IT'S NOT ALWAYS PRETTY - LOOKING INSIDE A WRITER'S MIND

© thegotogirl.biz

DOCUMENT CLUTTER... BEEN THERE, DONE THAT?

OR, WHY IS IT SO HARD TO COME UP WITH A GOOD TITLE?

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I have a problem with document clutter.  Well, more than one but my main problem is multiple revisions of a document because I keep doing a 'save as' in WORD every time I am inspired by what I call the 'title of the moment'.  I very rarely start a story with the same title that I end up when I finish - Revenge Will Wait for Another Day is one exception - so as I progress with my story, I will think of 'the perfect title!!’ and instead of closing the document and renaming it – I don’t want to lose my momentum - I 'save as'.

At one point while writing This Will All End In Tears, I had eight revisions saved under different names.  You have to admit, that is kind of dumb, right?  Especially when you consider that I am not exactly a novice when it comes to Microsoft WORD.  Anyway... where was I?  Oh, yes… that 'perfect title!!’ isn't, so... I save… and save… and…you get the idea.  Why not just give my story a generic name and then when I am finished, add the title?  That’s a good question.  See, I can’t really write the story if there isn’t a title that has something to do with the story.  It would bother me.  Is that a bit anal?

There is an upside... sort of.  If I somehow lose, as happened a few weeks ago, the latest draft of a document, I usually have a prior version somewhere on the computer, so I don't have to start over from scratch.  Once the hair-pulling and eye-gouging urge has passed and I do NOT reach for the bottle of Stoli tucked behind the Weetabix and Special K with Chocolate, I shoot Tina a look that could freeze fire - "Really? Now you choose not to understand my writer's angst... do you have a death wish?" - and pull up a prior revision and get back to work.

Also known as taking a deep breath and pulling up my big girl panties!

Now… what is this thing with titles anyway?  I swear, it is almost a physical pain sometimes, trying to get just the right title to come out

I wrote a guest blog for Paul D Brazill some time back, when I had just started out on my writing career – “Wow! A real, living breathing AUTHOR asked me to write a piece for HIS blog??”  I'm sure I swooned a bit!  So, I ‘fired up’ Bella… my laptop and constant companion… and before you could say, “Wow!  Is that a thousand words already?” I had my piece finished… except for a title.  For what seemed a small eternity, I agonized over a title. Titles have been, and continue to be, my 'Achilles Heel'.  I kid you not… I can write a 3,000 word story in the time it can take to come up with a good title.

Anyway, with a deadline fast approaching and my stubborn refusal to settle for anything less than a clever and catchy – in my mind, at any rate - title, I finally came up with this....

"Coming Up With A Good Title Is Like Excoriating My Flesh"

I thought the title was very appropriate because… I swear to you… it would be less painful to scrub the top three layers of flesh from my entire body than to come up with a good title sometimes  Methinks the girl doth exaggerate, you say?  You have obviously never felt my pain.

I just finished the [hopefully] final draft of a 4,000 word story for a disaster anthology and while I thought I had finally come up with a good title – yes, I have deleted the four prior versions from my hard drive - I am now not so sure.  The title isn’t really doing anything for me… maybe I’ll just name it Story Number 96.

Does anyone know of a support group for the 'story/book title challenged'?   My therapist has declined to start one, and for what she charges, that’s probably not the best idea I have ever come up with.

But, getting back to the clutter…

How do you all deal with the not-so-limitless - who would have thought a 180GB hard drive on a laptop would ever NOT be big enough? - space on your computer for all your wonderful and not so wonderful (but keeping as a reminder of my less-than-brilliant flashes of inspiration) creations?  Maybe there is some other stuff on the hard drive I could get rid of.

What’s this thing called Windows?  It seems to be taking up an awful lot of room.  Do I even use it?  Maybe I could get rid of Windows…

~finis~

© 2012 – Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw.  All Rights Reserved.