Apparently using Untitled as a title is frowned upon
A blast from the past
I received an email from, of all places, Photobucket a couple weeks ago. I thought… holy frack, that’s a name I hadn’t heard in a while. It read something like “we found you” and invited me to log back in. Curiosity got the best of me, of course, so I did.
I don’t think I was prepared for what awaited me on the other side.
Treasure troves
The first thing I noticed was my eldest’s senior pictures. Talk about elation, I was SO excited! I had thought they were lost forever, but there all 30 of them were, in their original sizes, too.
Other goodies were locked in this account as well. Little’s second birthday party pictures. Many concert photos, including ones with the friends I had gone to said concerts with. There were family photos galore, so many I had forgotten about, like our first Fourth of July after we had moved to the apartment complex that would be our home for the next 19 years.
Then I saw it.
Backstory time
Back in my day (I had to start it like that), we didn’t go on Facebook. I think that was strictly for college students or wasn’t around at all. We had MySpace, which was SO superior with its themes and music. But mostly, I hung around in message boards. That’s what got me back into writing after having given it up some time in high school. I was in my 30s by then, three kids at home, and a plethora of stories brewing in my mind. This is where “Wrong Number,” “Right Reasons,” and “My Happy Ending” all originated. (Yes, MHE was all in one lonnnnnnnnng thread. For publishing purposes, I had to split it into three books so that it would fit.) In addition to that saga, I had something else entirely ready to go.
Characters who lived in my brain but didn’t have a story yet
I had this character, Catherine, who was the ultimate spoiled teenager who treated others horribly. I decided to write a series of short stories with her as the main character and they would build until she got what was coming to her. All good and fun, right? Yeah, except I couldn’t figure out WHO to put in as her antagonist.
Let’s rewind WAY back to when the original 90210 was on. When I was laying in bed after having watched the episode where Dylan kissed Brenda for the first time, and it was like this lightbulb went off in my brain. I came up with the tortured soul, Brody. Knowing how he operated, he was the PERFECT character to put opposite Catherine.
Only the series of short stories wasn’t going to work anymore.
Now it was a full-fledged story, and it became Catherine’s coming of age novel and eventually my first ever published story. Except it’s original title was “Untitled.”
How does this all tie in with Photobucket, you ask?
Let me show you.
Yes, that is the original “cover” for my story, and my handle on the message board was sunshine girl. As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to share it with you.
Naming a book “Untitled” is apparently frowned upon
I tried, I really did, but it just wasn’t going to work. I reached out to my online friends and readers unable to come up with a suitable title for this story that I put my heart into. Thank you again to Vera, my V, who said the answer was simple.
It should be called “Entitled.”
And that, loves, is the origin story of my very first published novel.
