NaNoWriMo :: NaNoWriMo Blog

Happy November! It's officially the first week of National Novel Writing Month and we're already seeing some pretty impressive word counts. Keeping up with all you enthusiastic novelists is Chris Papasadero, at Fwis; here are the first two cover designs! And make sure to check out the forum where you can shower praise upon these masterpieces, share any thoughts you might have, or just cheer Chris on.

Chris will also be posting these images in the "30 Covers, 30 Days" forum every day. That's the place to check if you want to stay up-to-the-minute and if you want to get a little insight into why Chris chose to do these covers the way he did. Anyway, I'll shut up now and let the covers do the talking:

30 Covers: Day One

"The Business" - Solita

All Victoria “Vicky” Williams wanted to be growing up was a professional wrestler. After enduring years of negativity from her friends and family, she says goodbye to her old life and enrolls into wrestling school. For the next ten years, Vicky pays her dues in the business through physical pain, emotional turmoil and mental stress. She works alongside the boys, learns the ropes, holds her own and gains everyone's respect.

So when she finally gets her big break in the biggest company, the WWA (World Wrestling Alliance), it wounds Vicky that locker room politics lavish all the attention on another woman wrestler: Lara Desrosiers, a supermodel who won her contract in a talent competition. Vicky keeps fighting though, maintains her ringwork ethic and promo skills while the higher-ups continue to favor Lara’s beauty and sex appeal. But when Lara endures her first in-ring injury, one that reminds Vicky of her own years ago, the two develop a bond that rarely forms in such a hard, unforgiving business like this-- a bond tested by too many injuries and too many drugs.

30 Covers: Day Two v.2

"Traffic Lights" - fadingwind

Imagine a world, not far in the future, where everyone's born with a visible, permanent, unchanging aura. But there are only two colours: green for good and red for evil. Everyone's got to be one thing or another. Or so the government claims. In order to maintain the order of society, if you're born red, you're taken away from your parents immediately-- killed, used in experiments for medical research... who knows? You're just never seen again.

Amber, born with a red aura, was hidden away by her parents at birth. She grows up a lonely child, trapped in her small home, but the year she turns sixteen, she realises that maybe, just maybe, she doesn't have to be alone. Things don't have to stay like this. There are others like her out there. Are they all evil? Is she evil? Are good and evil really ever that simple?

And again, make sure to check out Fwis' Cover Blog. The guys at Fwis critique current cover design; it's a great way to get a bit of working knowledge of the trials and travails of graphic designers the world over.

- Tim