I blog about inspiration both here and at the Book View Cafe Blog. Feel free to comment here or there.

A while ago, I took an online class about designing covers. (Full disclosure: I’ve created all but two of my covers, and am in the process of redoing all of them.) As part of the class, we were assigned a cover to create. Everyone had the same title and author. We had to go find the right artwork.

The title of the book was, “Knight on a Roof.” The author’s name was, “Major Fantasy Author.”

The artwork I found inspired me, as things are wont to do.

Here’s the original artwork:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the cover I created:

I was having so much fun, I created two other titles in this trilogy: “Rook in the Attic” and “Queen on the Floor.” They were all part of the Chess Wars series.

I won’t ever write fantasy three books involving chess. But that artwork — that’s an inspiration waiting to happen. At some point, I’ll write a story that will fit that artwork, so I can use it as part of a story cover. So this is an “inspiration waiting to happen” picture, that someday, will inspire something in me.

As always, if these pictures inspire you, please feel free to go ahead and commit art. Write your story or novel or poem or what have you! Whatever you create will be 100% different than what I eventually get around to doing.