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Rainlily- Part Three: Designing My Own Cover

Everybody always says, "Don't judge a book by its cover," when it comes to other people, but literally speaking, when it comes to actual books, this is what I've always done. During all my time as a kid spent in libraries and Barnes & Noble, I would scan the shelves, and the books that jumped out at me almost always had an aesthetically pleasing cover. Did this guarantee that the book would be good? No, I've come across plenty of books with absolutely breathtaking covers that are complete shit on the inside. But we can't pretend a cover isn't incredibly important for books- it's what makes a potential reader actually pick it up and decide to give it a chance.


So yeah, having a beautiful cover for my book was vital to me. And upon deciding to self-publish Rainlily, designing the cover became something both exciting and daunting. Yes, I now had the ability to make the cover look exactly how I wanted it to, with the final decision being up to me and me only. But at the same time, the task was now left only up to me to do, with no help from editors or graphic designers unless I could pay them (spoiler: I absolutely cannot).


I used the app Canva to make little mock-ups of some potential covers. There were plenty of contenders, plenty of versions my cover went through, with the penultimate one being a very simple idea. A plain pink solid background with a dark red drawing of a lily, the words also in dark red. It was pretty, and I liked the idea of the lily drawing, but it didn't feel right. My ideal cover had to be something beautiful, powerful, full of emotion, without being too busy.


I don't know how I came up with the idea of a sunset, but as soon as I did, I had to see it to fruition. I made a little mock-up on Canva using stock images and I was in love. But now came the difficult task- I couldn't pay for the stock images, and I also couldn't pay an artist or photographer for their work, and I wasn't about to steal anyone's artwork. The only option was to take the photo and make the drawing myself.


I had no idea how to draw the lily online. What was I supposed to do, open Paint and try to make one as best as I could? I researched, I tried app after app, before finally coming up with a plan. I downloaded the Adobe Draw app and spent about a month figuring out how to use it and getting comfortable drawing with it. Meanwhile, I sketched out dozens of lilies in my sketchbook, trying to draw the perfect one. One night, I just sat down and did it. I spent hours drawing and erasing and drawing and erasing until I finally finally finally ended up with a lily I knew was "the one." From there, I took a picture of my sketch, uploaded it to Adobe Draw, turned down the opacity and traced it into the app. Boom. The lily was finished.


Next was the sunset. Every evening around 6:30, I'd run out to my backyard and try to capture the sky as best as possible- and it never looked just right. One day, I had this feeling, like today's the day. This sunset will be the one. So I grabbed my parents' shitty camera, then went to my brother and asked him to drive me to Thunderbird Mountain, since it had been pretty difficult to take a good photo of the sky from within my walled backyard. My brother didn't ask many questions- he just shrugged and took me on our weird, spontaneous evening adventure to hike up the mountain. And believe me, I was not dressed for it. I was wearing cheap sneakers and a denim skirt and we didn't even bring any water. Just picture my idiot brother, sprinting up the mountain, screaming, "THERE'S ONLY 7 MINUTES UNTIL THE SUN SETS," and me, 10 feet behind him, fucking wheezing. And we made it in time! I had never felt so accomplished! And you know what? The sunset was horrendous. It was the first hideous sunset Arizona had ever seen. Sometime while we were running up the mountainside, the sky had become dreary and overcast while simultaneously throwing up all over itself.


I went back home extremely discouraged. I felt like I was going to be chasing the perfect sunset for months, and I wanted more than anything to have this book published soon. That night, I remembered that during my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I used to really like taking pictures of the sunset. So I charged up my old iPod and looked through the photos- and what I found was a goldmine of half-decent sunset pictures. I used them all to create even more mock-ups on Canva, and most of them looked eh. But one of them was actually quite good! The only problem was, it wasn't the right color. This was like a pee-yellow, while what I wanted was pink and soft, yet fiery and vibrant. (Yes, I know that's a tall order to ask of the sky.)


So what do you do when your photo isn't just right? You put it up on VSCO and edit the SHIT out of it, and that's exactly what I fucking did. I ended up with, like, 12 different versions of the same picture, all slightly different colors. I asked a couple of my closest friends which one was their favorite, and they all liked one that I thought was a little too red, but since this is my book, I ended up choosing the one you currently see now- and I am so so SO happy with that decision. Look at how breathtaking it is!


But wait- there's more. After creating the cover and preparing to finally release my brainchild out into the world, I looked back at that sunset picture I had originally gotten my cover from, and I realized that it had been taken in December of 2015- just days after I had attempted to commit suicide. And that left my mind reeling, I mean isn't that just amazing? When I took that picture, I didn't think anything of it. I was walking my dog and thought the sky looked pretty, that was all. I was in the middle of the darkest time of my life to date, and still wasn't convinced that I should continue living. Yet now, 2 and a half years later, that dumb picture taken on a whim was used to create a beautiful cover for the story of my own journey.


I think I saved my own life. I think I gave myself a second chance. And for a long time, I regretted not dying. But that day in December, when I was so ready to jump to my death, I was really at the beginning of an adventure I couldn't possibly see yet. And a lot of it was shitty, and painful, and scary, but other parts were full of healing and strength and the truest love and the happiest tears. I am so happy and grateful to be alive. Everything I am and everything I've been through has lead me to this moment, this moment of knowing that there is so much to live for, and so much to smile about.


And that is the ending Rainlily truly deserves.



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