It's Inktober all year round for me.

I found myself in the unusual and strangely wonderful position this week of being in suspended animation on every single job I'm working on. I suddenly realised I was either waiting on feedback, or for the go-ahead, and for the rest to be signed off as 'done'.

This very rarely happens. I'm usually juggling so many things there's never any actual 'gaps' - and thank goodness for that in an uncertain and unpredictable trade. But thankful offerings to the Freelance Gods aside, I've been rushing around completing as many overdue tasks as possible while I can (and believe me, there are STILL more to do - those things that are are on our lists that we just NEVER get to!)

I replaced the shower. I repaired the bath cradle. I planted the spring bulbs. I cleaned. I finished the archiving and helped clean the chimney. I brushed up a couple of website bits and bought some Christmas presents. Helped with the final cider pressing of the year, and designed and printed over 200 labels for last year's bottles. I made the candles for the winter season - 13 in total (*flavours below, if you're interested in that sort of thing). I wall-mounted the speakers that were fed up with sitting on the desk, and ordered fabric samples for the new bedroom curtain. Did a LOAD of financial stuff. Did some sewing modifications to my new gym Ts.

And I got really special nails done for the upcoming Hallowe'en party and trick-or-treating with my nephew next week.

What I ALSO did was get out all my fountain pens, take them apart, clean them, flush them through and fill them up with fresh ink, then found them a new place to live where they're all together in one spot, and slightly tilted so that the ink is always flowing the right way.

Sounds fairly routine, I know, but it was the most relaxing and indulgent thing I feel like I've done in ages that 'wasn't work but was work'. You see I have loads of pens, at last count over 700, but the fourteen fountain pens have a special place because they range from the wooden one (with matching biro) my Mum and Dad got me for my 18th birthday, to the Mont Blanc (with matching pencil) Dad let me have when he realised I would use it more than him. That one's done many book covers - in fact it drew a whole YA series in its entirety. Unlike my massive pile of fineliners or my jumbly heap of Poscas, every fountain pen has a story, and has found its way to me via a person or an event that's important to me.

As expected for a tiny ink-delivering machine based on technology that's in most cases decades old and probably hand-made, each one has its own 'voice'. Read on if you share my love of writing - and drawing! - implements; this is my collection.

This is the wooden one that was the 18th birthday present. It's never been out of used, but has no brand on it - the case is long gone. It has an iridium nib and uses cartridges - and has a sister ballpoint in exactly the same design, which lives in my bag - whichever current bag that might be. 

And just look at its exquisite nib!

Here's Dad's Mont Blanc, responsible for scribbling all those Lottie Biggs books, with its lovely golden nib. It uses a piston filling system. 

This Platignum cartridge fountain pen was cheaply made and mass produced, but I LOVE its sure-footed, nimble nib. I can really crack through acres of drawing and writing with this.

My tatty little burgundy Osmiroid 65 has a somewhat reckless golden nib that's really quite bendy, and it uses a lever system to refill.

These Platignum pens are literally bent - at some point the barrel has been subjected heat or pressure (or both) and developed a raunchy little kink. Still, they work perfectly.

The first is a nib-based pen with lever refill system.

The second was produced en masse for schools. You can replace the entire nib section, and it's filled via cartridge - cheap, convenient and less messy for educational use, while still being a couple of decades away from commonplace ballpoint and gel pens in schools. See below the tinful of replacement nibs I have for this pen and its bro 'Platignum School Pen', which also has an unruly curve! The tin of nibs and cartridges was a gift from may friend Boyd, aka Solo One, who knew from the moment his eyes met Diana's that they'd be safer and more useful in my hands than his own.

My bladder-filled Shaeffer has gold findings and a very delicate nib, which creates precise and very definition lines. Some nibs feel a little like they're going to run away from you at any moment, or feel unsure of their direction, especially if they're very flexible: this one doesn't. 

A great one for signing contracts, as it seems to really like metallic and shimmer inks.

I also love squidging the bladder, for no reason other than it feels amusing.

My olive green Esterbrook 9314M is a recent acquisition, and I made an attempt to fill it with its own colour - not quite a match, but a glittery warm green anyway. This pen has a fine calligraphic nib and a squeeze-bar refill system. It's a very satisfying write.

It was a gift from The Pen Museum in Birmingham, with whom I was working to identify some pen parts recently. 

This really heavy Shaeffer was also one of Dad's - a pen lover himself, he recently let me have it because he felt sorry for me having so few pens.

Its nib is dramatic and pointy, its barrel and lid a brushed steel - I would say aluminium sum, but it's just so weighty. And it too employs a squeeze-bar refill system.

One to choose when there's a gravitas to whatever it is you're signing, redacting or drawing.

Another paternal addition to the collection - this cheery 80s Parker is an easy choice when reaching for a fountain pen. Its relative newness means the ink flows without any mardiness, and it has a smooth, brushed metal hand grip and balled nib end - a beauty. Just flows.

This one likes cartridges.

The heaviest of them all is this massive welterweight Shaeffer. I like to have the top on the end of every pen I write with, for balance and weight (*controversial*)  - but this one is just too heavy to do that with. Employs a piston filling system.

It's virtually brand new at about 10 years old, and has a rather ornate nib - you can see how little wear this nib has seen compared to my others.

This, and the next pen, were gifts from Shaeffer during a project I took part in called 'The Library Of Lost Books'.

And all-metal, it's usually really cold to the touch!

Also relatively new, arriving about the same time, is this plastic Shaeffer calligraphy pen with clear barrel. The nibs are interchangeable and it comes with 4 options - width, angle etc. - and coloured neck sleeve.

Ink is delivered via cartridges.

This little Messenger is a stone-cold favourite, even though I feel bad saying I've got favourites.

It likes the shimmer inks, behaves impeccably and is all-metal - meaning it's another cold one!

With its fine, almost-flat nib it's reliable and eager, and it's the narrowest of the fountain pens - meaning it's delicate and cigarette-like in the hand. It's got a piston filling system.

Finally, my ladylike Parker Slimfold - a pretty embossed pattern in its top collar, and that classic golden arrow - actually gold plated - to clip it into your shirt or notebook. It possesses a lovely rounded end, like a submarine, and fine, golden, small nib. Considering the fineness of this nib, its line is surprisingly wide.

This one too enjoys a shimmer or metallic ink (not all do!) Ink is delivered via modified 'U' aerometric filler.

Here they all are, lids on and off:

and in their new, lightly-angled pen tray, fresh cartridges and a wildly exciting stash of inks ready to refill them whenever they should need it!

*Those candle flavours in full:

Bakewell Tart

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Pumpkin

Lemongrass & Ginger

Espresso Martini

The Spinster Club

After designing the cover of best-selling YA author Holly Bourne’s latest novel ‘Are We All Lemmings + Snowflakes?’, I was asked by long-term client Will Steele at Usborne Books UK to re-design the covers of The Spinster Club books, including the series branding.

Felt tips, Sharpies, assorted markers and really sharp, very soft pencils were employed to create a dialled-down, doodly look for the covers of this incredibly popular series.

For the first, 'Lemmings', I'd wanted to really emphasise the thread of mental health that runs thought Holly's books, and which has made them so incredibly popular among young readers, by employing some of the habits I know I have when I'm anxious, tense, upset or stressed. 

These filter through into my work like this:

- gripping my pencil till my hand really hurts and my knuckles have gone white

 - clenching my non-drawing hand into a tight ball till it's painful

- going over and over a line till the paper's gone through

- pressing really hard into the paper

- snapping pencil leads

- losing fine motor control over what I'm doing, resulting in clumsy or overbearing marks, lines gone over, smudges and ink blots (usually I want these, but then there are times when I don't)

- thinking everything I've produced is rubbish

- then thinking I'm a giant fraud who can't believe she's managed to kid everyone for this many years.
(This last one is another blog altogether!)

The results were exactly what I wanted, with emotionally-driven marks forming the roughs as I pieced together the elements to make the various options. The inclusion of school paper - lines and grids - felt important, to communicate the setting:

The angry-scrawl made it into the final cover, but with the addition of some more confident looking lettering (less of the Goth) and a neat, hand drawn Holly Bourne which has become Holly's new logo. I was sad this paper scar, didn't make it, as this felt like it summed up a lot about what happens when I'm trying to work and I'm not feeling good about it (it's either this, nor nothing at all, as I just can't work if my brain's feeling seriously knocked off kilter by something):

The rest of the covers were kind of plain sailing once the tone had been set - and in this case, the flavour had been established with previous versions, so it was a case of refreshing and injecting some energy into them, with the same tool - big marker pens and paper!

Look out for the rest of the series making its way onto shelves throughout 2019.

A Room Away From The Wolves

Nova: a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently 'new' star, that slowly fades over several weeks or many months. 

When I heard Nova Ren Suma's name, I thought it had to be a fabulous, eerie pseudonym, with its syllabic simplicity and its space-age middle name. I didn't even know the gender, at first, of this new author whose cover I would be working on - but I knew right away a) they weren't about to fade away! and b) I was fascinated. 

The appearance of Nova's new book 'A Room Away From The Wolves' is far from sudden - it took her a long time to write - but it has proved a sparkling new addition to the richly-layered teen fiction landscape. Without giving too much away, this is a ghost story with, as the cliché goes, a mighty twist, but set far away from any Burtonesque, Disney or period environment; the characters existing, instead, in modern-day downtown Manhattan. With references to a key character's former life in the 90s, this is a story that both a young reader and a 'grown'-up' can identify with chronologically as well as emotionally, with its themes of belonging, friendship, abandoned dreams, broken relationships and accepting who, and ultimately what, you are - and what you never will be.

I read the book first as a manuscript, which is always interesting because at this stage of the process,  the author is still making notes and fine-tuning. The finished copy which I read many months later did indeed differ from the original draft, and that's part of the reason I love doing books so much; getting that early peer into the writer's machine, watching the head-scratching, the changes of tense, notes to the Editor, syntax tweaks, even chicanes of storyline as the author changers her mind completely.

Thus, although a strong and simple story - one which I might add is crying OUT to become a film - this was a tough cover to crack. It could not be too overtly ghosty; such an approach is easy to make 'silly'. It couldn't be too literal; there are a lot of ethereal concepts to ponder, and a suspension of disbelief is required for the key events to make sense, but at the same time, the sense of place was important. Bina, the protagonist, couldn't be portrayed too specifically, as one person's vision of a central character is always different from the next - and Bina is, interestingly, somehow described both thoroughly, and ambiguously enough to toggle-switch-on the reader's own pencil of the imagination.

So what to do? Well, the art director, who I'd worked with on Dreadful Young Ladies And Other Stories, wanted another book that was beautiful. We knew this was going to enjoy special finishes. The book had to be very strong on a book shelf; Nova's previous novel The Walls Around Us had set a precedent there. 

The location gave me the initial starting point for the cover, along with the foggy cool of an early winter evening in New York:

 

But it was an omnipresent dark opal that gave us our central motif, and allowed the next round of roughs to emerge: I created a pile of opals in ink, and some big pages of hand-lettered titles, and used them to generate not-too-directed ideas in fast succession:

These also gave us our colour cues - the purple! Throughout, as is my usual process, I was adding title after title in different inked letters - avoiding the 'goth' and the 'romantic' traps, neither of which were right for this novel.

Then we needed to consider the geography. If you've ever been to Manhattan, you'll know how big the sky is, since you're always looking up at the skyscrapers. But if you can get across the water from Manhattan Island for some perspective, and look back out towards it from say Brooklyn or New Jersey - the sky is vast, and the city glows and hums. It positively sparkles - stars, buildings thrusting upwards, the occasional firework, with flashes of blue light for emergencies. This is where our opal needed to...explode into life. And so we tried a few iterations:

    

In these versions, our opal shards were to be finished in some kind of iridescent or metallic varnish; maybe even a holographic look, to truly make the cover twinkle. But then, Art Director Laura saw what we had been missing in the many roughs we were discussing - the central lettering, the mesmeric skyline against the moon, the purple glowering of the all-ink sky - and the window light. I'd added a single, tiny one in the lower buildings (for reasons you'll learn upon reading!) - and suddenly, there it all was.

With a little fine tuning here and a bit of preening there, the cover was before us. And this is the one it went to press with, on flesh-feel, pearlescent stock, which allows the lettering and the moon to glimmer through:

The back has a hand-written 'blurb' (no hand-lettering style fonts here - this is the real deal):

Watch the iridescence as the book moves in the light! (shady iPhone vid):

I am as delighted with this cover as it's possible to be, and I know that Nova is too. You can enjoy Nova's lively, conversational promotion of the book by following her on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook - and to get a copy of the book, go here.

And if you're in the US, you can catch her one one of her book tour dates:

Thank you Nova, and Laura Williams, ever-patient art director!