Smoking!

So I have a fabulous friend called Ana, and she drew my wonderful cover art that you can see on the left of the page. I've never actually met Ana in person - she is in Columbia and I am in Wales - but we have been talking online for over six years now. When I put out a plea for a cover design for Cardiffella, Ana was the first to offer and I happily accepted.

I gave her a brief description of my main character, and she'd read a few excerpts that I had posted on Facebook during the NaNoWriMo challenge. The cover you see was the very first design that she came up with, and I fell in love with it. She had drawn Ella almost exactly as I had pictured her, and as for Muse... well, it's uncanny how alike she is to my original 'Muse' (my cat, Belle). Needless to say, Ana is now my personal (and unpaid, by the way, that's how awesome she is) illustrator.

Anyway, I finally got around to sending her the whole draft of the novel as she had mentioned doing some more sketches for me. This is her first offering:

Ana seems to doubt her skill, but I think she perfectly captures the whole feel of the story with her drawings. The novel is predominantly a comedy. Yes, the underlying theme is a romance - it couldn't be anything else when it is loosely based on Cinderella - but if I were pushed into giving it a genre, I'd lean heavily towards comedy. This particular scene is just after Muse sets fire to the kitchen - on purpose, mind you. And you might think that a cat couldn't possibly set fire to a kitchen, but seeing as Muse is a fairy godmother and can talk, I think you'll agree that she's no ordinary cat...

Definitely one of my favourite scenes to write! And it goes to show how well Ana knows me by picking something that was one of the highlights of the story. I loves my Ana, I do, I do!

*grins*