… Catch the Rainbow!
I thought long and hard, I considered my current workload, and I decided that I don’t have the physical capacity at the moment to write something completely from scratch.
That meant that three possibilities were automatically eliminated: The Beast Within, The Fool and Whitehorse Farm.
This left Diary of a Pussycat (a writers’ guide), Mardi Gras and Catch the Rainbow.
And then I had a bit of a play around in Canva and made a massive decision. I actually PAID for Canva Pro.
I’ve been playing with Canva Free for a loooong time and I’ve been toying with taking out a subscription because the colour palettes, the fonts, the designs and the pictures are very restricted in Canva Free. Many a time I’ve come up with a design that I like, whether for a book cover or a flyer, and then discovered that one or more of the elements come at a premium.
The poet can do a lot of designs in Adobe as he has the full suite. But I don’t have the time to learn all of that and if he’s away working, or busy working and I want something doing NOW, I can’t have it.
I already have a cover that I like for Diary of a Pussycat and it fits in with my previous writers’ guide Diary of a Scaredy Cat. So I played with covers for Mardi Gras and Catch the Rainbow. I previously had a cover for Catch the Rainbow, but I think I like the new one much better.
Why waste my time on covers, I hear you ask … (go on, ask …)
Well, first of all, Scrivener allows you to upload a cover image.
Then, both NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo also allow you to upload a cover image.
Thirdly, it’s a good, visual motivation.
But finally, if the book doesn’t find a home with a traditional publisher, then – depending on any feedback – I’ll want to publish it myself.
When I had the two book covers finished, I compared them, and I compared the size of the work already done. Mardi Gras has around 50,000 words while Catch the Rainbow has closer to 80,000 words. Diary of a Pussycat is around the 40,000-word mark.
And, well, Catch the Rainbow won.
So, during Camp NaNoWriMo I’ll be carefully going through Catch the Rainbow, building in comments already received from the beta readers so far, and thinking about those extra scenes I need to write. I’ll be doing this alongside my regular weekly editing and proofreading work.
I’ve already done one complete rewrite for this story so hopefully it won’t need a lot of work doing to it. I will be rewriting it again, though, so that the tone and the style is consistent throughout.
If at any time the editing and proofreading is a bit slow coming in, then I’ll work on prep for The Beast Within. When these two are further along, then perhaps I’ll work through Mardi Gras whilst prepping The Fool. And then I’ll work on Diary of a Pussycat alongside Whitehorse Farm.
Decision made. Thank you for listening, and keep an eye open for our little word-count man from Writertopia. I now how much you all love him!
