Overshadowed Hope is the title of the story I'm writing. It took me a while to decide on a title that explained what I felt the story was about. Originally I started with Butterfly Wings, thinking about the fact that a difficult change was taking place as the story developed similar to a Caterpillar changing into a Butterfly. But that title still didn't express the mood of the story and what else was taking place. I played around with words that coincided with Metamorphosis and re-birth; however none of them seemed to fit.
I began to think about how everyone felt during the time we were trying to help my cousin, and how my cousin must have felt. I tried to see what she saw and feel how she felt. The idea that her life wasn't going how she wanted was strong and also the fact that she was losing people in her life that she cared about and a place that she loved was being lost as well. For her it was a lot of loss in a short time. There were people she loved still in her life, she loved her nephew, her sister, mother, father and brother, but she was also dealing with the divorce of her parents, and trying to accept new people into her family.
Change is never an easy thing to accept especially when it is unexpected change. And for her it seemed as if some of those changes clouded her hope for her life. I think at the time I was thinking of the title I was trying to find something that expressed that hope was just out of reach, but on the cusp of being attained. Finally I landed on Overshadowed Hope because there was so much in her life that was Overshadowing hope for her. Her battle with her eating disorder was one of those things.
I do have a cover that my husband has worked on for me. I think it expresses the mood of the book perfectly and I plan to reveal the cover when I finish the first draft of the book. I also have a release date picked out. For this story the release date was nearly a given. I was torn between two dates, one was May 8th, the day my cousin was born and the other was August 7th, the day my cousin passed away. I chose August 7th because I want something good to come out of that date. I want it to be the day my cousin lives on in print, the way her story should have been rather than the day her life ended.
In all of this I hope that this story speaks to people. I hope that people understand what this story means to me, and I of course hope that everyone who reads this story likes it. I know everyone won't, but I'm still hopeful. I know it's a subjective piece as is all stories, but I want good to come from it. That's honestly where I'm at in writing this particular story. It's not the same as my Swept Saga, for me it's deeper and more personal. It hasn't in any means been easy for me to write either. I honestly hope you all share in this story with me when I release it August 7th.
