You can't judge a book by its cover

There's this really amazing guy on a social networking site for writers who does virtual book covers for the virtual books posted there by virtual authors like me. He offered to do a cover for me, and this is what he came up with.

Pretty cool, huh?

He does these for free for all of us "prepublished" authors. I don't know how much good karma you can accumulate in a lifetime, but this man's karma cup must be overflowing.

The list of agent rejections keeps growing. I haven't had any rejections from publishing houses yet, but I'm not counting that as good news--they just move slower. I'm still in love with my first story, but I've had enough rejection for now and am putting aside my marketing efforts to focus on my strange (and potentially more commercial) southern murder mystery while I still have time.

Speaking of the next project, I'm slogging away on Book 2 and spent some time on the phone today with a singles minister (and good friend) at a large Southern Baptist church. I needed to get my facts straight on how Baptist congregations deal with disagreements within the church and some other church protocol and organizational issues. When I left a message for her to call me, she was afraid I'd be asking deep theological questions, and was relieved when instead I asked about who sits in on different kinds of meetings.

Finally, a shout-out to Ireland, Israel, South Africa and Malaysia, all of which joined the BYE League of Nations this week. Welcome!