just included this one as a jump-scare.

This one is closer . . . except for the rake and something is off with
her face (couldn't she just be looking a tiny bit more away
from the camera, so you couldn't see her CG-deformity?).

The rake is fine--but she's wearing jeans and a skirt . . . and her face is even more WRONG than the last.

This one is as close to perfect as I've gotten.  The girl is both pretty
and yet concerned, she has the correct number of fingers . . .
but what is she doing with her hands?  I really should just let this one slide.

What the hell, man?

I still haven't found an image for "Roll with the Changes" that satisfies me.  But it costs me nothing to keep on trying.

You, however, have already paid too high a price.

*Which is too much, but this technology is still very new, and still amazing for what it is.

**I keep telling myself, "Tonight I'm going to sit down and record that story."  And then I don't.  Rinse and repeat.