The Cover as Writing Aid

I find that working on the cover image of my book helps me work on the text itself. Right now I  need clarify my feelings about the book.

The book’s working name is Mud and it is set in modern Prague. At first I was playing with classic images of Prague – Charles Bridge and moody spires, but they didn’t feel right. For starters the story isn’t set in tourist Prague, but in the lovely but less well-known area of Holesovice. But I didn’t want to identify that area particularly.

One of the reasons for playing with the cover is that it helps me identify my audience and genre. For many writers that is easy, but I write magic realism which isn’t easy to slot into genres and can appeal to a range of audiences. The book is partly a psychological mystery (a main character is a Czech detective) and partly paranormal (the book touches on the Golem legend). I searched for books of these genres with a reference to Prague and got a load of books with moody spires or darkened streets. Maybe I should copy them – if it works… But I don’t want to.

I wanted a moody picture but not a conventional one. So I wrote down the key elements of the book. They were

• the extreme storms and floods of 2013
• the Golem
• Prague
• missing female
• male detective

Then I searched for photos on 123rf.com which had combinations of the above phrases. It didn’t work until I used the word “rain” and “Prague”. That generated a photo by Czech photographer, Jaromír Chalabala. I clicked on his name and there was this photo:

It was just what I was looking for.  There’s even a hint of a Golem in those reflections, don’t you think?

Now all I’ve got to do is finish writing the book!

Tuesday Photo Inspiration - TheWood Witch

I came across the witch in the woods above my Czech house. She is actually a stump of a tree which tumbled in a high wind. I was walking lost in thought when I turned a corner and saw her through the trees. She made me jump, I don’t mind telling you. She’s vanished now into the rich earth of the forest.

Photo Inspiration - Forest

I took this photo in the Forest of Dean last Sunday. I love the forest. When I was a little girl I stayed with my grandmother in Berryhill, not far from Symonds Yat. My house in the Czech Republic is only fifteen minutes walk from the forest. When I can’t write, I take a basket and wander through the trees looking for mushrooms.

Photo Inspiration - Olsina

This is a photo of Lake Olsina in Southern Bohemia. I can walk here from my Czech house. It’s a very special place for me. It is set in a natural bowl formed by the surrounding hills. One of its attractions is that it is undisturbed. Much of the surrounding forests are in a military zone, which means that it is accessible only at weekends and that building is restricted in the locality.

The lake is man-made – a renaissance fishpond, which is still farmed today. Every other Autumn (in October or November) the sluices are opened and the lake drained. The carp are herded into the nets of the waiting fishermen. My friend Hannah had an old cottage next to the lake and I stayed with her one year, waking at 6 to watch the harvest. Crowds gathered to watch and buy fresh fish. When everyone had gone, it was the turn of the water birds to arrive – gulls of course, but also herons and white egrets.

At other times I have watched the mating dance of crested grebes rising and bowing on the still surface of the lake. In the summer Hannah and I would go swimming in the lake’s now warm waters, with the carp blowing bubbles around us or we would wander into the forest to collect wild mushrooms.

On the day of Hannah’s funeral I came to Olsina and launched a little paper boat on the waters in remembrance of her. In the boat’s prow I set a picture she had painted of a man waving. The boat bobbed in the current before disappearing round a small headland. My farewell said, I returned to my car and drove home. Later when I looked closer at the picture I saw that it was titled “Crossing Lethe.”