Coming Up With An Appropriate Title
Thought up: 9.30.03 – 6:32pm
Written: 10.1.03 - 4:36 pm
#21

Last night I must have sat in my work chair for 3 hours, mostly just chatting with friends and replying to emails and whatnot, but I had allotted this time as “come up with book title” time. No go. I got too distracted with everything that was going on. After about the first 45 or 50 seconds of deep thought, I went to my good pal Laura for some advice. I figured that she had read a few of my stories, and might be able to come up with something of bearing on the subject. Mostly we just chatted about why we were at work so late, and the wedding she was going to be attending. I didn’t think that anyone would read a comedy book about a wedding or staying at work late. Then people would probably again get confused with the annotation of “workplace” and “marriages,” and then perhaps they’d think it was marriage to a job, and from there, how to be single and have no friends because you’re married to your job. That’s not particularly the group of people I’m shooting to attract, albeit, people are people.

I called up my friend Toivola and asked him if he had any good ideas, and he told me that I’d need to re-read all of the works and find out how they all mesh together. From there, I could come up with a solid basis for what all of my stories had in common. I thought to myself,

“Wow! Brilliant idea! All authors should do that!”

As if I’d make a mushy romance novel and call it: How to stalk Tony the Tiger and other famous animal celebrities advertising food. Creative, yes, but I don’t know if it’s hitting your target audience. I got to thinking though, and what I decided was my target audience? I guess a target audience can’t be aimed at until you find the kind of people looking to read what you’re writing about. So that left me at a dead end, but it DID prove that there are a lot of people in this world to spout to.
I got to thinking again, which isn’t altogether that bad of an idea, and realized that it didn’t matter how I titled my work, but I figure I could grab the attention of a lot of different people judging on what I call the book. For instance:

Bluer skies on the other side of Mars. – Has a good ring to it. I’m sure that a lot of scientists would be very interested in such a book for about the first 10 seconds of it. Or perhaps a “Men are from Mars” bit on it would come. Not the audience I’m looking to hit, nor the scope.
How to get through 3 weeks in India without changing your underwear. – Likely to get a good group from the hippy generation interested, but above and beyond that? Plop.
The benefits of cheese on athlete’s foot. – Once again, doctors and scientists would be very amused, but I think it’d hardly be worth the waste of perfectly good athlete’s foot.
Illiteracy, how to tease someone that can’t read this. – Would get in good with a lot of people in poor regions of the world, that couldn’t buy the book anyway. Humph, scratch that.
All of the top-secret US Government documents – See you in jail?
Performing your own brain surgery in 3 easy steps. – Explains a lot.

These all were valiant efforts I put forth in “meshing” together my ideas. But in all actuality, my work is about randomness and stream of consciousness, and butter. So what better name than: Riding a Butter Tub Down the Stream of Consciousness.

Ud: “Now Ud, you’ve thought of some crafty things in your day, but boy, you’ve really impressed yourself here!”
Ud: “Who are you talking to?”
Ud: “Self, shut up, you’re embarrassing us…”