So yours truly went down a rabbit hole this morning listening to some music with the lyrics playing on the screen. I never write to songs with lyrics, but I was doing a Joss Walker newsletter and needed to reference the wonderful Garbage song “I”m Only Happy When It Rains” and the next thing I knew, I was hitting forward on a mixed soundtrack looking for lyrics of songs I adored. I know there are plenty of programs that do this, I just hadn’t seen it before. It’s quite handy if you, like me, tend to screw up lyrics. I’m the WORST. (Though I will give mad props to an old boyfriend who thought Tin Roof, Rusted in the B-52s classic “Love Shack" was Henry! Rest. Still makes me laugh.)

I listened to the fabulous “Bohemian Like You” by the Dandy Warhols, and then of course decided to try “Bohemian Rhapsody” which has many lines I never get right. I mean, I had no idea that A - it was Bismillah, nor that B - Bismilliah means “In the name of God” in Arabic. So. A rabbit hole in which I learned something. Winning.

Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?

Bismillah! No, we will not let you go

(Let him go!)

Bismillah! We will not let you go

(Let him go!)

Anyway. That brings me to titles. Soooo many of my titles have their roots in song lyrics. That’s always been my go-to resource to title my projects. Get inspired by a song, write down a lyric, twist it around, and boom goes the dynamite. 

I do believe we’ve settled on a title for the 2023 standalone, and I love it, so yay, and interestingly, it is NOT a lyric. at all. It was actually a lament. I’ll be able to share it soon. Double yay.

But now I am now toying with two titles for the new Taylor book. I love them both. My agent loves them both. One is a play on a lyric from Les Miserables, and one is the working title I’ve had for this book from day one. They are both good. So don’t be surprised if I end up polling y’all to see what you think.

I wrote a lot this week. I had my all is lost, I need to put this book away, I will never finish, it’s terrible moment Wednesday night, and lo, yesterday I got to blow something up, and I was telling Mr. E, and boom—I saw what I needed to do. Fingers crossed it works. And since I’m on deadline for this Taylor book, it’s time for me to get back to the day job and move on to her world for the rest of the day.  

Friday Reads 📚

From my teetering TBR comes a highly anticipated read from Andrea Bartz, whose last novel I experienced, THE HERD, blew me away. I loved this cover, too. Vibrant and sassy. Have you read this one yet?