Back from the nuptuals

It's late on Monday, but I still have time to get in my blog post!

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for their well wishes on my wedding. The Mrs. and I had an amazing time and my mind is almost back to normal now... well, as normal as I get anyway. Certainly far more normal than Mark Henry.

Speaking of Mark, he picked this week's topic, The Trouble with Tribbles! This is one of my all time favorite episodes of the original Star Trek series! When those cute little furballs start to overrun the ship... hold on a sec, phone's ringing.

That was Mark, calling to correct me. Apparently, this weeks topic is actually The Trouble with Titles!

I don't think I have any great advice on this, actually, so I wish we were going for Star Trek, but alas!

I'm hit with the inspiration for a title at different parts of any given project. Here's a sampling:

"Lady in Red" from Pandora's Closet- I knew I wanted to do a modern day Red Riding Hood story with a twist and my unnatural love of Chris De Burgh and his song stylings came through.

Dead To Me- Due out on 2/26/08, this title hit me pretty early on when all I knew was that my book had a ghost lady, a paranormal investigator and was set in a quirky New York. I wasn't familiar with Tony Soprano saying it until this past year when I finally watched the entire run of the show, but the title just hit me one day. It was too perfect.. it just fit a lot of ideas in the book on several levels, and I was surprised that no one had actually used it yet. After all, I work for a publisher that does Undead & Unwed, Dead Over Heels, Dead Until Dawn... you get the idea. Some people didn't like it at first, but the important people did, and I never lost faith in it...

"The Fourteenth Virtue" from The Dimension Next Door (Fall 08)- I knew I wanted to do a story about the secret necromantic life of Benjamin Franklin (who doesn't, right?). Had no idea for a title... but while researching Franklin's life, I came across this set of ideals he chose to live his life by called The Thirteen Virtues. Then I wondered what if there was just one more, one that spoke of his true dark nature...

Dead To Me 2- Ok, I'm almost done with the first draft on book two of the series and honestly, I don't have a name for it. Part of me is toying with Deader Still, but honestly it makes me groan a little. Plus it doesn't quite capture what's going on in the series right now, anyway. I'm not too worried. If it doesn't hit me, chances are my editor will come up with something. That's what happens a lot of times, anyways. Editors make the call on what to title a lot of books simply because they have a better array of experience in making a book happen in the first place. We shall see what develops on this front...


Untitled mainstream novel- my passion project right now is about a punk band past their prime and coping. Not sure what it will turn out to be, but right now it's tentatively titled Unfortunate Son simply because I'm not sure what it will end up as.

So don't sweat it if you don't have a title right away. It'll come naturally from the actual writing of the story. And it could be worse... sometimes you have the title, but no good story ever comes of it!

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