I shared my tiny house with a mosquito last night, much to my dismay. Or maybe there was a flock of them. Herd? Swarm? Murder? It should really be a murder of mosquitoes, like it’s a murder of crows, because that is how one feels after one shares space with them for a while. It was one of those times when I belatedly wished I could have seen the future, because if I had known at 11PM that I was going to repeatedly fail to kill the damn thing, I would have gotten up, turned on the light, and hunted it down mercilessly. Or hunted them down mercilessly, because it’s possible that there was an entire murder of them haunting my presence throughout the night. I don’t think so, though, because my bed wasn’t filled with dead mosquito bodies. But it was so annoying, and as a result I’m feeling quite tired and cranky.

Fortunately, it’s a beautiful day, which is always good for mood improvement. Sophie and I walked to the marsh this morning. They’ve got a construction project happening there — new pipes, I think — and have closed it to traffic, but because of the holiday, no one was working, either. It was so peaceful and lovely. We startled a flock of birds a couple times, redwing blackbirds, I think, and passed a few other walkers, but mostly it was just us, out in nature, appreciating the fresh air and solitude.

I finally found the picture I was hunting for last week, and spent a couple of days playing with it.

Ta-da!

It mostly involved a ridiculous amount of playing with the typography, but I also added a few subtle lines to the image to make the dragon more obvious than it was in Cici and the Curator.

For comparison purposes:

An entirely legitimate question would be, “How could you spend hours making a cover that looks exactly like the last cover?” The answer would be, “Because I did the last cover in an app that I no longer had installed, and didn’t know what fonts, sizes, or weird glyphs I’d used.” Also, I was willing to experiment and I could have re-done the cover of Cici 1 if I’d decided to go in a different direction. At the end of many hours, though, I really liked the original best, so I stuck with it. I’m pleased with the final (maybe) result and am hoping to find it motivating as I continue pushing my way through the murky middle of the story.

And I am well into the murky middle, which is quite murky. I know where I’m going, I just haven’t quite figured out how to get there. I was really hoping I’d be done with the story by the end of September and I think that’s probably not going to happen. But, fingers crossed, I should be close. If, that is, I don’t waste too much time on blog posts and dog training and long walks to the marsh and learning Japanese, and get back to work.

Getting back to work now!