Sunday, July 13, 2025:Ta da! List

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.

Daily Diary, Day 1775:

Edgar and Friends: I wasn’t going to include a report today, but then this morning while I was doing my thorough cleaning of downstairs powder room, I mistook Miss Teeny, who had been missing for several days, for a bit of dust as I was dusting the lights over the sink. Thank heavens before my duster got to that corner, the dust speck moved, and I realized it was Miss Teeny! She seems ok, although she will probably need to redo her web. I also noticed that although I was careful not to disturb Junior who was up in the opposite corner over the sink, he had pulled way into the corner, I assume to make sure I didn’t sweep him away. Of course I was careful not putting my dust mop near Edgar, in his usual spot on the right of the magazine holder, but I think that I sent enough dust into the air, that some of it caught in his web. I hope this doesn’t send them all back into hiding again. But I am celebrating that all 3 of these regulars were out this morning.

New Cover Reveal: Today I am celebrating the new cover for Mr. Wong to the Rescue, the new novella I am currently writing.

In this previous post I wrote about how my first cover for Maids of Misfortune, came about, and I am delighted that Michelle Huffaker, the friend who has been my cover designer for this series, has continued to be willing to produce covers for me, even though most of her business has shifted to other areas of design.

As usual, I had decided what the color of the background (the Victorian wallpaper) was going to be. I had only used the color pink once before with Bloody Lessons, and since the story is set in spring time, I wanted the color to reference the shade of pink from cherry blossoms. I had done my researched and I knew that there were cherry orchards being grown near San Francisco and that they were used in spring time floral arrangements in the city during this period. I do like to be historically accurate, although I am not sure anyone would have made wallpaper out of this color at that time!

As for the center picture, I had looked to see if I could come up with a photograph of a Chinese male, or males, that my Michelle could use for the illustration in the center of the cover. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything that was better or even close to the photograph we had used for the short story, Mr. Wong Rights a Wrong, which I felt really matched how I imagined Mr. Wong looking. She couldn’t find anything better either, so we decided to go with the same photograph, with some cleaning up of the lighting and changes in the background.

I also suggested flipping the photograph and both of us had the same reaction with the new cover—that somehow these changes--not only made the center illustration look slightly different--but both of us thought that in the new illustration, Mr. Wong was smiling slightly!!! Which is crazy, but it does mean I am very pleased with the result.

For fun, I am going to put up the two covers side-by-side and see if any of you get the same feeling!

Anyway, I am seeing this new cover as a definite reason to celebrate. Now I just need to finish writing the story.

What are you celebrating today?

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