grout grout grout. The title thing

[ritaxis]

Over in rasfc I asked whether I should call the book Interface or Araceli's Wish. Basically, neither title went over very well. Though I have to say that I am not going to be convinced that Araceli is too exotic a name. The other problem, that it conveys froofy girl high fantasy, is more serious: I don't think that the froofy girl high fantasy reader is going to like it. And people thought that Interface was just not as creepy sounding as I thought it was. But Chris Dollin said I might call it Conduit and I think he could be right.

A number of people thought Gratitude sounded good, but I have a serious problem with that: the book doesn't, after all, turn out to be very much about gratitude. Though I don't know what it is about. Friendship, maybe?

Spent the day applying for two jobs, buffing the grout, and mostly making a Blue Power Ranger costume for Frank. Yes. He's 25 and he wants to be the Blue Power Ranger for Halloween -- it's monochromatic! It's silly!

I'm not going to go to Nevada this weekend, after all. It's too big a journey for me, and I have too much elkse to do, and nobody else seems to be going for just one day (which is what I could do). Instead, I'm going to try to arrange a call-out-the-vote party.

I have not written today, but I have thought about the Christmas in Watsonville chapter, and also all about Tia Citlali, who speaks Mixtec, it turns out, and therefore, so does our guy, when he talks to her: which raises her suspicions: "Where did you learn to speak Mixtec?" "Here." This happened before, in Chinatown, and made the shopkeepers grumpy.

Comments

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Grout grief!

As for the title, submit it, and see if your editor has any ideas.

[brooksmoses]

I actually rather liked Araceli's Wish as a title, though the fact that I also tend to like much of the "froofy girl high fantasy" genre probably means that may not be as meaningful as it could be.

[julesjones]

I didn't actually comment on rasfc, since I've been in headless chicken mode for the last week, but I'm with Brooks - I like the way Araceli's Wish "sounds", but it's going to give the wrong impression of which sub-genre it belongs to.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I guess Interface: Araceli's Wish does not work very well.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Interface: Araceli's Wish is frightening

Currently, I still keep it in a directory labelled "gratitude" but I'm thinking to call it The Conduit -- I just added "the." Some of this other stuff goes as section heads:

Pie? (the question mark is part of the heading)-- this is when our guy introduces himself, and up to the chapter where the Boss finds him.
Interface -- from the Boss to the superstitious wino
Rain -- from leaving that to the chapter I'm on now, where our guy spends the week after Christmas with Araceli's family
Araceli's Wish -- from the next chapter to the last-but-one
something else, mumble mumble, comes between the wrapup of the last confrontation and the last chapter, which is our guy watching Araceli and Candelario's kid and -- well, this thing happens. I'm tinkering with it. I don't know, maybe this is Gratitude. Which would make the book about gratitude after all, but I don't think that's it.

For one thing, that would mean that the book had suddenly turned into Treasures on Earth which I love -- in fact, everybody go read it now; it's out of print but you can find it, it's by Carter Wilson. But I don't think I'm writing that book, and for one word at the end to veer off toward that book would be, I don't know, awkward.