Out of the six books I have written so far only three have had titles that were perfect from the start. The Garden of Empress Cassia could not have been called anything else. The same goes for A Ghost in My Suitcase and The Lion Drummer. But the title, The Pearl of Tiger Bay was such a struggle. A few working titles for that book were Dragongreen, and Annie and the Secret of the Toes. The Hidden Monastery’s working title was Whispers From the Edge of the World. I still love the sound and the feel of that one but for some reason decided against it. I think it had to do with the length. A lengthy title makes it hard for readers to remember. Who, off the top of their heads, can remember Mark Haddon’s well-known book, The Incident… Excuse me while I check my bookshelf…. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time?

And so I come to my current WIP tentatively called Little Paradise. Apart from the title, this novel presents three new challenges for me.

1. It’s my longest novel so far at about 70,000 words.

2 It’s for young adults, a new genre for me.

3. And it’s historical fiction.

Those challenges are great. Indeed, every book should be a challenge, otherwise how else can one improve. But once again, I’m stumped for a good title. I like ‘Little Paradise‘ but not for this book because the story is a sweeping saga that spans roughly 9 years of a girl’s life – crossing oceans and continents. The word ‘little’ seems to shrink the story. The term ‘Little Paradise’ does have relevance though. It refers to that safe place inside us all, that we can escape to in times of trouble. In my heroine’s case it is her art.

Titles are important. The title and the cover go hand in hand. They both need to reflect the feel or idea of the novel. When I read Tim Winton’s, The Riders, although I enjoyed the novel immensely, I was perplexed as to why he gave it that name.

I have tried random input – opening a book with my eyes closed and pointing to a word or group of words. I have tried reading film titles in the hope that an idea will be sparked. Or going to a bookshop. All in vain.

And so I write this blog and send it to the place where titles are made. Perhaps I will receive an answer tonight by way of a dream from the Land of Venerable Titles.

Being locked away with your novel is a little like being a mother with a newborn baby. In both cases you can feel isolated and exhausted. I have been been writing 8 or 9 hours a day lately in order to keep to my deadline which is set for June.

When my babies were very young, I remember feeling this way a lot, especially at night when I had to drag myself out of a warm bed to feed them. It was easy to imagine that we were the last two creatures on the planet. Of course that’s a silly thought, but when the house is silent except for the occasional creaking wall, and the dark has settled around you, and you are half asleep, the mind can lead you down many an odd path. And the same applies to writing. While I’m tugging at words, rearranging sentences, playing with images in my head, it’s hard to imagine other writers doing the same thing.

So it was a relief, when the other day, a friend emailed me about a particular problem she was having with her story. We emailed back and forth for a while. I posed questions, offered suggestions and hopefully helped her a little. But what it did for me was invigorating.

Someone else was going through the same frustration and joy, turmoil, angst and self doubt that I was. I was not alone.

I buried our last remaining guinea pig, Ratty in our garden this morning. We bought him from the RSPCA six years ago. When we arrived at the centre there were two little, very scared guinea pigs huddled together in a corner of an enclosure. One was black and white, the other dark brown. How could we take one and not the other? We called them Ratty and Deak. Ratty was quite an acrobat and would do 180 degree jumps in the air. He reminded me of a rat. Deak was heavier, slower, with a big head and reminded me of a bison.

Altogether we have owned four guinea pigs. Bebe and Millie lived to be about 8 years old. Deak died last year. He was about 5. So they have all lived long and happy lives.

I love these little creatures for their gentle nature, and the amazing noises they make. Ratty would purr deliciously when you stroked him. And when I came outside with their vegetables, they would squeak.

I must say I have really enjoyed my time with our guinea pigs, but Ratty will be our last.

Yi lu ping an, Ratty…

Yesterday we had our monthly writers’ circle. We always start off with a 20 minute writing exercise, just to get us in the mood. Then we move onto either workshopping each other’s stories or discussing things like contracts or agents or whatever a member happens to bring up. And of course we couldn’t survive without tea and muffins.

I wanted to have a crucial chapter in my YA novel workshopped- a turning point when my character realises she can’t rely on anybody but herself. I used what I had written in the writing exercise and inserted it into the chapter before I read it out aloud. Usually I don’t come up with anything of value, but somehow that particular exercise was just right and made the chapter a whole lot stronger.

I wanted to know how the chapter should end, and after the reading, the problem was solved very simply by the group in one paragraph. What might have taken me a day to figure out, took only a few minutes.

It is hard to stand back from your work. Sometimes you need to turn the binoculars around and look through the other end, to take a step back and see everything from a distance. A writing circle can do this.

Our meeting lasts for about 2 hours and by the end of it, we are all mentally exhausted. We’ve entered the world of imagination, crossed oceans, landed in strange places, met weird and wonderful people. I can’t wait for the circle to come around again.