August 15, 2003
Really got slammed with a huge storm last night. Got home around six and saw a thunderhead above Elephant Butte piling straight up at least a mile. Really a huge system. We got hit around eight, big winds, horizontal rain. There were tornado warnings for Mayer and Cordes Junction (45 miles north of us). Rained real hard for at least an hour. Power went out but came back on in about 30 seconds. Big puddles, twigs and branches strewn everywhere this morning.

Woke up this morning at 5:30 mulling cover art. Came out to studio and looked at books (John Singer Sargent, Ludwig Holwein, Goya: I like to steal from the best). Think I have a color scheme I can exploit. My main concern is something that breathes. Flat, solid color is the tempting way to go on a cover, but it is also the most predictable. And you can also do it with a computer, and we are trying to get something that stands out on the newsstand and photographs with clean, solid backgrounds are on 99% of the covers. Need something that transcends that. Thus today’s problem.

“We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”
—Carlos Castaneda