Color Blind

Looking back, it's really hard to believe that it's been almost two years since I published Color Blind. Seriously, when did that happen?

It's been a while since I thought about it. Especially the cover. I know, a weird thing to focus on. But I drew that. And considering I can't draw to save my life, it isn't that terrible. I mean, compared to my high school art projects, that sketch is amazing. (Yeah. Those projects really were that bad.)

Somebody asked me why I'd drawn a palm tree as the cover for a book about such horrible topics. There is a reason for that, I swear! The summer I drew that cover, we had a really bad storm. Hurricane-force gusts of wind, the news said later. My neighbor's tree-a big, thick-trunked beast-lost a branch. One of our own heavy trees was uprooted. Power lines blew down! Yeah, it was intense. But at the end of that storm, guess what was still standing? This tall, skinny, fragile-looking palm tree. Of all the things to survive, it was the one thing I thought was going down. But there it was, none the worse for wear.

Anyways, I got to thinking that Cole and Nancy are kind of like that palm tree. No matter what life hurls in their direction, they're still standing. And that is why there is a palm tree on the cover of Color Blind.