Posted on November 11, 2011 by admin
1 Comment
Once I had 30,000 words down, a title came to me. It jumped into my head, curled up in my lap and smiled at me like a big-pawed puppy. I liked it. It sounded big but not too big. Nothing to compete with Krakauer or Viesters anyway. But my story isn’t a hard core climbing story, so I was ok with that. The title was just about perfect. So I shared it with a couple people enthusiastically and with a big proud grin. The return fan fare was less than stellar. No one was thrilled, but particularly when I shared it with AC, he turned up his lip and shrugged. Hmmm.
I spent about 2 weeks uninvesting from this sweet little puppy, and was title-less for a while. I thought of different ways to refer to to the things that happened in the story, the area we traveled through, and I dissected a couple languages for inspiration. But titles are (or can be) make-or break items. No worries, at this point I was still writing the book ONLY for me. No one else was even going to see the darn thing, save my immediate family and a couple close friends who apparently “love my writing!”
I picked it up, put it down and picked it up again. Then I got frustrated and quit thinking about it. Lo and behold, that method seems to really work for my brain. A new title jumped into my lap and this puppy was even more fluffy and happy. So I kept it and it’s on the cover right now. I’d type it out here, but it’s easier to
put in a link so you can see the pretty cover too. If you love it, great, I am happy for you. If you don’t, bummer and sorry, but too bad. It’s my puppy and I am not giving this one back.
It looks beautiful, Erika!!