Miracle of miracles, I started work on my second novel this morning, after having finalized my outline.  I’m ecstatic; it’s been too long a hiatus.  My poor agent has awaited pages from me for two long months, and now I’ll soon be able to give him a sneak peek.

While I wrote, Dan did errands with Liliana.  As a treat, they stopped by Dunn Bros. for a parfait, and then they came home so Liliana could nap.

While she’s sleeping, I’ll jot a few notes here.

The amazingly realistic sculpture above is in Paris’s Musee d’Orsay.  The full photo is below (notice the serpent twining among the leaves at the bottom).

As Dan and I have traveled, I’ve collected photos of various artists’ views of Eve.  [She’s near and dear to my heart, as you can imagine, after spending months and months with her.]

Each portrayal is unique and conveys a very different emotion.

I’m ecstatic about the artwork chosen for the cover of Eve (“Eve” by Anna Lea Merritt, 1844-1930), simply because, as a viewer, you’re not quite able to tell if Eve is morose, shamed, contemplative, sad, or thoughtful.  It allows the viewer to wonder, which I love.  Only after I had related these thoughts to my editors did they tell me that the art department had removed an apple that lay on the ground next to Eve.  They felt that with the apple present, it made Eve look shamed–that there would be no other way to “read” her.  I was thrilled that they had taken the time to think this through (thank you, Virginia Norey!), and the result is what you see on Eve’s cover.

I love it that Eve is such a complex character, that she cannot be read with a simple, cursory glance.  It’s the same with best friends.  How could you possibly give a one-sentence synopsis about any of them?  Most of them defy interpretation because they run deeper than anything you could possibly say.

Isn’t that wonderful?