no name

Fretting over a title for latest novel…..which is not at a publisher’s. My agents read it, like it, but want me to clear up a plot point or two. I never like suggestions, but I’ve learned over time to listen, particularly to those I respect and whose job it is to sell my novels! (There’s more of this on my new blog on my website…..a kind of writing whine). And they thought the title too gender specific….too male. It’s about Louis XIV. It’s about three months in his young life when he was twenty two and did two extraordinary things: took on the most powerful man in France and fell tenderly in love. And I added a man in the iron mask.

At first I called it King. Then I changed it to Monarch (butterfly/transformation). Now I just keep sinking into a quagmire of titles, none of which I like, Crowned with Lilies, Crown and Lily, Lion’s Shadow, Lily and Lion, Monarch and Mistress, Fleur de Lis…..what! These all sound too…..something, and not the something I want. He was called the Sun King. I need some light on this! Meanwhile, I am rereading–after an absence of three months–the manuscript. It’s wonderful to be able to focus almost solely on language, crisping it up. And to know now exactly what dialog should come from character’s mouths. So the fourth novel will be a crisper read with perfect dialog. Unfortunately, it will be unnamed, and you won’t be able to find it.

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