Titles, titles, titles

Well, this morning will be spent with a blank sheet of paper, a list of short stories and a headache (probably)! That's because it's title time and I have eight (count 'em) yes, I said 8 anthologies to name and since they're going to be published in the next week or so, I can't put off the title wrangling any longer.

I am not alone in the title search, thank goodness, since my sis, Tasha, is responsible for half the stories in the anthologies and is therefore 50% responsible for the titles. However, she's busy creating the front covers, so I think I owe her to come up with some titles. Our process for working on titles together is really very simple:

• I (or she) sit and think for a long time, scratching scalp and grinding teeth
• Eventually, some ideas are thrown down in an email and winged off to the other party
• By return of email comes 90% of them shot down in flames, laughed at or just politely ignored, but maybe one or two are going in the right direction
• Then there follow ten to twenty emails where those possibilities are followed down blind alleys, thrown away entirely and even lead to jumps of literary logic that only a twin could understand.
• Eventually, after a few discussions where everyone's darlings are swatted out the way, we'll finally settle on something both of us feel fits.
• Then we sit on it, change our minds and go over it again.
• Finally, after much gnashing of teeth, one, two, three or four words drop out the other side of process.

Having broken it down, maybe the simplest way to describe the process would be, we argue a lot ;P.

So, now I just have to start the process for all 8 anthologies - now, I wonder if I should go with 8 separate emails, or one big email. Maybe a spreadsheet....