See My World

   I hope those who have been following along have learned something about the process or myself. Thank you for continuing to come back! 

   Art? Why did I decide to add art throughout the books? Why did I choose these scenes to become art? How do I pick an artist? 

   First thing I knew I wanted to do after I decided to turn my writing in to a real book was it had to have art throughout. When I was in school reading and staying focused on reading was hard. I have dyslexia and it would take longer to read and feeling different and sometimes stupid made reading a dread. I’d use a blank paper to underline the line I was reading to make it easier to keep my place in the sea of letters and words. It helped so much (I still do this when I’m having trouble). My favorite thing was books that would have pictures randomly through the book, seeing them when first thumbing through was exciting. The wondering what they meant to the story, or how they play a roll in what’s to come. I knew that I wanted to incorporate that into my book(s). 

   Why did I choose the scenes to become the art? This was probably both the easiest and hardest thing about getting this book done. As the writer I see the world as clear as one can, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I can paint that picture in words the best way possible. I know, I know I’m the writer that’s my job, but there is a fine line between too much and not enough detail. In my opinion it is my job to give you enough to build the world but leave enough room for you to use your imagination to finish it out. My hope was that if I was to read this story back I’d see the world differently than I had writing it and these pictures would create a cohesion between the writing and my imagination. The scenes that made it into art are ones that had a power to them. They had to speak to me on a deeper level where I had almost no question what I was seeing. As a reader you should hopefully have the same feeling, telling your imagination “Yes, you see the world clearly.” Reinforcing you are inside this world. 

   The last puzzle piece is getting someone who I can get to see the world the way I do. The artist has to be willing to be told how things look not take what they feel the way the world looks. I like to grab an inspiration image to help them have a starting place. Form there we work out the details, and when we both saw the same thing you end up with pictures like the hospital in HWR or the Zeek face. Those are probably my two favorite because they had that perfect balance of the important moment in the story and well executed art. That brings this story to life in a way that hopefully pulls the reader even deeper into the book. 

  BONUS! 

   A tidbit of information about this next book and artist. Jess Reese is putting in a ton of work to bring All That Comes After to life. When I was searching for an artist I didn’t connect with the other artists the way I felt would best serve the book(s) and that’s not a good way to start. I’ve known Jess for a while and that beings a trust before we ever got to the point of asking her to work on this project. Learning she had a background in art having gone to school for it, I always kept it in the back of my mind. When I first floated the idea to her I had to kind of convince her to read book one. Flash forward and she liked the story, the world and the characters, that sealed it. Asking her to show me what she could do in the style I needed I was blown away by what she was able to do with no real direction. I asked her to say something about the next book, 

  “ This series has redefined what I thought zombie books were. Through the action and zombies you will find a lot humanity. The challenges our characters face in ‘All That Comes After’ are very relatable, and it makes it hard to put the book down.” 

  I think this is probably the most interesting thing I’ve heard about the HWR series. She isn’t the first to say this and even though I set out to write my take on a zombie apocalypse I think maybe I created something more...-MH