I'm an emotional person. I think in images, in pictures — during meditation I can even conjure smells out of my imagination.
I knew right away that my book (the first one, I mean) had to have illustrations. I had no idea why, hadn't looked into whether publishers even print that genre with pictures. I saw them, plain as day. I wanted a reader, after finishing a chapter, to be able to see what they'd just read. It sharpened the image, and the impression.
I didn't need to sift through cover options, because I already had the cover in my head too. My reference was a picture from the internet, saved on my phone a few years earlier in a folder called 'Favorites': a girl in a short dress stands on a cliff, her back to the viewer, mountains and clouds below her, holding a bunch of colorful balloons out in her right hand. Long before, I'd started one of my social media posts with the line: 'Our life is like balloons — whatever color you inflate, that's the color you'll fly on. I prefer only the colorful ones.'
I'd come up with that line with no connection to the picture from the internet, and the book itself was still just an idea at that point. But when I sat down to write it, I couldn't not start with that line. And the book's cover was born on its own. It became my inspiration as I sank into memories, and again and again those colorful balloons floated before my eyes. They'd pulled me back up my whole life. Out of every situation, out of every mess, those balloons were a symbol of freedom. I could be free, fly wherever I wanted, and keep seeing my life in color.
I sent my husband the picture with the girl and the balloons — he happened to be playing around with the newly-available AI at the time. After about 200 iterations (AI wasn't what it is now, back then), he showed me a few options. I pointed at one and didn't want to look at any of the others again. That was me. Except instead of a cliff, the AI had for some reason drawn a green meadow full of the wildflowers I love. Which worked just as well. And it wasn't a copy of the reference at all. I loved everything about it — the dress, the cartoon-style artwork, the meadow, the balloons. That's how I got the cover for the ebook.
But a print cover also has a back side, and endpapers. Time to find an artist. I posted in Bali expat chats that I was looking for a watercolor artist. For some reason I pictured my illustrations specifically in watercolor. A few women responded. I'd already come up with an assignment for them: on the front cover, the girl with the balloons walks away from the reader, into a field, her back turned. On the back cover, I decided, the artist's test task would be to draw the same girl facing forward. As if the reader, having closed the book after finishing it, sees the girl face-on, like meeting her in person.
Three artists took on the assignment. One finished quickly. I was disappointed by the result... I understand that faces are hard to draw, and I'd sent not just the reference with the balloons but also photos of me as a young woman — meaning she had to capture the actual features of a specific person.
The second artist kept not managing to start, citing how busy she was. But I needed this urgently.
The third one finished quickly, and I froze... This was exactly it! Exactly how I'd pictured it! She lived on Bali too, and we met in person to get to know each other and discuss price and details.
We worked together for about two months. We made eighteen illustrations. Exactly as I'd pictured them. Some came easily, some were quite difficult. I had to explain things with my hands, with sketches, digging up references online. She was so patient. She put up with my scribbled pencil sketches. My rambling explanations of 'how I feel it,' how I saw it in my imagination. A million photos she had to pull an eye color or a hair color from, or check how the ears stuck out and make them elfin like that. On one of the pictures, she couldn't get my legs right for the longest time. I tormented her: 'Not that! Not that!' Then I just stood in front of a mirror and photographed them. The next version was spot on.
After we finished the illustrations, I didn't want to let her go. It had been such a magical partnership, such a mood, like we were making something truly meaningful together. So I decided to make a set of postcards with well-wishes on the back, based on some of the illustrations. We ended up with a set of four beautiful cards. They're about courage, freedom, magic. All of it is in us! And I imagined a reader receiving not just a postcard, but a personal wish from the author.
So I can't count the money spent working with the artist as an expense. It was an investment. In my own mood, in the reader's experience, in the book. It made the storytelling not dry, but just a little bit magical.
By the way, the artist's name is Alisa. And I took that as a good sign when we met, since several of the epigraphs in my first book are taken from my favorite work: Alice in Wonderland.