Today I finally started writing my new novel. Yay! Despite the fact that it was like pulling teeth to get the words on that first page–and I’ll probably end up rewriting it a dozen times or more–it was good to fill up that empty page with something. 800 words, and even if it was hard after so much time not writing, it was good to get it up.
While I was writing, I chatted with a bunch of my friends and asked them what kind of a title I should use for it. The working title was Exodus to the Stars, and that just didn’t feel right. Of course, it was kind of lazy for me to ask everyone else, and they couldn’t do much to help me. It was good to chat with my friends, although maybe I do that a little too much.
The title I ended up settling on was Hero in Exile. It might sound a little bit corny, but I like it at this point–at least more than Exodus to the Stars. And really, even though the title doesn’t objectively matter at this point, it does to me. Maybe it just gives me confidence and drive to be writing a story that has an awesome title. Maybe I just can’t stand lame titles at all. I don’t know.
So, after weeks of playing this opening scene and maybe half a dozen others over and over in my mind, it’s starting to come together. I hope my writing has improved–it’s unnerving to reread The Lost Colony and see just how cheesy the writing is in my first novel–but really, I can’t afford to worry about that now. Just gotta keep pushing forward.
