That Way Madness Lies…

 For the past month, I have been driving myself insane trying to come up with an idea for new covers for my soon to be finished Mystery Thriller Series. This came about, because it struck me that the covers I had already chosen were unsuitable. In my opinion, they didn’t reflect the genre or anything about the storyline, and as the last book was almost ready, time was of the essence.
BUT . . . the harder I tried, the harder it became. It was turning into a nightmare, keeping me awake at night and completely ruining my established schedule. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else, making ever more ridiculous covers, each one worse than the last. I think the trouble was that they were for a series. Something had to link them all together. I even looked for ready- made covers, but didn’t like any of them either. I began to realise I was in danger of coming unglued. The family were beginning to avoid me, and I would have avoided me too, if I could. I scanned Amazon, searching through different genres. I prowled around bookshops, but nothing seemed right. Anita was worrying about my ears, likening me to Van Gogh, expecting the worst. I knew I had to come up with something, and soon, or my three books were in danger of going nowhere, languishing in a drawer, coverless.
No, they deserved good covers, good covers are important. I had to do something. In the end, I resolved to create three covers that looked attractive with a shared theme.  Although the idea that I wanted them to look dramatic and intriguing haunted me, but was proving to be impossible for me to do. It began to dawn on me that I might never find what I wanted. That it was yet another unattainable thing, like searching for the Holy Grail. The secret, I knew, was in the looking, not the finding. It was then that I stepped away from my obsession, finally recognising it for what it was. A symbol of the futility of everything else in my life, that endless search for perfection.  Here are the covers I started with . . . And here are the final covers . . .