Cover Design

I feel like I’ve been afraid for a long time.  And I don’t mean “the fear” or panic or anxiety.  I mean afraid to reach my goals, afraid to put myself out there.  But sometimes someone can say the right words to you at the right time and it spurs you, it kicks you in the ass, showing you that you shouldn’t be afraid.  Because honestly I now believe that being afraid to chase your goals is a waste of time, a waste of your life.

A few months ago someone asked me if I was going to publish my novel.  She is someone I met recently, a fellow panic attack and anxiety sufferer, who is so much like me that I couldn’t believe she was a real person.  She agreed to read my novel for me and then asked me that all important question.  My typical response to a question like that would be, I don’t know, maybe, someday?  I would never commit, I had never thought I would really publish my book.

It’s been a long road for me with Angst.  I’ve been writing this story since 2009.  The funny part about the year 2009 is that was also the year that I stopped taking my medication.  In fact, it was just about 2 months after I stopped taking Lexapro that I decided to write a book about my struggles.  It was like my creativity had come back and I was me again, the same me I had missed, the crazy, creative, depressed and clingingly happy person I had been before I started taking the drugs.

I never imagined I would come this far with Angst.  But sometimes you meet someone who is brave, who is strong and you wonder, why can’t I be like that?  Why can’t I publish my novel?  Why must I feel like it isn’t ready or that I can’t do it?  This is how I felt about my novel for 3 years.  Publishing was a grand dream, a dream so far away that I would never catch it.  But when someone asked me, why don’t you publish? It finally clicked.  Maybe I could do this.

So for a few months I have been pursuing this idea, editing, revising and finally having a photoshoot for my cover.  With these photos, I feel there is new life in the project.  The photos represent how I want this book to feel, full of angst, suffering, mistakes, life at its rawest moment.  And I thought, I’ve got to share this story.  I want to share this story because I know there are people out there who suffer like I do.  I know, now, more than ever that there are people like me and I want their voices and my own to be heard so that people can understand what it feels like.  That is one of the goals of my novel, to really show exactly what it feels like in the moment of panic, to literally get inside someone’s head.  And I think this is amazing because I have never read a novel about someone with panic attacks before.  It’s something you don’t hear spoken of or talked about much.

And so, I’ve got to come up with a cover design, something that speaks to readers.  I’ve spent a lot of time playing with the photos, trying different fonts, placement etc.  I want to let whichever photo I choose speak for itself with minimal design because I feel like the photos themselves have a story to tell.   And so, the big decision has yet to be made.  I can’t decide.  I’ve picked out several favorite photos that I think represent what my book is about, but I can’t seem to pick between them.  Can you help?