Coming Up with Titles: the Pain and Glory

Spring has sprung here fully into summer and the flowers are so lovely! This is my pink anemone clematis that I'm training to climb up the grape vine in the arbor. Love how it's coming along!

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is "How do you come up with your titles?"

I might have as many answers to this question as I have published (and unpublished, for that matter) works. And a single work can have multiple titles by the time the final one goes on the cover. So much so that I can have mass confusion looking through my various files and documents for versions of stories. I'm pretty organized, but that can get crazymaking, especially keeping things consistent between email folders and those in Dropbox.

So, the short answer is I often choose titles initially on instinct. Some of them come to me before I start writing. Like "Wyoming Trucks, True Love, and the Weather Channel" was a title I thought of first, then wrote the essay, and then we ended up calling the entire essay collection that. Sometimes I write on a book for a long time before I figure out the title. Some are called "Story" for a significant amount of time.

One cool trick I learned is to pull the title from a line or phrase in the story. Grace Draven likes to draw from poetry, which is how we came up with "Amid the Winter Snow."

When you work with a traditional publisher, they very often want to change the title. So, here's a story about the title of the first book in the new trilogy I'll be doing with St. Martin's Press, out August 2019.

I called this book "New Story" for about a week while I worked my way into it. Once I had a handle on it more, I started calling it "The Slave King." That lasted about a month until I apparently decided my heroine needed to share top billing. Then it became "The Slave King and the Flower Queen." I had those images for the hero and heroine, which resonated with the core idea I worked from. When I sent my agent, Sarah Younger, the first rough fifty pages, that's what I called it. We have a number of back-and-forth emails with the subject line "TSK/TFQ." Which should've been a hint right there that it was a cumbersome title.

By the time we went out on submission, Sarah suggested taking "The Slave King" out of the title. I get that descriptor for him in the story, but she was concerned that it would be possibly offensive as an email subject line out of context. She proposed

Throne of Flowers, Throne of Flesh
Throne of Flowers, Throne of Fire
 Throne of Thorns, Throne of Fire
 Crown of Thorns, Crown of Ore

I came back with (inspired by her) "Throne of Flowers, Throne of Ash." She polled everyone in her agency and they voted for that.

And sold it to St. Martins! (along with two sequels to be named - literally, as we still haven't titled those...)

Once we signed the contracts and started digging into what my editor, Jennie Conway, envisioned for the series, she relayed that the SMP marketing thought that my title would get lost in SEO. (That's Search Engine Optimization for the lay people - and means that they worried my "thrones" would get lost with all the other "thrones" terms people might type into Google.)

She suggested:

Book 1: A Throne Veiled by Orchids
Book 2: A Throne Bound in Shadow
Book 3: A Throne Carved from Embers

Sarah riffed on that, coming up with:

Book 1: A Throne Masked by Orchids
Book 1: A Throne Hidden in Orchids
Book 1: A Throne Built by Orchids
Book 1: A Throne Shadowed by Orchids
Book 1: A Throne Covered with Orchids
Book 1: A Throne Disguised by Orchids

Book 2: A Throne Bound in Shadow

Book 3: A Throne Carved from Embers

Marketing came back with a No on anything starting with "Throne," because of how SEO works, and also avoiding the words "ice," "fire," and "ash," as they're overused with "throne."

After a lot more brainstorming, we all finally settled on THE ORCHID THRONE as the title for Book 1. You can no doubt see the evolution of that. As for Books 2 and 3, we decided to wait until I wrote more of Book 1 and saw how the story was developing.

So there you have it! My answer in this case to "How do you come up with your titles?" is "over months of effort and with a bunch of really smart people weighing in."

Paying It Forward Is On My Mind

Not the Author. Also I never wear suits any more.
This would only be an accurate depiction of my Author talk if I was presenting Jeffe's spreadsheets!
DepositPhoto

What’s been on my mind this week is the talk I’m giving tomorrow to a local writers group. They invited me to speak about six months ago and I said yes, because May 2018 seemed a long way off. Surprise, now it’s tomorrow! I get very tense prior to doing a talk or a panel, I have huge FUN during the event – I ride the adrenaline – and I’m always glad I did it when it’s safely over. (I also have chocolate.)

I also always say I’ll never do another one…and then eventually I do.

They left the topic up to me although they did say maybe I wanted to touch on scifi romance. I decided no to that one. It’s not a romance group – it’s a very eclectic critique group ranging from poets to nonfiction to fiction. Given that, I figured the best way for me to stay interesting enough to keep everyone awake would be to briefly discuss my own journey to publishing and then give a few insights or guidelines about being an independently published author nowadays.

DepositPhoto

Kind of funny, I thought I had an hour. Nope, thirty minutes. EEK! So I revised and revised. It’s so tempting to go way deep into a rabbit hole on any one of the zillion things I could talk about with them and I had to make myself pull back to just the 100,000’ level on all of it.

One of the first things I plan to say to them is that there is no one right way to do things, no one right answer. Of course there are exceptions to that rule, as with everything else in life, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind.

When I got into indie publishing, I had so much help and advice from authors who came before me, and so I feel a strong drive to also ‘pay it forward’ to others.  I think right now is a tough time in the industry for many reasons, including scammers, trolls, trademark issues (which were on my mind a LOT this week but I'm not going there), a mature marketplace, pressure to do frequent new releases…so I struggled a bit with this talk. I didn’t want to be depressing or daunting in speaking to them, because I love being a fulltime author and would never give it up. Do I miss the gold rush days? Sure! But those days won’t be back and I still very much love writing my books and putting them out there for readers to (hopefully) enjoy. I don’t want to crush anyone’s dreams in the least. Just add a smidgen of realism…it’s not all tea parties and movie contracts out here.

So I settled for advising them to develop a thick skin, remember it’s a BUSINESS, not to compare themselves and their journey to anyone else’s and to stay true to their own voice. Plus some other more tactical stuff about covers, blurbs, editing and promo. And ergonomics.

I hope I get questions because that’s where the fun conversations often spring up! I probably should be more basic and hope anyone even shows up on Mother’s Day weekend!

The other thing on my mind right now is that I got my next book back from the editor and I need to disappear into the revisions so I can get the book out there in the wild and crazy marketplace…

Faith in Humanity on My Mind

What's on my mind? This'll shock you. Not at all.

Cats. And the near mortal blow taken by my once shining faith in humanity.  Let me introduce you to Fluffy. (Don't @ me. I did not name him. I inherited this stunning lack of imagination.) Fluffy is 15 and he lives outside, among the rocks and mangroves beside Tampa Bay where he was dumped by someone years ago.

Yes. I'm back to feline rescue. I met up with a group who manages this colony of cats. All of them dumped. Because several of the dumped cats weren't fixed before being abandoned, there's now a generation of truly feral (and spectacularly gorgeous) cats on site. Someone dumped a seal point Himalayan queen. She produced a glorious long-hair tortie and a stunning short-hair calico with blue eyes. All three are fixed now. And once a day, one of the colony managers goes out to put out food and fresh water for the crew. We have about twenty cats and a group of 6 people who work with the colony.

This is where faith in humanity is restored. Because this is where these cats live: In elevated shelters built by one of the men who originally began feeding these cats. That's Rocky on the shelf. There are two of these shelters. These shelters and all of the cats weathered Irma without a hitch.

We run a constant TNR (trap, neuter, release) program at this colony, because just as we reach 100% fix rates, some git comes along and dumps a litter of kittens. This happened late last year. My co-managers had trapped three of the four kittens. Three of those kittens were taken into rescue and homed. They all have human slaves of their very own. But we had one wily panther (solid black coat) who for WEEKS avoided our efforts to trap him. I was lucky enough to get him with a drop trap last Sunday. He was neutered, vaccinated, and returned to the colony on Wednesday evening.

 But that same Wednesday evening, not a mile up the road from where these fluffs live in the rough, I was accosted by a charming 6-7 month old, solid grey kitten. Obviously male. He is ultra-friendly and charming. I was at a beach bar and the staff told me they had a bunch of cats. I identified myself as one of the managers of the colony down the road (everybody knows it because of the excellent houses) and asked for permission to get on property and trap the cats. The general manager said, 'yes please.' I'm heart-broken that someone would dump such a love-hungry kitten when there's a perfectly good Humane Society with a robust foster program in the area. Surrendering an animal isn't a death sentence here, damn it. Abandoning them IS. So if anyone near FL wants a young, handsome gun metal blue kitten, hit me up. I have no idea how many cats are at that colony. I have no idea whether any of them are fixed or sick or  . . .  But I will find out.

The thing that preserves my faith in humanity is the number of people who stop when they see us taking care of the cats and telling us how much they love the cats and appreciate that we're looking after them no matter the weather. People bring us cat food. Some offer to help defray vet bill costs. It's really heartening.

The little grey guy is every bit as friendly as my sweet peach and white friend, above right. This is the one I would take home in a heartbeat were I not contractually obligated to only have two cats (on pain of losing my place to live.) He's looking for a sofa of his own, too. But here. The star of our friendly cat show is Rocky. This guy walks up to everyone who stops, shakes hands and says, "Welcome! Skritch my chin!"

If you obey his commands and rub his chin, he'll drool all over you in reward. Yes. We're actively looking for a home for him, too. He needs a human to boss around, don't you think?

Maradaine On My Mind

The question put forward this week at SFFSeven is the open-ended "What's on your mind?" (i.e., there's no real topic this week), and frankly any given week, the big thing on my mind is Maradaine.  Because, frankly, you can't write four intertwining series set in the same magical city without it occupying a fairly sizable portion of your brainspace.How that's manifesting right now is two-fold.  One is drafting The Shield of the People, which I will confess I was having some challenges with, but-- thanks to the other part of the manifestation (see below)-- I've figured out a large chunk of what my problem was and have hacked through that to see the problems in my initial outline.

It's been good stuff.

The other part has been a massive reorganization and re-examination of the material and notes.  I talk about spreadsheets upon spreadsheets, and that's key, but a good part of what I need to do is have a Saga Bible for the whole Maradaine project.  And every year or so I need to just plain STOP and clean it up, maintain it, and get it up to date.  Especially when little changes to the larger picture have created a butterfly effect.  For example, I don't have accurate summaries of THE IMPOSTERS OF AVENTIL or A PARLIAMENT OF BODIES-- I have summaries of the outline as they existed before writing the actual books. 

SPOILERS

So I'm rebuilding a lot of the material in the Saga Bible from the bottom up right now.  Which is something of an undertaking, but a valuable one, because it helps keep the material fresh in my mind, and helps me see the bigger picture.  Which I needed to get through the wall I was having with SHIELD OF THE PEOPLE, as well as getting me in the needed headspace for writing THE FENMERE JOB and PEOPLE OF THE CITY.  

So that's how I'm keeping my head on now.  Hope I can keep it there.

Help Viv name her fancypants new Facebook group. Win prize!

My blog-mates have posted about really thought-provoking things this week, haven’t they? Impressive. And on this fine Wednesday, I invite you to go back and read all their wise and insightful thoughtings.

Am afraid, however, this post will be the inverse of wise.

Which, of course, is panicky.

See, my poor brain is jammed completely full of info concerning the EU GDPR (European Union General Data Protection Regulation), which is a new set of laws designed to protect people’s privacy on the internet. Yay, privacy! Yay, Internet! Boo, VivBrain.

This regulation goes live May 25th, by which date everyone who has collected any user data via the web must be compliant. User data includes, among other things, lists of emails like folks use for newsletters. To become compliant, distributors of newsletters have to … okay, you really don’t want to hear all this. I promise. It's overwhelming. But it’s the reason why you’ve been getting all those “hey, if you still want to receive this newsletter, could you click the doodad below?” notes in your inbox. Look for such notes to become more frequent as we near May 25. (And be sure to click on the ones you do in fact want to continue getting!)

Like most writers, I have a newsletter, but frankly, it’s a big ol’ mess, and the task of bringing it into compliance has boggled my brain and made me grumpy. For the time being, I've taken down the subscribe forms, sent info to the folks who are already subscribed, and have put my newsletter on hiatus until I am absolutely certain no one will get an unwanted email from me.

So.

In the mean time, if you’re interested in hearing about my upcoming book releases or discounts/sales of books that are already out, you can

- Follow me on BookBub

- Follow me on Amazon

- Join my brand new, fancypants Facebook group

About that last part... It’s brand(ish). It’s new (true). It’s fancy (only true from a certain point of view). It may be ultimately be named after a cat, but the best part is YOU CAN HELP DECIDE.

Oh yes! This little group is so new it doesn’t even have a name yet.

We’re soliciting ideas for names right now, and in a couple of weeks (May 25th? too on the nose?), I’ll run a poll and we’ll all vote and pick a winner. The person who suggests the winning group name will get… I dunno, something cool. (Do people still like free books? Kittens? Cookies? Bespoke flash fiction?) 

At any rate, here’s the group link again: 

Viv Likes Kissing Stories and Cat Videos (Official Name in the Works)

Join if you want. Don’t if you don’t. Not gonna judge either way.

Regardless, I promise to clear the grumpy outta my brain and get back to putting good-hearted characters into mortal danger.

On My Mind: The Political Price of Convenience

Riding heavy in my thoughts today: the political price of convenience.

It's on my mind because we're voting today in Ohio for gubernatorial primaries, a half-assed gerrymandering fix, and a tax increase to save our county's libraries. One of those votes is a no-brainer. One is a case of three-card monte that is likely to pass so politicians on both sides can say, "be grateful you got this much." Never mind that we voted--overwhelmingly (71% For)--to fix gerrymandering three years ago with an effective date of 2021 (after the next census, which is the normal timing for redistricting and one of a thousand reasons an accurate non-partisan census is critical...and why certain political entities are actively trying to skew the 2020 census through under-resourcing, lax oversight, and biased questions).

The primaries are, well, a reflection of which puppets rise to power when the public doesn't pay attention and doesn't act. It'll be interesting to see the voter-turnout numbers come morning. November isn't that far away, and it will be a make-or-break election for equality and justice on local, state, and national levels. Yet in non-presidential election years, voter turnout is notoriously low. Zealots tend to show up, the mainstream doesn't. That's how a nation wakes up one morning to find their status as a person has been reclassified as a target or as a vessel.

Why don't most US citizens 18+ show up to vote? Because it's not convenient. Time off work, queues, parking, identification on hand, etc. It really is the little things that keep most voters away. Sure, there are the bigger issues of voter suppression, bullying/threats at the polling sites, etc., and I'm not dismissing those as very real problems in far too many communities. That said, if you ask rando on the street why they didn't vote, "too busy" is the most common answer.  A pity really.

Yes, there are those who think "my vote won't matter, it's just one vote and I've more important things to do." Things like taking care of family, meeting up with friends, going to the grocery, going to social services, waiting in the ER...Yet if voting was as convenient as taking a Facebook quiz many more citizens and communities would have their voices heard.

Let's face it, Congress really screwed the pooch when they fucked off enough that their constituents started paying attention. Making the common voter care for longer than 24 hours on an election day is the worst thing a politician can do, regardless of party. Constituents with informed opinions are inconvenient and dangerous to the longevity of a political career; particularly when that career is built on corporate interests overriding community interests. Informed constituents who have minimal barriers to voting would be revolutionaries.

The technology is there to support palm-of-your-hand convenience. Can voting be convenient and secure? Of course. The power is in the local and federal governments' hands, they just have to want to do it badly enough that they're willing to pay for it...financially and politically.

Making voting convenient, and you make politicians accountable.

Genrefication

The subject this week is whatever is on our minds, so here we are.

genres annoy me.

I think they are useful in small doses and deeply annoying when pushed too far. Listen, my website is called genrefied because damned near everything IS genrefied.

What do you write, Jim?

Well, I write horror. Except when I'm writing crime-horror fusion, which is, of course when I'm not writing a media tie-in that is likely to be horror and science fiction mixed well. Oh, but I also write fantasy, except when I'm writing sword and sorcery fantasy, which is when I'm not writing Grimdark fantasy.
Only now and then I like to do something new, so I'm working on apocalyptic sci-fi novel, which should not be confused with my hard sci-fi novel, and definitely has no tis to my weird western.

I know it SOUNDS like Im kidding, but I'm not.

Thing is, I'm not a one trick pony. I like having a lot of different genres mixed and blended into whatever I'm working on. I recommend writing whatever you like and letting agents and editors work out where it best fits.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to finish the outlines for the fantasy thing, while writing the actual first four or so chapters of the sci-fi thing.


Keep smiling

Jim

No Thank-You

I've been thinking about our customs around saying "thank-you" to people. Since our topic at the SFF Seven this week is whatever is on our minds, I'm going for this!

Way back in January 2013 I did a post on why I hate thank-you notes, and I tell you - I *still* get people finding my blog by Googling that topic, and sending me messages. So, this is something I've been mulling for a long time.

I've gotten a new perspective on the topic lately as I've been reading Seanan McGuire's October Daye urban fantasy series. The stories are set in a contemporary world where Faerie exists and interfaces with the human one. It's interesting to me that one of her world rules is that the fae are exceedingly careful about saying "thank you" as it implies a contract and obligation.

It makes me feel pretty fancy because in my first fantasy romance series, A Covenant of Thorns, which is about a modern day scientist who ends up in Faerie, uses this same element. I wasn't nearly as deliberate about it as McGuire is, but I had that in the back of my mind. I hadn't thought of it the way she uses it, that a thank-you seals a magical pact, but it explains a lot of my intuitive dislike of the expression.

AND, it explains why I really dislike the use of "thank-you in advance." How much more of an obligation does THAT create?

All very interesting. Plus a fun excuse to revisit this trilogy that doesn't get that much attention from me anymore. :-)