This weekend I took a little different creative path. I decided to play with making mock covers for some of my languishing WIPs. I have about 15 of them in various stages and the writing hasn’t been going well for any of them when I open them for a few minutes to try. I figure the lack of writing ability is related to shut-in stresses, so I went for a different strategy: visualizations.not
I often look for images to help envision characters. I’ve done “house hunting” for settings. Usually I don’t make manips, but just the chance to see facial expressions or body language has helped to unlock a twist in a story or jump-start the writing when I’ve been struggling.
Mood boards are less interesting to me than these mock covers. It’s mentally the difference between envisioning the writing successfully done versus still being in progress. A cover is necessary to publish a book; a mood board is a process tool.
So here’s the covers I made this weekend. Just sharing, certainly not wanting critique. I am not a professional cover designer. The exercise did what I wanted. I wrote about 500 words on each story pictured below:
Not sure when any of these will finish. But at least some inspiration is in place.
~ Lara
Lara Zielinsky 