Names don't matter--unless you have a really stupid one--and then they do.

Or... porn name. C'mon. If you had any of the Bond girl names, would they hire you at Disneyland to hang out with a name tag that said "Pussy Galore"? No. No, they wouldn't.

Wait... what was I talking about? OH! Names... or titles or both.

I changed the name of all three of the manuscripts I'm querying during the last two weeks. The funny thing is that the one I haven't been mentioning online by its real name... is now called "Curse Me a Story." Scorched and Re:Straint both now have names that I won't be mentioning online anymore. Why? They're really good names. When I was on Twitter this last week, an editor was bemoaning the fact that she didn't have any Angels/Demons on her docket right then because she'd just thought of the perfect title. She wasn't going to share it of course... because it was that good.

That's the way it goes with this whole business, you know?

I was in a chat room at the beginning of the year and when I mentioned my name... one of the agents commented, "That's a really good name."

Yeah it is... which is weird, of course... because it really is my name, but still....

So, the other reason I'm thinking of it is because I just finished a Maeve Binchy book. It was awesome. It was basically a bunch of short stories intertwined around a town. It was well-written, funny, not stodgy... the voices were entertaining... I couldn't put it down. On the other hand, if it hadn't been a book club read, I never would have read it. NO WAY. C'mon... the author's name was Maeve Binchy. It practically screams "Literary Read for Old People" to me. I was actually prepared to yawn through this book. I didn't. I loved it.

So... what's in a name? A reputation... an assumption... a bestseller?

I've been working on my vampire book... not Honor... the one I'm continuing from the short story I wrote. (Yes, JT convinced me to do it.) I'm never going to publish this book under my name. No way. It's not trashy but it turns out that Darcy is the way she is because she was raped when she was converted into being a vampire. Violence and sex have built some funny quirks in her mind... and not "funny" as in "ha ha"... well, not just funny in that way anyway. I want to finish this story but there is no way I'd want my teenage beta reader to dive into it thinking it's like my other books. It's got some mature subjects in it in my opinion.

So, a name is a name is a name is a lot of stress and pressure and you thought picking the right name for your baby is hard. I still haven't gotten much feedback on this new round of queries. What if the agents take a look at "Curse Me A Story" and say, "You're ugly and your mama dresses you funny!"

What... it could happen....