Good Enough, or, The Hamster Wheel

These days I'm trying to make progress on my cover for The Single Eye, and considering that I've been working at it pretty steadily since the third week in May, that progress is pretty darn slow.

No, it doesn't look the same as it did then, it looks better.  And I'm learning GIMP at a good clip.  So all's good, right?

No, it's not.  Seems like the more I work on it, the shakier my confidence gets.  

I mean, you need feedback, right?  And I've asked for it, in my general online writers' group, on Facebook in the authors' group I belong to there, on my personal Facebook page, on Instagram, and in person.

The reaction from ordinary people in person and on social media has been very positive.  For them, the proposed cover looks "real."  They want to know when the book will be available for sale.  They're asking if I've set up preorder.  On Instagram I've had some nice Likes from professional designers.  Very encouraging.  But when it comes to my fellow-writers . . . ouch.  The comments and critiques are all over the place, and what one person likes the other hates. 

I'm taking in the critique.  I note where potential readers might be confused and alter the design accordingly.  And I think what I have now is better than what I started with.   It might even be Good Enough.  

But there's a sick perfectionist urge in me that whispers, "Keep working on it.  Keep working on it.  Even if it takes till next year or the year after.  Keep working on it.  You have to please everyone.  You never will, it'll never be good enough, but you have to try."  But I can't keep working on it.  There's a point where I'm going to have to say This Is It, and I need to say it soon.

A lot of people would advise me, "That's why you hire a cover artist and don't try to do it yourself."  Yeah, but unless I could afford someone with the chops of a Chip Kidd, how do I know the cut-rate designer I've hired (and right now, I couldn't even afford to hire someone off Fiverr) has provided me a design that's all it should be?  I've gotten to the point where even if my cover--- my design or someone else's---  looked like the one on an Amazon No. 1 ten-week bestseller I'd still worry there were ten things wrong with it.

It's sick.  So I have to ignore the neurosis and the paranoia, and maybe my helpful critics, too.  Which is why I'm not posting any more progress views.  I can't let anyone give me the excuse to stay on this hamster wheel.

I've done my best on it, the best I can at this stage.  And I should be able to recognise that.  After all, I've been an artist, architect, and graphic designer a lot longer than I've been a writer, and I've cranked out some very successful publicity pieces during my misspent career.  

And if I think of a way to improve my cover later, I can.  Hey, that's the beauty of doing it myself.

Condensed Version

Two years ago at this time I was in the same position I am now: Needing to generate a synopsis of a new novel for my Read and Critique session at the annual Pennwriters conference here in Pittsburgh.  Single-spaced, half a page.  No more.  Rereading my post of 13 May 2015, I see I was in "Oh my gosh, take a deep breath, don't freak out" mode.  How was I ever going to condense the plot of Singing Lake Farm down to that?

Well, though I neglected to blog about it at the time, I succeeded.  I distilled it down to 379 words (not counting the heading) and my novel idea and first two pages went over well with the professional reading panel.  (I neglected to blog about that, too.  I wish I had, as they said some very nice and encouraging things.)

This year, my problem was not that I had too much plot in Strong as Death to press into a half page, but that to a great extent I didn't have a plot for the new novel at all.  Not a complete one, anyway.

I've got the first act well in mind.  But after that I have to get my characters (Eric and Sandy from The Single Eye) involved in something people like them ordinarily wouldn't be tangled up with, and I had a sketchy idea--- but only sketchy--- of how to make that work.  I had a pretty good picture of the climactic scene.  But beyond "there's a big fight, the bad guys lose, the good guys win and live happily ever after," I hadn't a clue.  Especially as the real antagonist isn't my Red terrorists, but my heroine's cheating former boyfriend Werner.  What becomes of him?  He's got to change somehow, but it has to be organic, or I've written propaganda or crap.  The challenge for that is especially stiff when you're writing a Christian novel.  Not even God "makes" us be good!

Happily, by now writing a half-page-only synopsis doesn't panic me; rather, it's an exercise in focus.  How can I make this plot work?  What twists can I come up with, and how can I use them to effect the final outcome?  What's really important, and what can I leave out?  How can I word all this in the most economical way?

I've been working on the Strong as Death synopsis since yesterday and at 366 words I believe I have something that will fly.  In the process I've gotten the plot a lot more clear.  I don't say there aren't any possible holes, but I think any that emerge can be plugged.

But I wonder:  am I cheating a little?  Do the panelists expect the novels whose beginnings are submitted for the R&C sessions to be finished?  If not, it'd be really hard for a discovery writers to provide a synopsis.  Often they have less idea how their stories will come out than I did!

Never mind.  This is a good chance to find out if I'm giving Strong as Death a good start, and I'm taking it.