I’m staring into an abyss and see no way out.

As I made my way into my writing class and self-publishing class, I was excited. Remind you, as a mental health sufferer, dark shadows overshadow your happiness, but on Thursday, I focused my energies on one thing: another step closer to goal.

It’s a no brainer that hiring pros for cover art and editing any book are essential. Extra sets of eyes are crucial and may give you feedback and insights on your work. It may strengthen your work! Funny, because my instructor is a successful hybrid author with experience in publishing sci-fi novels.

Too much space to write in that genre. His genre is dystopian/post-apocalypse world. There’s a lot of books written on that. A useful tool is to check out Amazon and check out genres and then check out the subsections of those genres.

Aside from myself, I had a fellow writer writing about depression, and we exchanged notes. There was also a fellow writer that works as a therapist that’s writing a book about narcissism. And the rest is a young adult, children’s books, and non-fiction buffs. The class agreed that us three ladies writing about mental health are great genres to write about.

Great stories that are universal like that will sell. So, I gave them a little overview of what I was writing about and what message I wanted to convey with this book. The most important part is to write about mental health awareness, how important it is, how there should be no stigma related to it, and share my story. There are so many great stories out there. A fellow writer wrote a book about her experiences with infertility and a sudden hysterectomy that drastically affected her life. I can’t relate to that because I don’t have kids, but my mother would more. She had that happen around her early 30’s or so.

Finding a great cover artist is relatively expensive. Great ones can charge $200 and up for their services. Most authors will tell you not to go any lower in price because you need an eye-catching book along with a great blurb and professional editing to be successful. We were shown examples of bad covers, and they were sketchy. It made you wonder what genre it is.

I found my potential cover artist at work. I knew that one of my colleagues is a great sketch artist, but didn’t know he didn’t do album covers and is a whiz with digital arts. The portfolio that I saw for past clients was very professional and blew my mind. When we talked about it, he said that he could help me. What blew my mind even further is that he, too, suffers from depression and had quite a concept for the cover.

All I had to do was talk, and I shall receive. The two pictures above really caught our eyes. We wanted to convey what it’s like to live with depression and how it’s more than just sadness. We want to inform the world on what it’s like living like this and how it affects every aspect of your body, mood, and behavior. The cover is dark greys with thunderstorms. A brain that slowly dissipates like the pic above and in the deep blue ocean is me and fellow sufferers in the ocean cuffed to the chains, and slowly drowning in sorrow. If that makes sense. For me, every day I feel like I’m swimming in the same pool year after year and I’m bound and cuffed on both my ankles and wrists. I’m still working on a blurb on the outside to convey that message because some may get it and some may night. The cover is still a working progress, but a step closer to being completed.

And for the first time, I will finally feel free. Free to share the world what I’ve been too embarrassed and ashamed to admit before. What has held me back in leading a fruitful life.