Entitled

I think Hemingway's [book] titles should be awarded first prize in any contest. Each of them is a poem, and their mysterious power over readers contributes to Hemingway's success. His titles have a life of their own, and they have enriched the American vocabulary.
— Sylvia Beach

Sentimental titles are the last bastion of scoundrels, and can add significant barf to an already barfy work.
— Robert Genn

A good title holds magic, some cognitive dissonance, a little grit between the teeth, but above all it is the jumping-off place into wonder.
— Barbara Kingsolver

Those who don’t write may find this hard to believe, but coming up with a title for a story/book is one of the hardest parts of the whole thing. A title needs to hook your reader, draw him in. It needs to generate interest without giving away too much of the plot. And most of all, it needs to be memorable

Would Gone With The Wind, by Margaret Mitchell been as much of a success under its original title of Tomorrow Is Another Day? Would War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, have become a classic had it been called All’s Well That Ends Well, as it almost was?

One of the names considered for The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires. Bram Stoker, at one time, had thought to call his novel, Dracula, The Dead Un-Dead. John Steinbeck was originally going to call his classic Of Mice and Men simply Something That Happened. And The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner, was almost called Twilight.

The book I’m currently working on, Magickal Mayhem, started out as Wandering Wizards, then became Blood Ties, before settling in as Magickal Mayhem. And even now, I’m kind of waffling on whether it should be that, or Magick and Mayhem. I guess I won’t really know until I start on the book cover design. And at the rate I’m doing the final edits, that’s going to be a while.

A good book title needs to be unique. It creates the first impression a potential reader has for a book. It sets the tone and hints at the genre, and most of all, draws the reader in.

A few things to keep in mind when trying to come up with a book/story title:
1. Make it memorable.
2. Make sure it’s appropriate for the genre.
3. Make sure it stirs the reader’s interest.
4. Use a subtitle for clarification.
5. Run it by a few friends/colleagues for feedback.
6. If it’s easy to pronounce, it’ll be easy to remember.
7. Try and make sure it won’t be confused with another book.

I say try with that last one because with the plethora of self publishing going on, sometimes it’s really hard to come up with something that hasn’t been already used. But even back when most publishing was done traditionally, there were still books published with the same title, but different authors. One that springs to mind is the science fiction book, Millennium. I read this book by Ben Bova in 1976, and then I read it by John Varley in 1983 – both excellent books by well known science fiction authors, both very different stories.

But as Shakespeare once said, “A rose by any other name . . .”

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

I had another one of those weeks where I honestly don’t know what I did with my time. It’s kind of disconcerting to look back on the week and not know where it went. The blog posts were fairly easy, but I did not write any extra poetry, or anything beyond my three-minute words. Not a very writerly week, to be sure

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 1,350+759+629+892=3,630

Poetry
80+48=128

Total words: 3,758 words

Three minute words – 87+95+96+105+102+106+119=710

Goals For Next Week:
Write a poem, write a story, get something done other than my three minute words and blog posts. Maybe even keep better track of what I’m doing.

EDITING:
I’m well over the halfway point in Beet Down by Jamie DeBree. I was hoping to finish it over the weekend, but I spent yesterday in Toronto with the daughter, which was a lot of fun but didn’t get any editing done.

Goal For Next Week:
Finish editing Beet Down, and get back to Magickal Mayhem.

MARKETING MONDAY:
I didn’t forget about Marketing Monday, exactly, but it was the one day of the week I remember being busy. I had an appointment in the morning, and the pleasure of the grand daughter’s company in the afternoon.

Goal For Next Week:
Submit two flash stories and one poem.

TECHNO TUESDAY:
I don’t even have a zoom meeting as an excuse for blowing off Techno Tuesday last week.

Goal For Next Week:
Do something technical.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
I only managed to write two of the three poems I had left over from the PAD challenge, and that was pretty much it for poetry last week. But I like the idea of doing a weekly poetry form, so that’s what I’m going to do. Starting with this week, I’m going to offer a new poetry form.

Goal For Next Week:
Share a new poetry form and new poem.

CRAFTING:
I failed to start a new craft. But I have an excuse. I was considering which transfers to use on this unbleached cotton tote bag I have, but before I start that project I thought I’d whip up another cross-stitched name tag for my in-person stitchery meeting (which will be this Tuesday). The red thread on black aida cloth is okay, but it’s a little plain and I didn’t leave much room to embellish it. Plus, everybody else has white name tags (with colourful embellishments).

I thought it might be nice to have my full name, which meant I’d have to use smaller lettering. Unlike with embroidery, you can’t just shrink down cross stitch pattern because it’s on a grid. I wasted two evenings scouring the internet for a pattern to use, then finally gave up and ordered a couple of books from Amazon. They came Friday, but then I had to pick from over 100 alphabets, which also was rather time consuming. Hopefully I’ll get to it later today.

Goal For Next Week:
Cross stitch new name tag. Start embroidery on tote bag.

WHAT I’M READING:
Last week I finished Born in Shame, and then read The Dark Witch, and Shadow Spell, and I’m just about finished Blood Magick by Nora Roberts. After that I’d like to give Nora a rest for a while, but no promises.

Goal For Next Week:
Find something other than Nora Roberts to read.

GOAL REVIEW:
Once again my only claim to fame is that I got all my blog posts up, even if they weren’t all on time. I also got my three-minute words done, but I admit it’s not some of my best writing.

While I did write two of the three poems I had leftover from the PAD challenge, that was pretty much it. Just to keep an oar in the water, I’m going to go ahead and commit to a poetry post every Wednesday. Or maybe that means I should be committed. ;-)

Have not yet started any of those tutorials I paid for. And I didn’t even get any crafting done

Not a great week overall, but hopefully this week will be better.

Happy writing.