I struggle with naming things
Yesterday, in the middle of the day while I was at work, I finally decided on a name for the first book I had ever written.
From the moment in 2016 that I began writing it, it never had a title. It was ‘Book’ for all of its infancy, and only when I wrote a full second draft two years ago, did I actually attempt to give it a title. The title was very much a placeholder, I knew it as soon as I decided on it. It felt empty, only drawing in the smallest amount on what I knew was the heart of the work.
It was tolerable for a period, until I had a spurt of inspiration yesterday.
The book is inspired heavily by a Shakespeare play I am incredibly fond of, and I think I had always wanted to have the title nod to that fact in some way, but I never actually took the initiative to figure out options for it. Until yesterday.
It’s been about eight years since I first started putting the book to paper. Eight years. I was a teenager when I started writing it, embarking on what was one of the most turbulent periods of my life, as I began thinking seriously about who I was as a person and what I actually wanted from life. I was so scared, and so off balance, and everything felt unstable and terrifying.
I think my neglect of creating a title for this book was a side effect of that instability. I struggled defining anything, and even though I completed the book rather quickly, and was very satisfied with it, I couldn’t ‘finish’ it.
It, like me, has been in a constant state of flux these past eight years. There were some periods where it was more static, and unchanged, like I was, but changes were constant, even if they were small.
But it has a name now. One that suits it much more than I could ever have thought possible. And I’m happy. Though I know the story still needs some work, the presence of a name feels like a solid step in the right direction.
~dys