I love the guys at Five-Star.

Well, specifically the art director who I work with–he called me up today to request some more cover art, one of which should be rather similiar to my painting “Crazing” sans alien fetus, and for the cover of a chick book. “So no alien fetus, then?” I asked. “Well, we’re still waiting on the rewrite, so if they add an alien fetus, then sure. I suppose it could happen. But until then, let’s assume it’s just a romance novel.” “Awwww…”

Darn, nobody ever wants an alien fetus. If I didn’t already have so many irons in the fire that I’m hitting myself in the head with ’em, I’d write a book with an alien fetus solely for the purpose of having one on the cover. (And then, of course, even assuming that I, Alien Fetus attained print, I would not be allowed to illustrate it, because my impression is that unless you’re doing children’s books or comics, wanting to illustrate your own story is dreadfully gauche.) Actually, the truism that it’s hard to make a living just on sci-fi/fantasy has proven true for me–a small but significant chunk ‘o fundage for me comes from doing covers, mostly for library editions, for these guys, which are as likely to be murder mysteries and romance/drama/whatever as swashbuckling fantasy. But that’s all good–they’re pleasant, they pay, and it’s a good stepping stone to stuff that might actually appear in book stores.

Having played “Longest Journey” last night, I realized to my delight that I have, indeed, forgotten most of the puzzly bits, and only vaguely recall what object to click on any other object, so it’s fun and somewhat challenging again. Rather like re-reading a good book from years past, I keep re-discovering forgotten bits, and it’s fun, and distracted me from the woeful lack of mammoths in That Other Game. (Lousy mammoth teases…)