Recovering the Classics: Jo’s Boys

Recovering the Classics is an awesome project that attempts to take classic novels and “re-cover” them to make them appealing – most ebook versions of the public domain books have generic, plain, or horribly ugly covers that turn people off, and the folks at RtC want to excite people about the books.  The books are then made available to libraries and, if I am correct, to consumers as well. They also sell merchandise like t-shirts and other cool things with your choice of artwork. Though the artists release their images under CC license, they do receive royalties on the merchandise.

How cool is that?

Anyway, so I couldn’t stay away when I found out that Louisa May Alcott’s Jo’s Boys had no cover submissions. Zero. Nadda. I LOVED Alcott as a child and still have an extensive collection of her work (including the aforementioned Jo’s Boys), so here are the cover submissions I sent in:

As they are already submitted, it is a little late for feedback, but you can drop your opinions anyway. For those who have not read this, i admit the covers are a bit literal, but oh well. Not my usual style, which made them fun to do. I have no idea if they will accept them, or even like them, but we’ll see.

In the meantime, have a good one, and check out RtC!

Jo 🙂

Acceptance and Pirates

“Victory! We fight to win! Victory is ours again!”

Yes, those are the lyrics from the opening song of The Pirate Movie. I imagine it may also be a real song that they stole, but I don’t know. Anyway, if you don’t get the reference:

So why am I victorious? Because I beat NaNoWriMo.

50,160 words.  While that’s not a lot to some participants, especially those who planned ahead, it was a special victory for me because at midnight last night I was short 14,000 words.
Yikes.
I’d pretend this is something new, but it’s not. A fellow author posted a very insightful blog about what she learned from NaNo including that she did her best writing on the weekend. What did I learn about my writing habits? Sadly the same thing I already knew: I start with good intentions to space things out where I can do it easily and without sweating. I fall off, then in the middle swoop up, catch up, and get it ready to skate through the end, then completely stop and cram the whole lot into the last day or two.

I do this with everything. I always have. I’ve tried to do better, BE better, but it’s just setting myself up for failure. I had accepted this, and was even happy on this state of being, until I became an “author” – meaning I have been inundated with a billion and one blogs and articles telling me how I am supposed to be, how I am supposed to think, and how I am supposed to write.
Yikes.
That’s the trouble with NaNo, with writing communities, with those author publications, etc. etc. They’re all busy telling us what worked FOR THEM, and while that’s great, it may not work for us. Writing on a normal, paced out timeline does not work for me. Waiting until the last minute? Apparently that does, and that’s OK.
Have a good one!
Jo 🙂

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