I spent 3 hours on Youtube last night...I don't even remember what I was looking for on there, but then I found funny videos of teenagers doing stunts on their horses, then crazy horses bucking people off, then horse training videos, then dog training and Caeser Milan, then boom it's 10pm. I love and hate the internet at the same time. Imagine everything I could do in a day if I didn't have it luring me into it's time suck. But then how would I win arguments if I didn't have Google?

If you want to follow my journey I think I started at a video called Troublemaker by LoveRavenwood. I'm not letting myself go back to Youtube until I have done something useful.

Today I had a moment of panic. Heart pounding, knot in your stomach fear isn't just something in books. No, I wasn't facing down a grizzly bear, but I was putting myself and my newborn baby blog out there for the first time. And that's real fear people. The fear of rejection. Of not being good enough. Of self doubt. Of people snickering behind your back because you don't wear the cool expensive sneakers but the cheap knockoffs that your dad thinks are just the same... Oh my god it's high school all over again. And I'm pretty sure I'm getting a zit.

Being your own best publicist is a major part of self publishing success. I know that.  How can anyone read your book if they have never heard of it, or you before? But it's hard to really open yourself up to criticism. Suddenly I know how Kim Kardashian feels. Blech. But damnit, if she can take her hot mess of a life and work it for fame and fortune then I can let people read the book that's consumed the better part of five years of my life. 

Happy reading everyone, I really hope you enjoy the story.

For some reason prologues are the new dirty word in publishing. Agents hate them, publishers hate them, editors hate them, readers hate them... and yet writers keep writing them. I have one; a long one. I tried really hard to get rid of it, but I need that prologue. The rest of the book just doesn't make sense without it. It's the beginning of the two female lead characters, the Heroine and the Villain, and it's important to tell those first few pages.

I don't hate prologues as much as some people. Sometimes they are boring or irrelevant, but sometimes the first chapter is boring or irrelevant and it's not like we are going to start banning the first chapter.  They can and should be done well. They can and should be important to the story. I say, if I need it then I should use it. It is my story after all, I can write it in hieroglyphics if I want to.

What do you all think of prologues?

I don't know about everyone else, but for me, finding the perfect title is the hardest part of writing. It has to stand out, sum up the book, at least in part,  and it has to be unique. For example, the best title I could think of for this book was... Twilight! Uuuugh, I know! But it has the dark/light theme I carry  throughout the book, and since the book is about a man and a woman, one who lives in the day and the other who lives at night, and how they mingle in the in between times of night and day, it was perfect. But, alas, it was already taken. I still grumble about that sometimes.

Then, for years I had the working title Asphodel Meadows. I liked that one, but, no one knew what it meant. It's an obscure reference to the after life in ancient Greece. Heroes went to the Elysian Fields and evil people went to Tartarus, but those who lived a life of both good and evil went to a middle place called Asphodel Meadows. Once there, they wandered for all eternity living a bland existence. So while it fit in terms  of being both good and evil, Greece has nothing to do with my characters or the setting, and none of them live a bland existence of nothingness, so in the end, it just didn't fit.

Other titles that crossed my desk but just didn't fit were: Daughter of Gods, Astral, and A cold White Moon.

Then I did some brainstorming with the words immortal and undying and found the term, Amaranthine. It's still a bit unheard of, but I think it sounds like what it means so hopefully people figure it out. I'll save you the google search and tell you right here. It means: Everlasting, undying and immortal. It's also a reference to a purple-red colour.  The Amaranth flower is a mythical flower that never dies, and has purple-red blooms. In the end, I LOVE my new title. I did a quick search on it and found nothing else with that title so I am going with it.  Red is a common theme in the book, and so are mythical creatures and undying people and love, so it's kinda perfect.

There are some title trends that bug me a lot. One is titles that mimic other successful books. For example, I see a lot of books with titles extremely similar to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", and I think that's just cheap. Another annoying trend are titles that are technically a long sentence. 15 words is not a title. I'm sorry ,it just isn't.

How did all of you choose your titles? Was is hard? Easy? Do you love it?

Let me know your thoughts, and see you on Friday when I post more pages from Amaranthine!