Curiouser and Curiouser

Who knew how much work would go into starting a business? Probably a lot of you readers, but for someone who’s about as commercial as a CD of bassoon hits of the 1620s, I can tell you that I wasn’t prepared for any of this. Is there a pity button you can push for me now? No? Pity.

As if yesterday wasn’t enough of a rude awakening for me, today I figured that I would just check off one little item on my to-do list: pick a name for my publishing company. That would be easy. That would be fun! Has anyone had to pick a name for their company out there? Did it just roll of your tongue, and ever since, you’ve never, ever regretted your decision as you’ve become exponentially more successful year after year after year? If so, can I just come and work at your company? Because none of this is coming naturally for me. None of it.

Yesterday, I’m an accidental blogger. Today, I’ve got to be a marketing genius. I haven’t looked at my calendar, but tomorrow, I think I’m down for hostile corporate takeover. But I refuse to allow this process to run me. I choose not to be intimidated. I choose to be effective.

So with this affirmation in mind, I started putting down words that I thought might help communicate the brand that I need to build for myself. ‘Neat.’ ‘Jazzy.’ ‘Rockin’.’ Of course, I’m kidding here, but if I shared the real words I brainstormed, you might press the ‘destroy’ button. There’s got to be a destroy button on this site because lord knows, I’ve already wanted to punch it more than once. I can’t be alone.

Okay. You asked for it… the real buzz words:

smart

insight

sharp

incisive

wits

crackerjack

speed

apt

bright

knack

ardent

Forerunner

Anomaly

Aspire

Enterprise

Vault

Resolute

Refreshing

Luminous

Muse

Compel

entertaining

different

challenging

human

character-driven

sarabande

Jubilee

Snapdragon

Trump

Allegro

Inspirit

Sarabande? Sarabande??!! This is proof positive that the devil invented the internet: so we would go on Thesaurus.com and word-cloud our way to Sarabande Publishing, Inc.  Armageddon would be a relief. And what in god’s name is a sarabande, anyway? It’s sounds vaguely gypsy to me, which would would be a downright lie. I could never run my company out of a wagon. Or maybe I could put a couple of them together: The Crackerjack Sarabande Press. Then all I would have to do would be to sit back and count my money as it rolled in.

This wasn’t working, so I decided to just make up some names:

Field Day Press — people would want to read my stuff because it was so much darn fun!

Newcraft Press — my work is new, and it’s a craft.

Newheart Press — my work is new, and it has real heart.

And then things went off the rail:

Earnest Keene Press — what if I made up a person’s name that also doubled for how I feel about writing?

Earnest & Keene Press — or I made it sound like there was more than one person working at my company?!! That’s pretty clever, huh, Mr. Earnest? It sure is, Ms. Keene.

But I couldn’t do this all day, so I settled on Newcraft Press. That isn’t too stupid, is it? Please don’t press the ‘stupid’ button. I couldn’t take it.

I‘m ashamed to admit that this all took several hours, and now I have to wait a couple of weeks to find out if I can even use this DBA in Arizona. Bless my mother– she suggested that I put a boat next to the name in the logo.

Yeah, one that’s headed right for that iceberg…