Birthing a Book

Sometimes an image enters my head and won’t leave me alone. I’m working hard to get Enter Cosmos ready for a January publication. And in my head, I keep comparing it to growing a baby.

A book takes a certain amount of gestation time. It grows from a germ of an idea, to a full-fledged,ready to leave the house, entity.

For it to be a success, it has to have the right amount of ‘growing’ time. It needs all it’s parts in the right place, and functioning at full capacity.

My anxiety levels, my hopes and expectations for this book, are very similar to what I felt when actually carrying a child. It’s the oddest sensation.

I want it to have the ‘right’ name. The working title was always, Cosmos, but that seemed too Carl Sagan to me. Then I decided it should be Enter Cosmos. When the book is read, you’ll understand why that name occurred to me. But lately, with unending nagging, the little voice in my head, (my muse, and his name is Victor, we’ll talk about that at a later date) keeps whispering, change the name.

And the name that little voice gives me is, Cosmic Shift.

Now, I’m notoriously bad at naming things. In my year-long stint writing articles for the Ottawa Times Write Team, only once did I hit a title that was remotely close to what the paper gave it. My brain doesn’t seem to think in ‘titles’.

But my ‘baby’ (book) needs just the right title. And ‘Victor’ is being insistent. I am giving this a great deal of thought.

My ‘baby book’ isn’t quite ready yet. It’s getting there. I need to finish editing it and ship it off to a content editor. Then edit again and send it off to a proofreader, (I have ‘comma’ issues). All of these things that need done are very similar to regular, doctor checkups at all stages of pregnancy.

So far, Cosmos, is developing well. I’m not sure how normal it all is because, face it, I have a muse whose name is Victor, and I’m not at all sure that is normal but, for what it’s worth, I’m still looking at birthing this book in January of 2012.