Final Cover design for REUNION.

Well, what do you think?

After all the votes came in, Cover #3 was the clear winner. I did, however, get lots of input, and made some changes. Here were some of your thoughts.

• Loose the tagline - I did.
• Try a different font - I did.
• Add some color - I did.
• Loose the "A Paranormal Thriller By..." - I did.
• Many of you liked the school building - I kept it, but added my own non-royalty paying picture that I took of a school in Kokomo, IN.
• Many of you liked a character that told you something about the story - I added one - my first born son. He modeled for me. He's not a killer. He's a very smart and creative young man and writes excellent fiction.
• Many of you liked the light emiting from the school - I kept it.
• Some of you told me to make sure the title and author name were clearly visible in a small thumbnail - I changed the font, put a space between each letter and got rid of the "The", which allowed more space for "R E U N I O N". I did the same with my name.

I listened to all of your input and came up with what I believe is a very good cover ( I know some people will not like it, but I can't please everybody). All I did was take a picture, upload it to picnik.com and started playing around with the different toys they have there. Unfortunately, I do not know the "recipe" that I used. I had to make way too many adjustments to repeat the process. After I was satisfied with the general concept and all the votes were in, I upgraded ($19.95) to the premium account and used a few more available tools, including the font. I probably spent about 30+ hours crafting concepts and nailing down the final.

Here's the final draft, followed by a few of the concepts that led up to it. Thank you all so, so much for your input and advice and compliments. I really don't think I'd come up with this without your help.

Here were a few of the preliminaries... And as promised, here is the Link to the first 2 chapters of REUNION (available on May 1st). And if you missed the post where I gave the synopsis and reason for writing it, I'll give a quick tagline to sum it up...

"Troubled teen kills eight and summuns the survivors for a reunion twenty years later - at the school."

Synopsis:
David Ray killed eight students and then turned the gun on himself. He thought the shooting and suicide would heal his pain. Instead, he changed Tanner Khan and the survivors forever. Twenty years later, Tanner and his fellow classmates agree to hold a class reunion. Although they all suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they agree to reunite. When they get inside, they discover that Hell has come to collect a debt… and someone has to pay! 

Twitter Writing Contest!

Hello, My Dear Blogger Friends

This post is going to be especially fun, because I am hosting a Writing Contest! 

Why? Because if you visit here frequently, you already know how I write - smooth, energized, well paced prose leaning on the darker side of literary perfection. Egh - egh - caugh - gag! Scuse me - choked.

Seriously, I want to get a taste of your writing for a change. So here's the deal: If you are on Twitter, all you have to do is write a series of Tweets that when put together make a short-short-story. If you're not a Tweeter, a "tweet" is a string of words no longer than 140 characters total; including spaces and punctuation. The stories should be no less than 3 Tweets and no more than 5 Tweets. All stories must have a Christmas theme - beginnning, end, and must maintain a pg-13 rating; some of my creative writing students follow me. They can be scary, funny, suspenseful or inspirational. And for all you poets out there, they can be in poetic format as well. Next, paste them in the comments section below. It's that easy.

Doesn't that sound like fun?

So what's the Prize, you ask? I hope it's worth the trouble, but I'm offering a A FREE BOOK COVER DESIGN for your next or in process book (ebook or otherwise) - front cover only; I don't do splines and backs. The picture to the right is an example of my work and is the cover of one of my forthcoming novels. Not writing a book? Not interested in a cover? How about a FREE COPY OF THE RUMBLIN', my suspense short-story? Better yet, how about both? Okay. Deal.

Here's an example of what I'm looking for. I posted this a few days ago on Twitter to kind of get the feel for it. It's not a Christmas story, but you'll get the idea....


      The War of the Words by Jeff Bennington

• Words splash in my eyes like raindrops, dripping, wetting my lips. I taste them. I speak to them and they come to life, roaring back at me.
• Big words, little words, scurry about with their claws out, chasing me into a corner. They screech and cry out to me...take me, take me!
• I laugh at the evil little letters with ax in hand. Do as I say, or I'll hack your apostrophe off! Do you hear me, you little bastards?
• The little things scuttle into corners and cower in fear. One by one they recede into the crevices, slithering back into their dark-hell.
• They'll be back. I'll wait - sitting here with my ax.

So there you have it. The Writing Bomb's first contest with tangible giveaways worth over $100! If you have any questions, post them. If I'm unclear about something, let me know. If you want to bribe me - feel free! Good luck and may the best writer win! 

Contest ends Christmas Day - December 25th.  

Oh, and by the way, I get to pick the winner, but I'll probably pick it according to popular vote; that is if any one dares to comment. And I'm very sensitive, so if no one enters, I will feel very bad about myself and probably get an early start on my winter depression, and you don't want to do that to me - do you? BOOM!