The Wishbone Conspiracy: A Fine Friday

Spiffy, spiffy day today, though kind of horrifying, too. I followed Cady’s situation to its logical conclusion, and she’s literally up to her neck in one of those moments I would have previously identifyed as “bad,” but which some of my readers have told me counts as horror.

Well, folks who have read and liked Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood and Warpaint and are still will me for  The Wishbone Conspiracy (working title) are made of stern stuff, and will get through this.

And having read through Ilona Andrews, I can state categorically that my “going dark” is not any grimmer than what she writes. (I know “she’s” a husband/wife team, but the name is female and following a singular proper noun with a plural pronoun bugs the fuck out of me.)

On that working title…

Matt just finished re-reading Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood for the sole purpose of brainstorming titles, and came up with a better title that fits the series. And did it by using Badger’s poem at the end of the book.

My eyes still filled with unshed tears,
I face the path where darkness crept
Before me, taking everything
I once held dear and stripping from
Me joy’s frail wings.

Death stalks after.
Stillness follows
All of Life’s unceasing chatter;
If I win still I shall lose.
Life’s failures are but little deaths
That slink before.

Where once I flew now I must walk
And stumble over stones and roots;
Taste dust and ashes on my tongue
And bleed as failure’s weight
Drives me to ground.

Wait. Knowing that I too must die
And fall at last beyond the reach
Of light and love and laughter I
Become unburdened: I become
Life’s renegade.

I who have nothing left to lose
Must now have everything to gain
And driven down must now burst free,
And take from Life what Life won’t give:
I own my soul.

Life’s a miser; death’s a thief that
Steals Life’s bread when darkness falls.
I’ll shame the thief; I will not weep
But, head high, stand and fight and bleed.
I will not call death friend; I will
Not ask for softness; I will not
Embrace the empty, silent night —
And when I lose, as I must lose —

With neck unbowed and back unbent,
I’ll run the path where darkness creeps
And scream and shout and pound the walls
And death will cringe to hear me come —
And Life, well-lived,
Will weep.

The story behind that poem is here.

Using the same poem, I came up with a better title for Warpaint, and a better title for Wishbone as well.

Going to keep them secret for now.

I need to get some cold, hard split-testing numbers to see which are more marketable, because no matter what I happen to like, the title that encourages people to buy the book is the title that gets to go on the cover. And when I get the split tests set up, I don’t want any hint of which title I might prefer floating around influencing people and messing up the voting.

Anyway… Got 2009 words, ended the chapter on an awesome cliffhanger, and am looking forward to getting back to this story next Wednesday.

Meanwhile, however, now I have to get work done on the How to Write a Novel launch.

It’s getting close and I still have a lot of work to do.

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Comments

One response to “The Wishbone Conspiracy: A Fine Friday”

  1. Johanna Avatar
    Johanna

    I loved that poem since I first read it years ago. I taped it next to my computer during a particularly terrible bout of depression. I want someone to read it at my funeral. It’s beautiful.

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