Thursday, May 24, 2012

TITLE - TALE - Jules Older needs help


 Jules Older

Getting rich from writing appears not to be my destiny. So, having published one ebook and lost money on it, of course, I wanted to repeat the exercise.
With SKIING THE EDGE still in the red, I decided that second book would be my wildest, funniest travel tales. I've had plenty of them, from New England to New Zealand, on snow and at sea, in wild woods and in gay Paree.
All I needed was a title.
All I still need is a title.
That’s where you come in.

I originally called the book:

GOING TO EXTREMES
Intense Travel Tales from All Over

Trouble was, “extreme” travel has its own definition, usually involving rappelling down cliffs or facing down lions, and I make a point of honor never to do either.
The other trouble was there are about half a dozen books with the same title.
So I gave the ebook-in-eprogress a name nobody else would ever use:

LOSER IN LEUKERBAD
And Other Hazards of Travel Writing

Turns out, the reasons nobody would ever use it were:
1.    because nobody liked it, and
2.    because nobody but me knew that Leukerbad is a miniscule spa town in the Swiss Alps.
So, forget that.
But I liked using one of the recurring themes of the book, my propensity to lose my belongings and to get lost, myself. Here's a sample:

Some people travel so easily. They walk lightly on the earth. They exude peace and harmony. They hold onto their belongings.
I envy these people. I'm the traveler who loses his wallet, loses his guide, loses his way. I'm a loser.

Thus, the next title:

LOSER
Traveling With Incompetence

Well, that was cool… except almost no one who read the title knew it was a humorous travel book. Sounds kind of a downer, eh?
Onward!
One of the chapters dealt with… well, dealt with this:

And then, there’s the incident I regard as la grande souffle of debonair deportment.
It’s the first night of a gastronomic tour for food writers only. Let me say that again. For food writers only. One of the gourmets sits down to a seafood dinner, picks up a soup spoon, grabs the table’s bowl of tartar sauce, and…to the silent amazement of all, without a word of apology or explanation, proceeds to gobble the whole thing down.
It’s a table of eight.
A bowl for eight.
That’s a lot of sauce.

Therefore, I renamed the book:

DEATH BY TARTAR
Travel Writing’s Dark Secrets

Only, friends pointed out that it now sounds like either a crime novel or an exposé or a conflation of both. When it’s actually, uh, neither.
And, Effin pointed out that ‘tartar’ sounds more like raw steak than a mayonnaise-based sauce.
Thus came:

DEATH BY TARTAR SAUCE

To which I added a Victorian-sounding subtitle:

or

A Travel Writer’s Encounters with Cunning Condiments, Snaggle-Toothed Reptiles, Petrified Shark, Lost Skis, Lost Luggage, True Love, and Embarrassing Children

That may have been a wee bit long, even for Victorians. So I re-subbed it:

DEATH BY TARTAR SAUCE
A Travel Writer’s Encounters with Murderous Mayonnaise, Repulsive Reptiles, Irksome Offspring, Lost Luggage and True Love

Or, I wondered, would it be better to modify the syntax to:

DEATH BY TARTAR SAUCE
A Travel Writer Encounters Repulsive Reptiles, Irksome Offspring, Lost Luggage, Murderous Mayonnaise, and True Love

Either way, some found the ‘repulsive’ thing a bit off-putting. Therefore, I modified it slightly:

DEATH BY TARTAR SAUCE
A Travel Writer’s Encounters with Gargantuan Gators, Irksome Offspring, Lost Luggage, Murderous Mayonnaise, and True Love

And, as Effin and I finish the editing process, and ponder what the cover will look like, that’s where the title stands today.
And that’s where you come in.
I'd be pleased if you'd tell me:

    I like it.

    I don’t like it.

    Here's something I think is better: ______

I promise to let you know how it comes out in the end.

Many thanks,

Jules Older, jules@julesolder.com

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