Where Cover Illustrations Come From

I've just reissued my first novel, "Cheechako," an adventure youth novel, with a brand-new painted cover, and I'm thrilled about it. The only negative criticism I had about the book centered on the cover, a photograph of a boy and a sled dog. It was by far the best choice of thousands of photos I considered. But I don't think anybody liked it.

This is the new cover, by nationally known cover-artist, Jesse Watson. Check him out at www.jessewatson.com. Although he does other kinds of art, I think it's fair to say he specializes in covers, not just the drawing or painting, but the thinking.

Although I knew he lived here in Port Townsend, I contacted his agent in New York, with sort of the vain hope that we might work something out. To my great surprise Jesse emailed me to set up a meeting and we went from there.

I'm not aware that he read the book. He asked. I knew that the cover needed to be the boy in a parka, the dog and maybe a dogsled. The dogsled turned out to be the hard part. Dog sleds are tough images.

I thought you might like to see the image progression. Here's where he started.

Notice the dog is looking to the side. Here's the other "first draw."

More like this, we thought. "We" being my wife and a small group of relatives and pre-readers, yes, including my 87 year-old-mother who didn't like the photo cover from the start. Yeah, I know, listen to your mother.

So we all liked the second drawing. Except for the boy looking a little young, I would have put this "rough" sketch on the cover. I thought and think that it is fantastic.

We were having real trouble with the sled and somewhere along the line the concept of a stylized blizzard, kind of blue and swirly began to emerge. We also needed the "boy," to look less young and freckly and more ready for adventure.

Although there are several scenes in the book that legitimately involve a hatchet, I was leery of putting a hatchet on the cover because of the very popular Gary Paulsen book of that name. If you haven't read it, you're missing a treat. As you can see, this sketch became the foundation for the final painting.

Now I'm several weeks from publication of the second novel in this "Cheechako" series. I'm delighted to say the next one, "Float Monkeys" will also feature a Jesse Watson cover. More about that soon

Thanks for reading. Write any time with questions or comments.

Jonathan 

ANNOUNCING: Cheechako, the Audio Book.

Don't have time to do your own reading? How about letting me read it to you. Seriously, Cheechako is now out as an audio book, on the Audible site, read by the author. And you'll soon be able to find it on the Amazon site, as well, right next to the Kindle and paperback options.

Cheechako is a great read ... or hear ... for your fifth, sixth or seventh grader, especially for keeping the peace on  family excursions. And don't worry, you'll like hearing it, too. In fact, even though it was written as a "youth" book, most of the readers and known reviewers are adults.




Cheechako Audio Sample

Thanks for reading.

Jonathan

Get set for Cheechako on Audible!

Yesterday I finished and uploaded the audio version of Cheechako. That's right, the entire book, unabridged as a sound recording. I understand it takes a week or so for the Audible folks to do their thing and then the sound files should be easily available, along with the Kindle and paperback versions, right on the Amazon site.

Oddly, it was a whole different experience to read aloud, and then to hear it, my own words and my own book. I think it must hit in a different part of the brain than when my eyes process it in. Some scenes, some glimpses proved very emotional for me. Old memories–the Coghill's store scene–played surprisingly real in my mind's eye and well, the truth is, kind of choked me up as I was reading. Suddenly very vivid.

Reading Aloud, A Lost Art?

If you don't have kids or grandkids handy, do you read aloud? I think we get out of the habit. 

Years ago, after I had taken in a foster son, one of his relatives told me that this was the first time in his entire life that he'd had regular showers, a regular bedtime, breakfast, hugs ... and the first time anyone had every read to him consistently. 

Reading aloud is how we can connect with our kids, how we can pass on qualities and experiences we value. How we can pacify ... my mother read to my brothers and me as we did our nightly chore, washing the dishes. She knew if she didn't distract us we would pound on each other. 

She read "The Wind in the Willows," all the Narnia books, the C.S.Lewis adult science fiction ... "Out of the Silent Planet," and others, and I no longer know what all. 

Somehow all three of us survived, all read, and all read to children when we can. 

Test Your Writing by Reading Aloud

Before you put a page to bed, read it aloud. Does it work? Does it flow? Does the sound of it make sense in the way you thought it did when it was just staring at you meekly, dumbly from the page. If you're a very faster reader and skimmer as I am, reading aloud forces you to consider the individual words and your probability of catching typos is also much greater. It's a good way to proof. 

Your Book on Audible

Lastly, it's worth mentioning that recording your book for sale by Audible or another sound recording service so far seems a worthwhile endeavor. If you're not a reader, check out ACX, which has a variety of relatively painless (inexpensive or as a share of profits) ways to get your book voiced, produced, uploaded and for sale. Check it out: www.acx.com. 

Shaping Creative Ideas From Your Own Past

The one question every writer hears, again and again is "where do you get your ideas?" Although the question is asked seriously, it anticipates an answer like, "a little shop down on such-and-such street. 

Probably not. 

A lot of your best ideas can come from experiences in your own past. To be sure, you probably won't take a whole idea, or a whole piece of your youthful adventure and be able to plot it into something you're working on.

What happens is that you grab "the goodie" from that early experience and bend it to your writer's will. 

Can you do that? Gosh, if not you ... who? 

The Creative Idea That Launched Cheechako

I was about eight years old when I saw my first Tanana River breakup in Alaska. My father was an Episcopal priest and, like the protagonist in Cheechako, we had moved out to Nenana, Alaska from Boston the summer before. 

As I relate in the story, when the siren rang, everybody in Nenana stopped what they were doing, grabbed jackets and headed on the run for the riverbank. "Breakup" in Alaska's interior is a big deal, both because it signifies the end of a really long winter, and because there is a huge (by early Alaska standards) betting pool based on exactly when the ice will go out. The winner goes home with a lot of prize money. 

But it wasn't the breakup as a whole that touched off the CRICKET short story that would be come the genesis for my book. It was something smaller, but very dramatic and very personal. 

The Idea That Launches Your Novel

After all these years, my first few minutes on the riverbank at my first ever breakup are still crystal clear. Someone shouted, "Hey! There's a dog on the ice." By now the ice is a roaring jumble of jagged chunks that have already begun to move, then hung up. For how long? Minutes? Seconds?

So I ran to the dock edge, along with a wave of others, and looked out. Yeah, I saw a dog out there ... mine!

Did I go out on the ice? No. I don't think anyone would, certainly not on purpose. And I didn't feel a bit bad about changing how it happened!  I still remember it all so vividly that, when I sat down searching I couldn't begin my story–and subsequently my novel–anywhere but on that riverbank. 

So if you've been looking for that "launch" idea, chances are good it's already there in your mind and memory, waiting for you to pick it up, blow the dust off and ask yourself ... what if ...? 

Where Sequels Come From

It's been a little more than a year since I published both my books, the Alaska youth adventure, Cheechako, and the Alaska mystery Indecent Exposure.

I felt a little lost when I finished both those books, after I'd gone through the torture of formatting for e-book and paperback and finally uploaded everything. To my surprise I felt cut off from those characters I'd been spending so much time with.

At that time, I missed the adult characters most. Probably because Indecent Exposure was the book I had most recently finished. And it wasn't long before I found myself back on my early-morning writing schedule, pounding out sequels to both books.

As of today, I'm on approximately page 170 of the Cheechako sequel, working title Float Monkeys. It's a longer book, already some thirty pages longer than Cheechako.

I'm writing on approximately page 100 of the Indecent Exposure sequel, working title simply "Hardy 2."

But ... Why Write a Sequel? 

There are all kinds of reasons to write a sequel. From a purely business standpoint, a sequel doubles your sales. If your book works at all, anyone who buys and reads the first will buy and read the second.

But I think it was Mark Twain who said "Only a fool writes for money." I think he meant just for money. I've grown attached to eating regular meals and sleeping indoors, so money still looks pretty good when it shows up.

But beyond money, and beyond even getting to "hang" with your book character friends, it is fun ... challenging ... even exciting to take good characters and let them expand into new situations, new challenges, new adventures.

Here Come the Float Monkeys

I didn't want to write another "winter" book. So both of my sequels take place in the Alaskan summer. 

Float Monkeys takes Will, his dog Blackie, and his good friend Elias, to southeast Alaska, to work for a bush plane flight service near Sitka. It's a completely different Alaska, still rugged, wild, sometimes dangerous, and we get to see different sides of the boys and even of Blackie. 

Float Monkeys are what are called "dock boys" in Alaska, or ... as I've come to learn ... "ramp apes." They're the teenage boys–and girls–who flunky for the flying services, loading gear in and out of planes and filling up the tanks.

As with any youth novel, they are almost completely un-supervised in their world and so anything can–and many things do–happen. And it's all good for the reader. 

Jesse Joshua Watson Paints the New Cheechako Cover.

Before I sign off, let me say that I'm thrilled to announce that Jesse Joshua Watson is currently doing sketchwork for the new Cheechako cover, and will subsequently also be producing covers for the next three books in that series. If you don't know his youth cover and illustration work, you should. Check him out at: www.jessewatson.com

An Author-Outdoorsman Reviews "Cheechako"

   Here's a new review that I'm particularly proud of. The author, Jerry A. Lewis, is a lifelong outdoorsman, hunter and guide. He's also a particularly gifted outdoor writer, author of Silent Crossings–a book that is more than worth the hunt!

     I recently finished Jonathan Stratman's book "Cheechako". Although Stratman says the book is targeted toward young people, the story is one that every reader that has passed that younger period of life can easily associate with. It is a "coming-of-age" story with ingredients in it most of us dealt with in our youth.

     It's a book about Alaska. And no writer who attempts to take on the enormity of Alaska can do so without taking on winter. Alaska is many things, but above all, Alaska is about winter. You can read about winter most anywhere but if you want to flip the last page of a book and feel like you really know what blizzards, deep snow and real cold are like just pick up "Cheechako," wrap a blanket around yourself and start reading. The author nailed it.

     And "Cheechako" isn't just about winter. It's about good people, good dogs, the mixing of human races, bullies and remote Alaska villages. There are a few nuances in the pages that I haven't read elsewhere, which helps attract the reader to the mysterious side of the author, and makes one push on to get to the end of the book. I liked "Cheechako". It is a bargain.

Jerry A Lewis
Corvallis, Montana
2013

Check this New Cheechako Review!

From start to finish, this book was a pleasure to read. Cheechako is fantastic! In the first chapter, I wanted to strangle the bullies that made life miserable for Will. The descriptions of Alaska, especially the harsh realities of a sub-zero blizzard in the wilderness were gripping. Stratman has a gift of writing so naturally that the words just flow from his pen. I hope Jonathan Thomas Stratman writes more and I'm watching for a sequel!  Eric Brewster

Thanks Eric. Great review. 

Advice to writers always starts with "write what you know." 

Of course any of us who have taught writing have had earnest students scratch their heads and say (seriously) "...but I don't know what I know." 

And they're not wrong. But there are different kinds of knowing. Young students often get "knowing" confused with how many facts they can store. 

In writing, this kind of knowing is not so much facts as what you see when you close your eyes. The familiar and unique landscape of your mind and memory. 

After all these years, when I close my eyes, I can still see Nenana, Alaska as it was in my first view as I stepped down from the train, now more than fifty years ago. It has remained vivid through a number of my Cricket Magazine stories and two full novels, with two more on the way. 

So, what remains vivid for you? And what are you waiting for. Write about it. 

Recommending Cheechako

Hi all,

Just a note about my young adult adventure novel … set in interior Alaska … Cheechako.

Even though few on the planet have any idea who I am, the book is selling, in both Kindle format and paperback, available through Amazon but order-able anywhere.

Reading specialists have been particularly kind to Cheechako, recommending the book for their “reluctant” readers and ordering class sets. To any of you who may be reading this, thanks for your support.

If you are a teacher, or know one, approximately grades 4 – 9, please check out/mention Cheechako, available here: 

Amazon Cheechako review

And to all of you who have kindly read, reviewed and recommended, thank you so much for your support.

Best wishes,   Jonathan 

St. Valentine, Original Gangster of Love

I've been thinking a lot about St. Valentine. And only partly because I have an NPR deadline approaching. When I meet people who have read or heard my stuff, it is very common to hear "where do you get your ideas?"

The answer is, one thing leads to another. Sometimes a thing just catches your writer eye and you walk around thinking about it. At least I do.

Valentine was interesting to me for a number of reasons. One of them is that he was an outlaw to the Romans. An insurgent. We hear the term 'insurgent' used a good deal now, but hard to imagine it in the framework of Roman Society and the context of Christianity as "underground."

So my new St. Valentine's Day piece comes from that perspective. Painting this man we now know as a priest and martyr, as a kind of criminal. Hence, the "Gangster of Love."

Hearts and Flowers

The other thing about St. Valentine is that he died very badly, beaten nearly to death and then beheaded. The contrast between his brutal death and the pink hearts for which he has become known is a head-spinner.

Is there humour in that contrast? We'll see. As always, all comments are welcome. Just click on the link below to hear the three-minute St. Valentine broadcast.


http://www.prx.org/pieces/90320-st-valentine-gangster-of-love