Baby gets a new name…
My third novel is getting a new title. Before I announce that officially, a little story about that book and its title. A saga, actually.
My third novel is actually my *first* novel, which was actually in its infancy a short story. In 2007, I started a short story that got long and one of my teachers at Roosevelt University, Lisa Stolley, informed me it was a novel. So I wrote it. (Those four words stand in for a lot of work, rework, failure.) Along the way, it was suggested that this thing needed a name, so I called it the same thing I had been calling it as a short story, “An Elegant Hand.”
I worked on this thing off and on for years, and at one point decided that this title was too…something. So I tried to rename it. I spent a lot of time on ideas. I renamed it. That title didn’t stick. It would simply not adhere to the project. I went back to calling it what I had been calling it.
In the mean time, I had put the thing away and gone on to other projects, writing and publishing two novels. But last year I took the old draft out of “the drawer” (I have a file on my computer called that; that title works). And I rewrote it. (Those four words also hide all manner of doubt and adversity.) I sold it with the old title attached. And then I said, “I’m open to a new title.”
Here’s why. An Elegant Hand was hard to say. It was really hard to hear. I found myself having to say it twice every time someone asked about it. Selfishly, I wanted it changed to something people would hear and be intrigued by, not confused by.
So ten years after I started that short story, it’s a novel with a new title and… a release date from Harper Collins William Morrow.
And if you’ve hung in there this long, why hold out any longer?
THE DAY I DIED by Lori Rader-Day, out April 11, 2017…
Cover art, visits to bookstores near you, launch fun-times and prizes, all of that will be posted here as it’s finalized.
To say I’m excited about this intriguing title and that official date (ten years in the making) is definitely an understatement. Weeeeee here we go!