Ramblings: anxiety dream edition

So, I've entered #Pitchwars. It's fun to hang out on the hashtag and watch the mentors tease people. Someone did a quick calculation and the odds of getting into #Pitchwars are less than the percentage of applicants Harvard accepted this year. So I already kind of know my odds of getting in, but that's not the point of entering.

I've been a bit of a recluse in the world of twitter and facebook (I'm having a hard time with the insanity of our news cycle these days), so I needed to get back into the swing of things. Besides, there's nothing to lose and everything to gain (and unlike previous years, I would actually have time if I am lucky enough to be picked!).

I'm trying to paint a picture of how chill I am about this particular shot in the dark. So chill. Like I'm handling this like a boss.

And then the anxiety dreams start popping up with their snakes and their slugs--


--wait, slugs?

Rena, when did slugs become part of anxiety dreams?

Yeah, I have no idea, but I had a very vivid dream of having to walk with my *pet* slug across an open field in a torrential downpour to make it to my car (and presumably the terrarium where I keep said slug).

Now, for those of you who don't know, I have a strict rule set for pets: we either have predators, or prey. We don't have hamsters and cats. We have cats. We don't keep rats, birds, gerbils, chinchillas, or anything that a cat would misconstrue as dinner. It's hard to explain death to a kid. It's much harder to explain Prized Mouse eaten by Favorite Cat. Trust me, that way lies madness.

All this to say, I don't keep slugs. Never. Not once in my whole life have I even entertained keeping slugs as pets. The closest I've ever been to slug wrangling was when I was working in the Nevada desert. We'd sometimes pick up horny toads and pet them (in our defense, it was hot and we were dehydrated).

Right, so I have this fancy slug, about an inch and a half, and it's super slimy and it's raining. And I was worried about my poor little fancy slug every step of the way (two football fields), as the sky gushed water on me.

I'm not sure where my brain was going with that one (is the slug a metaphor for my manuscript? Great, I have a fancy, slime filled manuscript and even my brain knows it), but I'm apparently not as chill about #PitchWars as I want to be. Also, slugs. Really brain? Really?

What are your anxiety dreams like? Typically, mine are snakes and nuclear detonation, but apparently, I have a subset for slugs.

Origami Riot, or I suck at titles

Last night I had a dream about origami. I know, it’s not the normal sort of dream, but in my dream, all the folded cranes and coy and samurai hats were full sized and battling each other. It was an origami riot.

And I was struck by how great of a title that would be. Yeah, I know, I’m really tired and sitting in the tire shop, just go with it.

The real question that got me going is why?

I mean, I suck at titles. I’m really good at the straight forward titles, but the really good titles… yeah, nothing. Origami Riot is a great title for what was happening because those two words paint the whole picture. You can see what that story is about.

But how do you describe an 80,000 word book in a title?

I guess the best advice is to capture a sense of the book in the title. Is it funny? Then the title should have humor. Is it filled with horror? Then the title should be dark. Outrageous book? Outrageous Title.

Ah, but a word of caution: Titles shouldn’t sound like a gimmick. Just imagine what that says about your story. If the title is a gimmick, then is the whole book a gimmick? So yeah gimmicks should be avoided.

This is something I’m terrible at, so let me know: are titles easy peasy for you, or do you sweat over them? What’s your trick?