Would you believe I didn't title my first book until after it was written? It was my dream to come up with a title, you know, just be sitting there, hands cupped around a hot cup of coffee, staring out a window, and then...epiphany! Oh glorious moment! I would always remember that day when the title *looks dramatically into the distance"...came to me.

I guess I put too much pressure on myself. Because it wasn't me who came up with the title. It was my husband's best friend, Matt.

Beyond. Bitter.

We were sitting at a coffee shop and he was helping me with my one-sheet (I was going to a pitch conference in St. Louis, and taking along a one-sheet describing your book is essential). Anyway, he was helping me with my one-sheet and I was telling him how miserable I was because I STILL did not have a title. How could I effectively pitch my book face to face with a literary agent without a title??

We were sitting there, drumming our fingers on the little table, and I kept saying, "Kingdom of....Kingdom of...." but no matter what word I ended it with, it didn't sound right.

Then suddenly, Matt turns the laptop to face him, types something out, and spins it back around so that I could see it.

Kingdom of Ruins.

Yes. That was it. I knew it in the very depths of my story-telling soul, that was it. I had written about a kingdom that had become nothing more than fallen stones covered with overgrowth, and its inheritors...they didn't even remember it had existed.

Well done, Matt. Well done. But this next time around, I'm coming up with the title. I will get my dramatic epiphany moment!!

*sighs*

Still so bitter.