What’s in a Name? July 10, 2007
Posted by Jen in : Novel , 15 commentsPrompted by the ridiculously excellent See Jane Write, I have been giving thoughts aplenty to what the title of my novel will be. Yes, I realise that writing the bloomin thing would be much more productive but hey ho. It’s irritating me, having a file name that sounds trite and dull: the working title of Perfect Lives is definitely a bit yawn-inducing. But how to come up with a Devil Wears Prada-esque title?
And, on the matter of names, I accidentally ‘outed’ myself in my last post. Excellent. Mind you, I’d already cocked up by listing my blog somewhere bizarre with my full name. Sodding Google is so clever it can, apparently, put two and two together and come up with a smug way of obliterating all pretence of anonymity. Sigh.
So. Now I’m thinking that ‘Maltby’ doesn’t look too thrilling in print. Perhaps I will use my maiden name for writing. Hmmmmm. ‘Grihault’, I think, might look a bit more interesting on a book cover. But when people see it written down, they can’t say it. And if they can say it, they don’t know how to spell it. Could be a bit of a drawback.
But. If I use my unpronounceable surname and also give the novel an indecipherable title, it will explain why it hasn’t sold in its millions. Nothing to do with the fact that I haven’t written it yet. No, nothing to do with that at all.
Oh dear. Life is a tortuous conundrum, no?
