#109: A sneak peek at Mr. Ace's new cover and opening pages!
Reader, it's funny how best laid plans don't always work out. Going into last summer, I carved out specific parts of my week to begin planning, world-building, and ultimately writing a middle-grade novel that's been kicking around my head for a year. Middle-grade fiction is perfect for the eight to twelve-year-olds in your life who are too old for picture and chapter books but cannot yet deal with the maturity of a young adult novel. Right now, a Scrivener project titled "Eclipse" exists for this project, and it's filled with character bios, locations, and a potential story arc for the prospective book's dual protagonists. If we do in fact live in a multiverse, I imagine there's a universe out there where I continued writing each day last summer and that project grew to encompass a completed first draft. However, I live in this universe, and unfortunately, that book's story still resides mostly in my head. (Reader, since we are talking about multi-verses, I think it's worth pointing out that if we do, indeed, live in one, there's got to be a universe out there where Keira Knightley and I are happily married and living in a suburb of London, right?)
In this universe, though, I'm not sitting here empty-handed.
No.
And, the main reason why I didn't write that book was because I turned my attention toward another, older project that I just wasn't finished with.
For the last eight months, I've been deep in production of a new version of Mr. Ace and the Rainbow Bridge. For the uninitiated, Mr. Ace is a children's book that's aimed at helping kids deal with the loss of a beloved pet. Originally published in Spring of 2020, the team and I have been diligently chipping away at the new version these last few months, quietly and slowly. As we begin to move towards a release, the book is increasingly becoming something I'm really proud of, giving credence to an idea I had a year earlier. (Reader, if you haven't read post #99, it will give you more context into this decision.) Since mid-August though, I haven't really said anything else about it, but I wanted to give you, dear reader, a sneak peek at the book's new cover and opening pages.
The first time around, I honestly had no idea what I was doing. For example, I wasn't really tuned into how much of the purchase is based on the cover and the emotion it evokes. While I'll always love the book's original cover, it did not give off a cute and comforting feeling. This time around, I have some very important people helping guide me. The cover that you see here is once again brilliantly drawn by the book's illustrator Arthur Lin. Years ago, I fell in love with Arthur's style, and after discussing the new direction of the cover, he's done something quite wonderful. In addition to Arthur's work, I employed the talents of the great Katie Weaver. Katie is a fantastic indie-publisher and illustrator in her own right, but she came highly recommended to help touch up covers. She took Arthur's original draft and made what I thought couldn't be any better, even better. In addition, she's just been absolutely a joy to work with.
These are Mr. Ace's first steps and pages in the new version. If you own or read the original, you can see they start in different places. The story this time around hits the same beats, but as you can see here, the presentation is different. Arthur has reused, reworked, and expanded the original illustrations into something truly special here.
For now, I'm most comfortable showing what you see here. The team and I are putting the finishing touches on the cover as of this writing, and in the near future, I'll have a clearer idea of a release date. Initially, I didn't think this project was going to take this long, but I'm glad to be working on this project in this universe. Mr. Ace, both the real and fictional, are extremely important to me, and we still have some work to do.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you are looking forward to the new version, too!
PS: In preparation for the new version, the original version is no longer in production. If you want to purchase a copy, please head over to my website to order directly from me.