I haven’t been posting as often as I like lately, I’ve been so busy with the production of my novel, which has included some significant changes. The title for one.

From the very first when I sent my query letter to agents, it was called From the Far Ends of the Earth. It tells the story of three family members left behind when the mother at the center of their lives mysteriously disappears. How they cope with her disappearance, learn to reconnect with each other, and forge new relationships in her absence create the heart of this novel.

But it’s also about the journeys of self-discovery each protagonist takes to piece back together their fragmented lives and make themselves, and their family, whole again. And that’s what I was leaning toward when I created this first cover design:

I loved this cover and also the name. Unfortunately, others did not. People in the business I trusted thought the background photo of a range of hillsides looked washed out, uninteresting. They also thought the name When Things Go Missing (which was the title of Part One in my novel) was more compelling.

Eventually I agreed with them and hired a book designer to create a cover for my new title.

I wanted him to use Paul Klee’s artwork, now in the public domain. I’ve always loved his paintings, the bright colors and playful images. I thought the patchwork pieces of his people and houses would work especially well with the new title, reflecting a major theme of the novel–the “missing” pieces in the lives of the family members left behind when the mother, the one person who had been holding them together, mysteriously disappears.

We ended up using the painting at the top of this post, Klee’s “Colorful Architecture.” One of the house-like structures is whited out: “missing.” The silhouette of a person is added, looking longingly at the missing house and what it represents: home, wholeness, family, security, comfort, belonging.

We’re in the final stages of designing that cover and I’m loving it so far. But I still look back longingly at the original cover, which depicts the journey each character takes, the distance between them.

The one thing I’m not still debating is the title. I love the original title, but I agree the new one is catchier and more compelling. And the new title with the new cover will probably give the reader a better sense of what the book is about. (One person looking at the original cover thought it was a book about travel.)

So all of this is a work in progress. And there’s still so much left to do! Including updating my website.

I created a page on this site about my novel, When Things Go Missing, and two others I’m working on. But the “editor” isn’t working properly or letting me do what I want with the headings and so on. It may be because the website theme I’m still using is so old. I probably need a new theme. Or a new website altogether. But I’m not ready to do that yet. And when I do migrate to another site I don’t want to lose all the posts I’ve published here over the past thirteen years.

So I’m trying to stay here for a while longer and update this site to work as an author website for the time-being. I changed the landing page from the blog to the novel page, so when people link to my site, that’s what they will see first. You can take a look at it here.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of this. And if you have any experience in changing themes without losing posts, or migrating to new websites, please share!