Summer in south Louisiana, when everyone utters a choked sound akin to “whugh” everytime they step outside. The heat is up along with the humidity, and you can’t walk 20 feet outside without becoming drenched in sweat.

Whugh.

I hate cold weather, I really do, but summers down here are something to be endured.

***

I’m deep into plans to revamp my main page of this website (not the blog section, but the main entry dianarowland.com page.) As anyone who has ever entered this site through that portal knows, that page Sucks. Really really sucks. It’s very laaaaaame, and that’s an insult to lame people.

I started to dink around and see if I could come up with anything spiffy, but I quickly realized that my artistic abilities are definitely NOT of the visual variety. I know what I like when I see it, but I’m stuck when it comes to designing, and am a total loser when it comes to any kind of drawing or art or effects.

So, I squirreled together a budget and then sent out an open invitation to all of the illustrators from my Writers/Illustrators of the Future year. I wanted something on my front page that reflects this novel that I’ve written (and the sequels, if the publishing gods choose to smile upon me), and since my book focuses on a homicide detective who can summon demons, I decided to solicit artwork depicting the twelve levels of demons that exist in the world of my novel. I received some really great response from a number of the artists, so I’ve commissioned several demons from each one. Then once I get all of the artwork, a terrific friend of mine (and awesome visual artist and writer) is going to design me a nifty cool purty website that utilizes all of the demon art.

So, I’m really excited about finally getting something “up front” that looks classy and professional. Plus I’ll have links and bio pages for all of the artists, so hopefully this will be a cool deal for them as well.

For future generations reading this, you won’t be forced to lay your gaze on the horrid front page that I have now. Consider yourself fortunate.