Writer's Block

Titles

Titles are tricky. I have proved this, if it needed to be proven, by my failure to think of a title for  Plan B. Although maybe, by a strange piece of serendipity, that has now become the title to use. I am not alone. Thomas Hardy lovers among you will have enjoyed Daughter of the D'Urbervilles. 'Whassat?' you ask. Check out Hardy's original manuscript in the British Library. He crosses out Daughter and as an afterthought writes Tess. Good thinking I reckon, as Daughter of the D'Urbervilles hardly trips off the tongue and could well have lost him a few readers.

I came across a remarkable piece of lateral thinking last week. "The exclamation mark looks like an anchovy and, like the anchovy, has many uses." I couldn't have put it better myself, in the unlikely event of making the connection in the first place.

I see that Midnight's Children has been voted Best of the Booker. I must get round to reading it, the trouble is it's long and about India. Cracking title though. The Booker winner I have most enjoyed is Possession, I love the cop-out ending.

Dear old Dimdima Magazine published another of my stories this month and asked if I didn't want to send any more, as they hadn't had any recently. I feel really bad about not keeping the connection going, so I'm putting Plan B on hold for a week and writing a story for Dimdima. They are such nice people.