Find Wall; Bang Head Repeatedly

A month after I began work on finding a book title, this week I really poured it on, going so far as to consult the Band Name Generator (using an appropriate variable word such as "writer," "author," "interview," "river," "central," etc.). Everyone I asked offered help; thank you kindly! I will do the same for you. And finally I think I've got it. I'll sleep on it and then tell you that I want to call it A Fine Line, subtitle Talks with Authors in St. Louis, or something like that. Do you like it?

Other titles considered: Flyover, Flyway (love the word, but it's too much like "flyweight)," Desktop Paradise, Desktop Haven, Garden of Intelligence, River Haven, St. Louis Calling, Creatives, About the Writer, Second-Floor Sunroom. . . (an architectural detail that's so very St. Louis!), Velvet Minds, many hundreds more.

The Instant Leper

Small mental-health tip: Never offer the information that you are a writer.

I have learned to tell strangers at bus stops or family parties that I am a webmaster, or, if I really want to hear them talk, I say I’m a teacher (not a professor). “Teacher” elicits all sorts of commentary and memories, plus the “Guess What I Teach” game. Everyone always guesses right: I’m an English teacher. I fail to see what is wrong with looking like one.

But when you tell a stranger, “I’m a writer,” you'll get frosted or flummoxed by one of these:

• “A writer, eh? Ya know, my life could be a book. Whoo-ee! I’ll tell it to you and you can write it.”
• “What do you write?” (Disappointment or disapproval will follow regardless of your answer)
• “Have you ever heard of this book called (Dune, Twilight, The Lovely Bones, Ball Four)?”
• “Have you published anywhere I might have read it?”
• “So you get to sit home all day and write.”
• “My daughter writes poetry. It helps so much with her depression.”

I once told a talented but unschooled writer (think Chuck Palahniuk), unemployed for two years, that Human Resources staffs were likely giving him the bum’s rush because he just had to say in his cover letter, “But what I really am is a writer.” Might as well say, “I’m a leper.”