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Mar. 20th, 2007
I am terrible at coming up with titles. I feel bad about this because my choice of whether to buy or a read a book usually hinges on its title. I like titles. I care more about them than about cover art, or price, or publisher. If the title is good enough, I don't read the blurb on the back; I skip straight to a random page, sometimes a few of them, and see what I think. Half of the convincing has been done.
It would be nice for me if I were better at titles, which are like talismans. A title gives people the impression that the work is fully envisioned and will be completed. Otherwise, you are stuck with conversations that go:
- Oh, well, you know, that short story about a woman who loves a robot, and a couple of short scripts, and a longer script, and this nonsense poem, and a little bit more of that humor book.
- So not really anything solid, then.
Sometimes I think about giving projects code names, like "Bodyguard" or "Project Z" or "Elephant Moon Shoe," so that maybe people will think I have a title that I am just not telling them. Today I came up with the title "Hot and Bottled," but it does not match any of the things I am working on.
It would be nice for me if I were better at titles, which are like talismans. A title gives people the impression that the work is fully envisioned and will be completed. Otherwise, you are stuck with conversations that go:
- Oh, well, you know, that short story about a woman who loves a robot, and a couple of short scripts, and a longer script, and this nonsense poem, and a little bit more of that humor book.
- So not really anything solid, then.
Sometimes I think about giving projects code names, like "Bodyguard" or "Project Z" or "Elephant Moon Shoe," so that maybe people will think I have a title that I am just not telling them. Today I came up with the title "Hot and Bottled," but it does not match any of the things I am working on.
