jazz jam as novel in progress

Once a month, at Irene and David's, a kind of free-for-all: Characters ebb and flow throughout the afternoon. Tunes come and go.

Exposition is woven in.Surprising connections are discovered.Sometimes, even brand-new characters.Or a whole-new subplot.A left turn is tossed in.A tough patch is negotiated.The plot thickens...

Understory is revealed.

Attention to detail is called for.

And something unique is created that never would have existed without all these elements working in concert... ...sort of like writing a novel.

I'm in the free-for-all stage with book two of the sixties trilogy. I'm writing away in 1966, mostly in my head this week, pining away for actual page-time, as I am home this week, but dealing with all the administrivia that spring brings, along with the very-fun things that are happening with Countdown.

Some things are scary for me (the plot thickens). For instance, a camera crew arrives here in an hour. We're doing an author video for Scholastic. Talk about free-for-all. Let me at least go put on my face! How's my hair? :>

the mechanicals are here

Here it is. Thanks so much for all your opinions. We've got the mechanicals! I'm reproducing them here, but keep in mind that the color is a bit washed out in these photos -- the final product will be deep and rich and layered and... all that jazz. :>
When you open the CD package, this will be inside the front cover:
This will be opposite it, inside the back cover, and under the cd tray:
This is the back cover:

And -- ta da!

The front cover:

We loved all your input, and we can't wait to hold the actual CD in our hands. It's the best yet, full of surprises and outstanding jazz compositions played by world-class musicians... we're thrilled to be THIS CLOSE to release!

January. That's when you can get hold of your own copy. Details to come about a CD release party/concert for Jim Pearce's latest masterpiece, coming to a theater near you, especially if you live in Atlanta. Thanks, all, for your enthusiasm and support!

permissions and the heart's desire

Wow! Thanks for all the passionate opinions about Jim's new album cover possibilities. Everything from "pick up that red line in #5 and make the print that same color" to "#9, because there's a sweet little boy vulnerability to the back of his neck, like he's working a puzzle."

Y'all are good writers. And thinkers. Thanks for playing. We'll let you know how we proceed, although by far #6 got the most votes here at the Pomegranate.

Next: Novel permissions. Every song, photo, clipping, and sketch has an owner (save what's in the public domain). Sometimes more than one owner. And every one of those owners gets to set a price for giving us permission to use his or her song or photo, in the new novel.

We have a very generous permissions budget for the new novel, but now that permissions are almost all in, we can see that this budget is not going to get us everything we want to use. Time to think hard about what we can keep and what needs to go.

This is like cutting up your perfectly-formed baby.... what arm can you live without? What leg? How can I patch that baby back together to be almost as good as new? Or even better? Time for creative thinking and a new work-around for the song lyrics particularly.

I slept on this last night, and I think I have at least a partial solution. So here I go to the drawing board to see what it may look like. And... lesson learned. I have two more books to finish in this trilogy. They will all follow this format, very heavy on visuals.

What I have learned through this is that I do have control of what images and songs I select, so I will keep that in mind, going forward. Meaning... with this novel, I chose my heart's desire. Now I know what my heart's desire costs me.

Sounds like life, doesn't it?

your opinion please

I've been at 800East this week, Ken Gregory's recording studio, with Jim, who is ready to release his new jazz album. Yesterday I took 310 photos of Jim at the piano in various poses. We're hoping one of these photos will become the cover of the new CD, which is titled "I'm in the Twilight of a Mediocre Career." He's not. :>

I've shot the cover of this CD, and this one, and this one. You can take a look, to see what we've done and what we're going for (and you can listen to Jim's tunes, too!).

There are only so many ways you can shoot a piano player at the piano... or are there? The outtakes are hilarious, but I'll save those for later. For now, here are some of the cover shots we're considering. Tell us what you think, please -- write, or leave a vote in the comments!

1. Jim wants a shot of him playing the piano, but this seems too busy to me:
2. He really wants black and white, and we'd have to photo-shop that rug out of the picture. And there's no piano (and too much sunlight on the cheek, I think):
3. Too dark, but it could be lightened:
4. Too light, but it could be darkened (and I don't like the headphones, but Jim wanted some with headphones):
5. I'm not sure what we saw in this, but we marked it:
6. I like the play of the sunlight here:
7.... and here (and there's a goodly swatch for text to go in the piano top):8. I dunno about this one (but Jim likes it):
9. This is our current favorite:
That's a few of them... I think maybe the strongest ones. What thinkest thou? And thanks for your opinion. This is Jim's strongest work yet -- we're excited about it! Photos of the band at work, coming up when we start to make the inside collage in a couple of weeks....