A Book Without a Name
I blame it on my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. June St. John. Are you out there, June? Mrs. St. John shared two great loves with her class—fountain pens and creative writing. I’d always appreciated the time she let us spend writing stories, but I’d been an avid writer before I came to her class. Until yesterday, I never realized how much Mrs. St. John had influenced the way I write.
She’d get up, walk to the blackboard, and write a short line. We’d all hold our breath in anticipation, fountain pens poised over our papers, waiting to copy the words. Sometimes she’d torment us with a prolonged pause or even erase a word or two and change it to another. Those who were too hasty and had already penned their headings would groan and reach for another page. When she was finished, she’d turn around, cross her arms, grin, and say, “Go!”
And the stories would flow. Because the line on the board wasn’t just a heading, it was the title of a story. An unwritten tale waiting for each of us to tell in our own way. The name of a new friend we were about to meet. I only remember one story title— “Guess What I Found in My Vegetable Soup”—but the joy of writing those stories, then listening throughout the week as classmates read their work aloud, will never be forgotten.
It seems my need to begin with a title is still with me too.
Yesterday, as I plugged away at the sequel to Wonder Light, my upcoming release from Sourcebooks, I realized this is the first time in years I’ve started a book without a title, and the first time I’ve ever been this far into a story and still had no proper name to call it. And it bugs me! It’s like sitting down next to someone—the sister of a friend, since I know Wonder Light inside and out after all the revising and polishing—having a great conversation, really hitting it off, and realizing I don’t know her name.
She must have a name! Wonder Light: Unicorns of the Mist started out as Unicorns of Lonehorn Island, and has since been renamed. But I’m going to take the time to give her sister the sequel a name. Whether or not it’s eventually changed, I need something to call this story. I can’t fully know a book without a name.
