Thursday, September 19, 2013

Entitled

Blog time has come around once more and Alyson is getting things started with this question:

How do you come up with titles for your work? Does it just come to you or do you spend hours stressing about it? Do you use silly working titles? What have you read recently with a great title? An awful title?

Okay, so I just recently read THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN by Holly Black and OMG do I LOVE that title. And then with paired with that cover = swoon. The book inside is also pretty amazing and that, I believe, is what they call a triple threat.

Other titles I love: THIS SONG WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE by Leila Sales (Haven't read it but have heard lots of amazing things), NOT A DROP TO DRINK by Mindy McGinnis (This book comes out next Tuesday, but I urge you to find the pre-order button now on your favorite book-buying website or bribe your local friendly indie bookstore owner to illegally sell you a copy early. Yes, it's that good.), and SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU by Peter Cameron (I also have not read this book yet, but I plan to because this title is just so so so good.)

So those are titles I love. And then there are titles that I really like but for some reason my brain refuses to remember them. For example WHEN YOU REACH ME by Rebecca Stead. I couldn't remember the title while writing this post, so I typed LIAR & SPY (the title of her  most recent novel) into the search box to find it. I don't know why my brain refuses to remember WHEN YOU REACH ME, the title is beautiful AND ties into the book in a way that took my breath away. Or maybe in a way that rotted my brain away and that's why I can't remember it. EVER. Seriously, it is embarrassing to be in the midst of recommending this amazing book that references A WRINKLE IN TIME and is just awesome in so many ways and then someone asks me what it's called and I'm like, "...umm...err...umm..." 

And that brings us to titles for my own books. If it is embarrassing to forget the title of someone else's book, then it would be even worse to forget the title of my own book. This is why I try to make my titles memorable. So far I have found that the best way to get a good title is to steal one from a song. This way someone else has already tested the title out to make sure it works well and also it is set to music which means that if I can't remember the words of my title, I can at least hum it. 

ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE was taken from the song "Piece of My Heart" made popular by Janis Joplin. 

My next book, coming out next year, is (DON'T YOU) FORGET ABOUT ME. If this song doesn't make you immediately think of the image below then I highly recommend you get your hands on a copy of THE BREAKFAST CLUB and watch it ASAP.


I could just watch that GIF all day. *Sigh*

Oh, I guess I should mention that the book has nothing to do with the breakfast club, it does however have to do with forgetting. And also I have been told that I look a bit like Molly Ringwald, so if you're sad about missing out on a Breakfast Club connection, that's something... right?

And that's enough from me, I think. So, while I drool over a GIF, I hope that you spend your time in better ways - for example you can keep following this blog chain! Sandra is next in line so head there first!