Not much of a title because there is no answer.  You just notice it is almost two years since your last chapbook.  Five ideas are buried on your laptop, five chapbooks waiting patiently for focus.  So, you decide to ignore them a bit longer.

No, I am not suffering from writer’s block–or chapbook completion.  OK, maybe a bit of the latter.  Some recent turn of the moon opened my eyes, or my mind.  A mini-chapbook.  Perfect summer project.  Have I mentioned my summer challenges lately?  It boils down to sun and heat.   I need to talk to my publisher.  That might be first.

Instead, I decide the cover art should be first.  (Wait until you see the awesome cover art for “Chaos & Peace”, coming soon after I complete this project.  “Soon” being one of those undefinable words that floats forward, allowing breathing time.)

The chapbook is “Blonde Noir”, a single poem I wrote in 2013 and have revised and performed and edited and played with.  More about the poem later.  My focus is on the cover art.  Here are some of the rejected pieces I’ve drawn lately.

Yes, she’s scared. 1940s-ish.  But she’s more complex than that.

Perhaps she’s conning or cunning.  Breathless and afraid.

She does wear pearls but she is not this self assured.

Stay tuned.  I may actually tell you how long a chapbook takes by summer’s end.

C.J. Prince