ENTITLED (I)

Books, like characters, seem to need a name before they become real. For the first time, I have an entire story plotted out, divided into chapters, and complete with all the characters it's going to need. And I have to say, I can see why this is recommended as a way of going about writing a book, as opposed to the plunge-right-in and ok-what-the-flip-is-it-I'm-making-for, which was the method I had been using (ironic, considering what a rubbish swimmer I am in real life). I suppose it's kinda like the difference between putting yourself on the pill and crossing your fingers... ANYWAY, this time, this child is planned. I have a setting, a locale, which I know well enough to feel confident of using, and this weekend, a chance to revisit it and collect material to use as scene-setting embroidery. What I don't have (and which I did, before, for 1st book) is a title.

And it is amazing what a difference this lack of title makes. The thing won't set. It lacks its isinglass, its gelatin. It's not topped off, in my head. It's a barn without a roof. It's a character without a head, or face; I know exactly what it, as book, will do, and where it will go, but I can't have a conversation with it. I can't visualise it, in final, published, 3-dimensional form (which has to be one of the greatest incentivisers a writer has). I can't design its jacket - or at least I can, it's a Boy's Own thing, in bright woodblock-type printing, of a wooded slope, with a lot of clear sky, and a young woman, in 1940s clothing, looking up at the sky. Or, it's a satchel, and a child's gas-mask, handing on a hook against a plain wall. Or, it's a.... whatever, the point is, that all these images are blank. They have no words on them. They have no title. They're just random pictures, they aren't as yet any part of my book.

A character without a name presents the same problem. One that pops out of your head fully formed and with label already attached is one of the best writing-things to happen, and when it does, it feels as if it confirms you utterly, on every level - right path, right plot, all these goodies just waiting to leap out at you as soon as you walk past them. One without label does the exact opposite, bringing in its wake every bad writerly phantom: your imagination has run dry and will never renew itself, and the whole idea for this story must obviously suck, which is why it refuses to make sense of itself and why you have all these characters wandering about as nameless zombies, all wishing they were somewhere else.

It is now time for the train. My story - headless and faceless as it is - will have to be guided to it and shown to a seat, and will no doubt sit there viewing me with blind and mute reproach for the whole of the journey. You think you can write me when you can't even name me?

Only one way to find out.