In terms of insecurities, I'm not doing too badly this month. In fact I'm nearing the end of final edits on book 2 of my trilogy, which should be a fairly jubilant time (notwithstanding the start of the nailbiting countdown to publication). In fact, one of my last tasks is very closely related to this month's IWSG question, which is:
"What's harder for you to come up with, book titles or character names?"
So at that moment I'm christening the last few characters who still remain nameless. They're very well defined apart from that, I have a clear sense of who these people are, I just haven't worked out what to call them yet. This has meant CPs grappling with interplay between the likes of (?), (??) and (???) - luckily they have the patience of saints and have somehow managed to keep track of them!
And of course, the book also needs a title. Out of the two, this is the one I definitely struggle with the most. I have to come up with far many more character names than book titles, so if I found them equally as challenging then I'd be in trouble. Writing speculative stuff, I do enjoy coming up with unique, out-of-the-ordinary names that tell you something about that character - I'm very much inspired by the likes of Tolkien and Pratchett in that regard. Sometimes they seem obvious, other times (or most of the time) they take a long time in coming.
But coming up with a snappy title that sums up an entire book in a couple of words? It's one of the most insidious tasks an author has to face. Having said that, I'm very clear on the title for the final book in the series - I'm sure I came up with a title for this one too, I just have to find where it's written down. But then I might want to change it completely.
How would you answer this question? Did you participate in IWSG today? Find other insecure scribes here.
Also, there's plenty of other exciting stuff going on in the IWSG camp. We have the next anthology contest opening on September 5th, which is also when the theme will be announced. The genre this year is YA Romance.
And it's the return of the ever-growing phenomenon that is the IWSG Twitter Pitch party on July 19th. This event is set to be bigger than ever with hundreds of agents and publishers signed up to check out your pitches. Get polishing them and check out all the rules at the IWSG site.
Finally, next month IWSG will be held a day early - Tuesday July 3rd - instead of the usual Wednesday. It seems some folk might be having a bit of the party the following day.
That's it - excited about what's in store for the IWSG?
