thoughts, words, deeds

the problem with titles

Creation Saturday! This is the title and cover of your next book. What's it about? And what are some of the world-famous authors saying on its back cover? Adventure: Alpaca My Bags

First off, let me just say that I would have had a difficult time with this prompt even if I hadn’t just spent about twelve hours in a car (well—make that eight hours in the car, four hours in the meeting between car rides), because I don’t tend to start with a title. Especially one that’s specifically punny. Titles are something that tend to happen to me after most of the creative process is over and done with, the draft rewritten several times, and then, a title happens. Even then, I tend to revamp the title. In fact, I tend to start out anything (essay or short story in specific) with the working title “The Absolute Worst Title in the World” which holds me until I can come up with something short and pithy.

That having been said, alpacas immediately make me think knitting (and Peru, and that yarn that I knit my first big shawl with (it was dark gray fingering weight, and I don’t know if it actually had alpaca in it or just came from Peru, but I think it did have bamboo—or that may have been a dark green that came before it . . . I’m just not sure) which leads to a short story that I wrote for workshop a couple of years ago. I set it in a knit shop, with the viewpoint character being the owner, who was trying to come up with the next step in an argument she was having with her best friend about why she shouldn’t be able to buy into the shop.

The thing is, I’ve spent a lot of time sitting with my mother at knit shops, listening to the ladies sit around a table and knit (every knit shop worthy of its name has a little table where people sit and knit and offer sage advice when people come in about knitting), and it’s always struck me that there is story there. People who spend a lot of time working with their hands and talking about life and jobs and their husbands’ operations and the fact that their nephew is in ICU—and some of the talk is under the surface, like the lady who used to work at the store who staged a big scene when she quit because she lives a scorched earth policy.

So, this story is about the yarn store, its owner, its employees, its patrons. They all live in a small town, and other things are happening at the same time—weddings, funerals, a granddaughter who has come back home pregnant and angry, the couple down the street who are trying for sustainable living with thirteen chickens, two goats, a garden full of vegetables, and a smallish herd of alpacas, because . . . why not.

And I have no idea what world famous authors are saying about the book. My workshop friends said they were surprised the tension I could get into such a quiet setting but that I needed to expand it into novel length. I tend to get that a lot in workshop. sigh.