Showing posts with label titles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label titles. Show all posts

Sunday, August 22, 2010

My Other Car is a Bicycle

That is a bumper sticker I never quite understood. Another bumper sticker I never particularly enjoyed was of the "I'd Rather be Fishing/Hunting/Sailing" variety and yet, since getting my long awaited edits, believe me: I get it.

This editing is way harder than I thought.


I would rather be:

  1. At Ikea
  2. Cleaning out the hall closet
  3. Doing effing laundry
  4. Reading my Marie Antoinette book (Almost done! How will it end?)
  5. Playing around with lipstick and eye shadow so my lips look like the above

Anything anything ANYTHING other than making artistic choices strongly encouraged by my editor...

No news on the title either.




Friday, August 20, 2010

What's in a Name?


I'm having some title trouble and I don't really want to go into it except to say there is this new book out, by fellow MFA holder Lish McBride, with the best title ever.

Are you sitting down?

It is called HOLD ME CLOSER, NECROMANCER and I am so green with raging envy at the amazingness of it that it only makes my own title search all the more difficult because, well, it is hard to see through the green haze.

The cover's Lou Reed cool too.

And it's on my to-read list and I hear, from smart people, that it is a great novel too.

As for this title business let me be clear. This is an issue for me in all areas of my life, putting a clear label on a thing. If you do a little digging, you will see that my short story title prowess is also rather lacking (although I rather liked "Cannibals"). I had trouble calling my husband "my Husband" till about a year ago and don't get me started on how we named the kids. The words I would use are... slowly, passionately, randomly. Which describes the way I do most things in my life.

My soon to be named novel is about a lot of complex things and I don't want to scare people by some freak show title. But then I want it to be a name for my book- not just any book out there. I want it to be:

  • catchy
  • enigmatic
  • specific
  • funny
  • weighty
  • start with the letter A
  • wink to Sylvia Plath
  • avoid being too Plathian

How hard could it effin be?

Stay tuned...