Seeing these images reminded me once more of where I've come, and the time, effort, and courage it took to get here.
I've been thinking about what started me on this authoring path. And though I've enjoyed writing since I was a child, I trace my decision to publish back to a day in my early adulthood.
I was in Switzerland, studying communications. Some of the weeks I struggled through. But the week on writing - ah, I came alive that week! Our teacher was a published author, and he led us in creative exercises, like "showing not telling" and writing a story about God watching people kiss (seriously). In nearly all exercises (except the kissing one) I blazed ahead confidently and excitedly.
At the end of the week, the teacher and I were together chatting. He told me something that would set me on my new path: a published author told me, "You're good enough to be doing what I'm doing."
Not many years later, I published Kingdom of Bats.
These pictures I re-discovered remind me of what I've learned. I hadn't been to design school yet, so didn't know the ins-and-outs of book cover designs (I forgive the publisher for not going with my designs). I actually did a lot more pictures than these, but didn't understand things like 'resolution,' so sketched them too small to be of any use. Eventually, I scrapped all but two images (the map and one good sketch).
