I wish I had a better punchline for that set-up. It’s been a long day.

Let’s try another one: if an author writes a story and it doesn’t have a cover, is it still a book?

OK, OK, now I’m just procrastinating.

In a recent post about publishing my book, I mentioned looking for a cover designer. An online gaming buddy connected me with a graphic artist in Australia named Hoomie. Her portfolio was excellent and I found her to be a consummate professional. And as the conversation progressed…I knew she would be out of my price range. That’s on me: I have champagne tastes and a lite beer budget. It’s unfortunate because I liked her and was excited to see what we could accomplish together.

What I was able to witness, however, was an expert who knew the right questions to ask. It required me to articulate things I knew – things churning about in the cauldron between my ears – but hadn’t put into words. I find this extremely valuable because it’s challenging to distill thousands of hours of writing time into an engaging and succinct description. I’ve written about the importance of it here: Learn about your writing by talking with people.

The following questions are among the things I will continue to contemplate in this and future writing projects.