So, here’s my test cover for Last Night, the short story I’m going to use as a test run in e-publishing. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

I ended up working mostly in Photoplus, as Paint Shop Pro 8 has turned out to be very unstable in Windows 7. I’m very sorry about that, because I love PSP, but Photoplus is pretty easy to work with, and very full-featured. The original artwork, which I’ve altered a lot, is licensed from Canstock. Links to all that and more are on my Resources page.

The story begins like this:

The wildwood loomed before them solid as stone, an ancient presence, dark and heavy against the night. Even the bitter wind was rebuffed by that tangle of limbs and thick-leaved vines. Overhead the sky was scattered with stars, while the black mud of the road beneath their feet told of the storm that had swept through earlier.
The two women stood at the edge of the woods, surrounded by the damp scent of trees, cloaks pulled tight and hoods forward. The wind whispered to them, tugged at their clothes, but the two said nothing.

Deyant considered the best way to enter. Tall and stringy with hair cut short beneath her hood, she leaned into the wind and toward the trees. Her eyes were closed and her face eager, but tension showed in the lines of her mouth. Nothing had gone quite right this evening. Something was wrong between them and this night was so important. It was the last they would ever really have.

“Over there,” she said, hand held out to the left. “That’s where the hidden path lies.” She turned to her companion, eyes open now and gleaming. “With both of us working, we’ll follow the path easily.”

I’m giving it one more round of editing, then I figure out ebook formatting. Hooray for new adventures!