Writing and Art

I'm a Writer Not an Artist

Part I Writing 

I wrote my first book, a mystery, at eight. The murderer was caught because of a button. 

My first grown-up book was Heretic and Lovers. It was about Jacques Fournier, later Pope Benedict XII and the Cathars. I based the story on Montaillou.

What fun researching it in France. It won an award for an unpublished novel but no publisher wanted it, although I tried. The Fournier chapters became the historical part of Murder in Paris which is published along with four other books in my Third Culture Kid Murder series.

My website https://dlnelsonwriter.com lists all my books. When my publisher decided only to publish westerns which I didn't want to write, then or ever, I started publish my own work. Now I've started to serialize my new work on this blog. My readership clicks exploded to the six figures monthly. I haven't checked my sales.

I sometimes compare writing a book to cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Dinner takes a long time to prepare and is eaten in 20 minutes. A book takes months to years to write to be read in a week. 

Part 2 Drawing

I've always loved drawing despite a limited talent. People would recognize an elephant I've drawn as an elephant but barely.

I often journal with haikus and illustrate them with drawings.

I love when books, including novels, have illustrations such as Rita Mae Brown's Mrs. Murphy mysteries and some of Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street Series.

In Hot Chocolate on Thursday by Michhiko Aoyama there is a tiny, tiny tea cup is in the upper right hand corner of every other page. 

When I published Day Care Moms, an artist draw a sketch for each chapter. 

For Lexington: Anatomy of a Novel another artist did the art work to introduce chapters. 

However when I started publishing my books myself, my budget did not cover artwork. 

I learned about AI artwork. I could do an AI drawing not just for my books, but for my blogs. See other blogs on this site for examples. 

I can tell them what I have in mind and it comes back with four suggestions. Sometimes they come up with more than I hoped for. Other times it takes two or three tries. It adds to my creative pleasure.

I don't consider I'm replacing an artist because if I didn't use AI, there would be no art work. At some point I may have the budget for a real artist again or I need something beyond my and AI's capacity.

At this point in my career, I write and draw for the sheer joy of it, shutting out all the to-dos issued by the publishing industry.