Okay, I can’t manage a poetry Friday post today but I’ll try for a Friday Five which, I’m not sure, I think means five short snippets of something that do not have to be related. (Feel free to correct me.)
1 – A title for a new book came to me but it’s not a book I want to write yet. But it is a perfect title. I also have the perfect opening line. But it is about something that really happened to me, something I am still living through, so I can’t write about it, yet, because it is about someone who would probably not appreciate it at ALL. But it’s a great title.
2 – The WIP which also has a perfect title (which, if you read my Teaser Tuesday post you already know) necessitates some research including, most likely, flying lessons.
3 – The other WIP (I can’t help it, I want to write them both right now) has a perfect character and a lot of terrific scenes are coming to (though they have yet to make it out of my head and onto the page) but alas, it still has no title. Which means, probably, it can’t be a WIP yet because I can’t write it without a title.
4 – And the verse WIP has a bunch of very interesting dark poems and yet ANOTHER perfect title but absolutely ZERO plot to hold it together.
5 – I am good at titles. Really good. Now all I need to do is figure out how to get paid for just coming up with great titles.
I’m good at titles for books I’ll never write and lousy at titles for books that need them.
“I’m good at titles for books I’ll never write…”
so maybe I need to get you to come up with the title for my book. 🙂
I love writing titles, too. And hmm, I always count on a title to get me inspired, too. Yet another thing we have in common. 🙂
I’m seriously in love with my chapter titles for WITNESS.
oh gosh, if start putting titles on chapters I might never write the actual book – I’d be having too much fun. 🙂
I am good at titles. Really good. Now all I need to do is figure out how to get paid for just coming up with great titles.
I feel this way about opening scenes–if I could write them and nothing else, life would be good. 🙂
You know, if we could find someone who did middles and someone else with dynamite endings we could get a little assembly line going.
Works for me!
Re: how to get paid for coming up with titles…
Become a headline writer for a newspaper?
Re: how to get paid for coming up with titles…
Oh, what a cool idea! That would be fun…but they’d probably want me to do a bunch of other stuff resembling work too.
Flying lessons! Are you serious?
Yep.
I wish I could pay you for a title. The novel I’m plotting has a never-done-quite-like-this device, yet no title. Neither does my trilogy (you know, because every YA writer has to be working on a trilogy *hee*).
Do you accept payment after a publishing contract is in hand? LOL
I’ll trade you some titles for some plot help any old time. 🙂
I am terrible at titles. For the 10 years I worked at the Star Tribune, writing headlines was the task I feared most (and luckily did not have to do very often). I always come up with this very boring, practical title for my WIPs and pray a great title will emerge as a I write it. Or that someone else will come up with a great title.
It’s a double-edged sword for me because until I have a title that feels right I am hopelessly deadlocked. Sigh.
Lucky! Titles are usually one of the last things I come up with, after much agonizing.
Well I didn’t say there was no agonizing on my part – LOL.
yes I agree
1000’s of titles
but the stuff behind it. . .that is the hard part!
kudos for titling
Okay, agree that writing titles maybe won’t lead to a well paying job, but it definitely points to the poet in you, and a rare talent. Hugging the Rock is filled with titles, above each poem, and also in would you call them chapter clusters? Nah, bad titling on my part, but you’ve arranged the poems with overarching titles, too. Titles are so hard! I’m sure you’re grateful for that gift