At my urging, loyal blog reader, Qwerty Queen, has dared to step up to the podium and ask a question. As you may recall, as part of the A Clash of Innocents blog tour, I offered myself up to you all, daring you to ask me a question that I’d then answer here on my own blog. As further enticement, the name of one of the bold interrogators will be picked out of a hat or violin case or piece of rolling luggage to receive a signed copy of the new book. Queenie is the first and here’s her really very interesting question:
     How do you create/choose titles for your books/poems/plays?
Well my dear, I’m so glad you asked.  When I first started writing seriously, it seemed I couldn’t go through a day without coming up with a title. I usually didn’t know what the title was for, but these phrases would pop in my head and then I’d wonder what to do with them. Maybe it was a sign that my writing brain was well and truly engaged.  So at first, titles were easy. They would just appear like an additional line of a poem or a linked association. But I’m finding it harder and harder these days.  My play, The Bistro Down the Road, which I hope will be produced in 2011, had a different title for the longest time. I spent days writing a long list of titles before I finally settled on the one that stuck. Tangled Roots was easier. I asked myself, what is this book about, and the answer was clear.  But A Clash of Innocents? That was the hardest yet, but the story is an interesting one.  The book has an epigram taken from a line in e e cummings’ novel  Eimi:
     …an everywhere of fields, spattered with animals, pricked with beings
“An everywhere of….” I loved the use of that word, everywhere, and I thought I wanted to use it in the title. I was wedded to the idea for months.  But every time I tried it out on someone, they’d look at me with slanted brows and worried creases around their eyes. Then when I was staying at Anam Cara Retreat, I was sitting at the kitchen table with Sue Booth-Forbes (who owns and runs the place) and talking about the title problem. She convinced me to let go of “everywhere” used as a noun and move on to something else. But the clause’s structure was stuck in my head, and I had already decided that the object of the noun needed to be “Innocents.” But what should it be? We got silly…. a gaggle, a murder, a rubbish bin….I was staring into the distance at the mountains. They were all brown and jagged and rough, one seemingly knocking against the other.  Then suddenly, really without any realization of what I was saying at all, the word “Clash” fell out of my mouth. “A Clash of Innocents” – and that was it.  I remembered Sue looked at me and said, “How does your brain work?” But that’s a question I don’t think I can ever answer.

So, thanks for the chance to talk about titles. It is a mysterious subject, to be sure. And now, anyone else?