What's in a name?

What’s in a Name?

I’ve always had a tough time with titles. When I was writing in fandom (yes, I wrote Pern and Harry Potter, but more on that some other time), I usually passed that task to a co-poster or at the last minute scanned through a finished story and chose a random phrase. That mental block has continued: I’m hoping to submit a book for my first rejection but the title page still reads, “Whatever I Finally Decide to Call It.” I have ten NaNoWriMo certificates on my wall and the titles read, “Whatever,” “Untitled,” “???,” etc. Yep. That’s me and my aversion to titles. 

With my mind made up, with the decision made to start a blog, I had to overcome that aversion. I needed a title and the urge to write these memories was so strong that the choice could not be put off. 

I thought about it as I made breakfast.

I thought about it as I prepared my bath water.

I thought about it as I dressed and throughout the day.

Finally an idea came to me, just a hint at first, and then more fully formed: I would choose one of the songs that I remembered from my childhood and take the name from that. This involved some free association: memories, preserving them, catching them.

That was it: Catch a Falling Star. I had listened to that so often, mostly when I was nine or ten years old, staying with Aunt Goldie and Uncle Pete in Browns Mills, New Jersey, playing it over and over again, much to their annoyance. I could still remember the words — most of them — and the crooning of Perry Como.

      Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket,

      Never let it fade away.

      Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket,

      Save it for a rainy day.

      For love may come and tap you on the shoulder,

      Some star-less night.

      Just in case you feel you want to hold her,

      You’ll have a pocketful of starlight.

      Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket,

      Never let it fade away. . .

      For when your troubles start multiplying,

      And they just might.

      It’s easy to forget them without trying

      With just a pocketful of starlight.

Perfect! I could just take a phrase from that. “Save it for a rainy day” fit the idea — but was definitely cliche. “Catch a falling star” and “pocketful of starlight” were equally over-used. However, “Never let it fade away” was perfect for my needs.

I spent the rest of the day happily contemplating what I would include in my first entry, confident that I could do this now that the first hurdle had been cleared.

Right.

After some starts and restarts (at the last moment I decided to set up a new email account to use with the blog), I finally reached the “create blog” page and entered my wonderful title. . . Only to find that it had already been taken. I went to the site that had taken my name, my title, and glared at it, but the title remained. 

Ok, time to drop back and punt. The blog was intended to record memories, or to overcome the loss of memories, so I went to Merriam-Webster Online (one of my essential sites!) and searched for synonyms and antonyms and tried another title. And another. And another. 

I don’t recall how many times I clicked the “check availability” button before I finally came up with one that I could use. And then, I stalled, uncertain whether I really wanted it. 

In the end, I ended up with a title that was completely different from the URL and a URL that really makes little sense.

But I slapped together a title and made my first post.

So there. I had become a blogger.

And my blog even had a name.