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Titles. Blog posts need them. Books need them. Movies need them. Short stories need them. Poems need them. And I suck at them. The only one of those I don’t write is poems. So I have to come up with titles for a lot of different projects. Frankly I’m glad that once I publish my editor will most likely change my title. I don’t get married to my titles because I know they’ll most likely change. If they don’t just come to me in a flash of inspiration I have a hard time coming up with a title. The inspired ones though, I’ll fight to keep. As an example, here are the titles of my complete, still unpublished books.

Highland Deception
Double Deception
Lorelle’s Song (ugh, that one’s really horrible)
Silk Secrets

Highland Deception takes place in the Highlands of course and the hero thinks the heroine has deceived him. In Double Deception my heroine is a twin. For Lorelle’s Song I had no clue what to call it. The heroine’s name is Lorelle and the hero writes her a song to show how much he loves her. The heroine in Silk Secrets owns a lingerie store called Silk Secrets.

Titles are important. In an article in the Huffington Post about what motivates readers to buy books titles are on the list. A good, catchy title means a lot. For me that’s the first thing that usually attracts me. If the title sounds intriguing I’ll pick up the book and read the back cover copy. Then I read the first page. If everything sounds good I’ll buy it.

I was looking at the Chapters list of NYT bestsellers and I gotta say, based on the titles alone I wouldn’t have picked up a lot of those books to even get to the back cover copy. For example: Charlie St. Cloud: A Novel. It’s just not speaking to me. The Passage. Also didn’t speak to me but it was a recommended read by Stephen King in his Entertainment Weekly article so I read the blurb. It sounds like an awesome book. I will be buying it. Maybe even before it comes out in paperback. Swimsuit. I love James Patterson but that title doesn’t grab me either. Not like his older ones – Kiss the Girls, Cat & Mouse, Cradle and All.

Of course if you’re a well known author readers will buy every book you write. I would buy Dean Koontz’s grocery lists if he ever decided to put them into book form. Other authors have to grab me first. And they do that with the title. Publishers know this. That’s why they usually end up changing the title the author originally thought up. Sometimes titles just don’t grab me though so I’ll have to buy those books based on recommendations from other people.

I’m off to work. Maybe on my way I’ll come up with a title for the first book in my urban fantasy series. I love the idea, love the character. Can’t come up with a title for it to save my life.

Until next time…

Cindy

Cheesy movies

There are a lot of them out there. I love a good cheesy movie once in a while. The chessier the better. Now usually I watch cheesy horror movies. Those are my favourites. But this weekend the boyfriend and I watched some cheesy science fiction. And man were they cheesy.

First up was Zardoz. I watched the whole movie and I’m still not sure what it was about. I’d like to know what kind of acid the writers were on when they wrote that movie. The first thing I thought of when I saw the giant flying head and booming voice was The Wizard of Oz. At least I “got” that part of the movie. I have to say it wasn’t Sean Connery at his best. He looked horrible with long hair too. It made him look much older. Okay, so I got that Connery’s character, Zed was a savage trained to kill. I get that the immortals were bored and just wanted death now. It could have been done in a much better way that didn’t make me feel like I was on an acid trip.

Next up was Barbarella. Okay, very cheesy but at least I could follow the story. An evil scientist has disappeared and Barbarella is tasked with finding him and bringing him back. Of course along the way she has sex with just about anyone. Barbarella is a highly sexual astronaut. During her mission she encounters a number of colourful, odd people. Her good heart and innocent nature save her in the end. I have to say, Jane Fonda was seriously HOT back then. I know it’s listed among The 100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made in a book by Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson. But this is a must see movie.

I’ve watched a number of movies from the late 60′s lately and they all have a huge focus on sex. Looks like things don’t change a whole lot over time.

Well, off to work. Lots of catching up to do because of last week’s teeth problems.

Until next time…

Cindy

It’s the tooth

Today’s post is really late because of my teeth. Since last Wednesday I’ve been having problems with them. Well, it all started almost two weeks ago when one of my teeth cracked. Had that filled then the day after the pain began. Excruciating pain that no over the counter pain meds put a dent in. I’ve seen a doctor and a dentist and now have pain meds that work and antibiotics for the infection.

This all made me think about teeth and toothache superstitions. I knew they had to be out there. There’s a superstition for everything. The teeth did not disappoint. There are too many to list here but some of them include a clean tooth never decays. Chewing hard food strengthens and hardens the enamel. I wish. You can use chewed tobacco as a poultice for a toothache. Yuck. Glad that one’s a superstition. Good teeth are a sign of sexual weakness but bad teeth mean the opposite. Who thought up that one?

How about the ways to prevent a toothache? Wear a spider enclosed in a nutshell round you neck. Shudder. Would never do that one even if it was true. Lots of people wear amulets and talismans to prevent toothaches. If anything besides good oral hygiene worked someone would be getting rich and everyone would know about it. Sometimes toothaches happen. I brush at least twice a day, floss, and use a fluoride rinse. The toothache still happened. At least it’s feeling almost normal again.

I’m off to take more meds and then write before bed.

Until next time…

Cindy

Plot or character?

What came first? This is the chicken and the egg question for writers. Even though I’m 85% pantser the plot comes to me first. I’ll get an idea for a story and it’s always the plot that plays out in my head. Then I have to come up with characters to populate my story. I’m an action/plot reader. I love lots of action and plot driven stories. Not so much for character driven stories. Yes, I know character drives the plot, but that’s the point. There has to be a plot. There has to be something going on. They have to be doing something. I’ve read books where nothing actually happens. The plot is so thin my two and a half year old niece could blow it away. I keep asking myself when is something going to happen. I like involved, complicated plots. That’s probably why I love spy stories and suspense/thrillers.

Even for my new urban fantasy series the first story came to me first. After I knew the bones about the story the character sprang fully formed complete with angsty backstory. But I had the idea first. I just needed the right character to fill it.

I’m thinking about all of my story ideas. All those half finished, only a proposal, just one chapter stories I have and none of them are character driven. They all have meaty plots that I’ll get to one of these days. Even my historicals had spies and traitors in the mix. My characters had to be searching for something while all the romance stuff was going on. Actually the spying and traitors in the mix helped build the romance.

Maybe that’s why I don’t name my characters right away. Or feel the need to name them right away. The plot comes first for me. So when I first start writing I put in generic names until I really get to know the characters. Then I go back and give them real names.

So what comes first for you? Plot or character?

Until next time…

Cindy

Much needed long weekend

Today’s post is really late because I had a much needed relaxing long weekend. Today was a holiday in Ontario. So Saturday morning the boyfriend and I headed to my friend’s place. She runs a kennel in the country. Without traffic it would have been a two hour drive. For some reason there was a lot of traffic on the highway so it took over three hours to get there. The drive was worth it though.

We got there and unpacked the car. It’s amazing how much stuff we brought for one night. The dogs started barking as soon as we pulled up and it felt like they didn’t stop until Sunday morning. After putting out stuff in the pool house (our home away from home for the weekend) we settled in by the pool. Margaritas and a Mexican feast helped with the relaxation. We even made smores down by the fire later on that night.

I loved relaxing in the hot tub Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. I went in the pool but didn’t really swim. I just kind of lounged and chatted. It was Heaven! The only thing I didn’t like about the weekend was the pain in my teeth. I must go back to the dentist because the pain is horrible. It kept me up Saturday night and Sunday night.

Today, the BF and I moved the bedroom to the basement and the TV to the living room. It was a lot of work. I felt like collapsing a number of times. Took the pain in the teeth away for a bit though. I guess the focus on something else took my mind off it enough that it stopped hurting. The TV is actually all plugged in now and working great. I can’t wait to sleep in the new bedroom. There’s still lots to do. We have to move the rest of the bedroom stuff to the basement. Right now we just have the bed down there.

Now that all that’s done I guess I should start working on my office. That really needs to be done.

I’m off to bed soon. After all the exertion today I hope I sleep really well tonight.

Until next time…

Cindy

Gremlins

No not the movie with those cute furry little creatures that turned to destructive terrors if they ate after midnight. I’m talking about gremlins in the machine. There are days when it seems like everything electrical is on the fritz. Gremlins are surely responsible. The noise my computer makes at work can only be the work of gremlins. Computers aren’t usually that loud.

According to my huge book of superstitions gremlins are devilish imps (Wikipedia puts them in the fairy class) who bombard pilots with pranks – fog the windows, clog oil and fuel lines, tamper with controls among other things. Before the days of airplanes the great-great-grandparents of the 20th Century gremlins bugged everyone. Artists have painted evil spirits similar to gremlins. Anything bad and unexplainable was attributed to these little creatures. They didn’t have the name gremlin back then though. According to Wikipedia the name originated in RAF aviators’ slang. The earliest printed use of the word was in a poem published in 1929. They were somewhat of an air force phenomena until Roald Dahl authored a novel called The Gremlins. He did of course have experience with the little creatures, having served military service in the 80th squadron of the Royal Air Force. The story was published by Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1942 and then as a picture book .

Roald Dahl may have made gremlins known to the rest of the world but pilots knew about them all along. Pilots swear they’ve seen the creatures tampering with their equipment. One crewman said he saw one just before his B-25 Mitchell bomber lost altitude, forcing him to return to base. Other eye witness accounts speak of the creatures as well. But do they really exist or are they figments of a tired brain, stress and dizzying heights?

I’m off to work. If you really, really, really want to know more about gremlins click on the Wikipedia link above to read the article. Gremlins have appeared in a lot of movies and TV shows. See if you remember any of them.

Until next time…

Cindy