I heard back from my friend Tim, and he’s willing to do cover art for me.  I’m really excited about it!  Tim is a fantastic artist, and as we were growing up, I always assumed that our stars would rise together, me with my writing and him with his visual art.  He and I both lost our way for a while, but we’re both finding our way back to our dreams.  It would be fantastic if we could help each other achieve them.

He asked me some questions to help him visualize the setting in my story, and it was a good exercise for me.  I had done quite a bit of thinking about what the characters looked like before I launched into the story, but I only had some vague notions as to what the world actually looked like.  There’s some geography in my head, some of which won’t even show up in the book.  But the architecture?  The building styles?  I hadn’t given it that much thought.

As I told Tim, my setting is relatively low fantasy.  There aren’t any elves in the woods, or dwarves in their mines.  The world of A Clean Slate is primarily occupied by dirty, sweaty humans.  They don’t have medicine.  They’re not far off from starving, and if it weren’t for some key elements of the story, they’d be fighting each other and dying more often than living.  You could compare it to Game of Thrones, except I gave everyone a lobotomy and removed sexism.  The book I’m writing is my fantasy, not George’s.

Actually, I really wouldn’t want to live in the world I’m writing about.  I like the comforts of home and the wonders of modern technology.  It’s an interesting world, the way a tragedy is interesting.

I have a really long ways to go, still.  The word count isn’t climbing that quickly, and my focus the last couple of weekends has been almost non-existent.  Maybe I can coax out some more speed by setting a finish date.  I’m hesitant to do that, though.  I’m enjoying the process at the moment.  I just need to slice out more time.