COVER DESIGN
I have just a short entry tonight, but I wanted to report that I just received my cover for Keechie from the publisher. When I signed the contract they asked me for suggestions and ideas of what I wanted the cover to look like. My wife had done an original watercolor for me, so I sent it in as an example of what she and I imagined Keechie to look like.
They first sent me a design that one of the cover designers had created. It was beautiful, but the woman she depicted just wasn’t Indian nor African-American in appearance. I realize that the cover of a book has more to do with market appeal, but I just couldn’t do it.
I emailed the publisher and asked them to take another look at the image I had sent them originally. It is possible that they hadn’t even seen it until then, for the next day I got the word that they have agreed to use the original by my wife!
Go to http://www.freewebs.com/brew99 to see it! We are very pleased. Now anyone buying my book gets an original story by me, and a bonus—an original watercolor cover by an artist that I have spent the last 28 years with!
Added in Edit:
The official release date for Keechie has been set for February 6, 2006, but will be available for pre-ordering through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and PublishAmerica.com BEFORE then!
Send an email to keechie@bellsouth.net to arrange for an autographed copy. There will only be 100 autographed copies of the first printing, and they're going fast!
Researching Native American Culture
Historical information on Native Americans began when the Spanish explorers of the 16th century documented their encounters with the indigenous peoples. Written in the form of letters to their supporters back home, they were primarily in search of gold and treasure.
Later, the Europeans added to the available information, but their motivating force was the desire for the land that the "Indians" occupied. Both benefited in the beginning through trading – furs and food for “White Man’s Goods”. But the lust for the land soon took over.
Neither the Spanish nor the Europeans were very interested in recording the culture, lifestyle or history of the native population. Instead, the ones who had any interest at all tried to convert the “Heathens” to Christianity, and the first order of business was to ERASE the memories and existing religion from the face of the earth.
In the mission schools, the Indian children were forbidden to speak their native languages. These practices left those of us who want to know the history and understand the religions of these people are left with limited knowledge of an age past.
Piecing together archaeological evidence, making assumptions through the use of carbon-dating, and more recently, DNA studies of the human remains, we try to form an image of a culture and lifestyle of a people who lived in harmony with the natural world—not in spite of it, as we “modern, civilized” people attempt to do.
Point of View – First Person or Third?
Before you begin writing a story, you must first decide which perspective you will use. First person, as I discovered too late, is limiting, or more appropriately, challenging. You are telling the story from your own point of view, and the other characters’ thoughts and feelings cannot be told—except through their dialogue.
The third person point of view, or as some call it, the Omnipotent Observer, is much easier, and gives the writer more freedom to include ALL the characters thoughts and feelings.
When I began writing Keechie, I was telling my own story from my childhood, and had no idea that it was going to develop into a full-length novel. Had I known from the beginning, I would never have chosen first person perspective for my writing debut! I didn’t know the problems I was about to face until I needed to include something from Keechie’s perspective. Then I realized that I could not have known what she was thinking. I finally got around the problem by making a chapter division and switched to her point of view for that chapter.
Another trick I incorporated was to have the first person character (me) READ a story to his daughter, which allowed a change of perspective, making it effectively a third person point of view.
Notice that I haven’t mentioned the second person point of view. I have researched and studied, and have reached the decision that I will never understand it, nor will I ever use it. (At least not while I’m in my right mind!)
Read the first chapter of Keechie to get an idea of first person perspective.
Brew
