What's in a Name?

I'm not very good at titles. I think it is easier to write a book rather than think of a title. I'm sure it's some sort of literary law of diminishing words and exponentially increasing level of difficulty. It fits. It's as hard to write a picture book as it is to write a novel (and a lot fewer words in a picture book) so by extension it's impossible to write a title (hardly any words in there).


Mexica Runner, which I named over a year ago when I finished it, has had a name change. The word Mexica caused confusion with Mexico. I couldn't bring myself to change it to Mexico (so unright) or Aztec. The latter might seem the obvious solution but Aztec was a word historians (reasonably recently) invented to describe the Mexica peoples. And as I have gone to great lengths to keep my novels as historically accurate as possible, it didn't seem right to throw all that away on the front cover. I brainstormed a list of possibles and the now the votes are. The new title is Jaguar Warrior. I like it. I like it a lot. I can't wait to see the cover. I am imagining a golden-eyed jaguar.


I am currently working on Samurai Kids Book 5 and I had a tentative title surprisingly early in the process: Lizard Breath. I gave it a trial whirl on Facebook. Not good. It sounds like a playground insult, Christine Bongers told me. Now Christine is a wizard with words (her debut novel Dust is proof enough for me) so I listened and I took my title for a walk in the park. Not good again. Everyone agreed with Christine. Tentative next new title: Fire Lizard. What do you think?