Mr Writer

Ladies and gentlemen, for one week only I will be a professional writer.

That’s right, I’ll be sat at this desk, using this laptop, typing with these fingers, for an entire week, making the ‘magic’ happen and coming up with lots of other words that need to be put in inverted commas. I won’t be checking the clock to see when I should be somewhere else, and nor will I be feeling as though I really should be doing some marking or something else teacher-related, such as coming up with fresh new ways to tell people that it’s their own time they’re wasting. No, it will just be my own time I’m wasting or, hopefully, my own time I’m using valuably.

Depending on how things are going, I may keep a mini-blog-journal-type-thing over this week to record progress or the lack of it, and so stay tuned for that if that’s the sort of thing you get out of bed to read (you can of course stay in bed to read it if you’ve got a laptop or smartphone – I’m quite happy for you to read this anywhere really). If nothing’s appeared by Wednesday, you can assume that I’m doing really well on FIFA 11 and less well on unnamed-novel-in-progress…

Talking of the novel being unnamed, perhaps you could help me come up with a decent name? It doesn’t matter whether or not you know the plot, as all I’m interested in is which of the following titles (if any) would prompt you to pick up a book if you saw it on the shelf to check out what the blurb and cover says?:

1) Inspired by  (this has been the working title)

2) Mansfield, Munch and Misadventure

3) Mansfield and Munch

4) Munch

5) Accidental crime

6) Accidental crimes

7) Incidental crimes

8) Accidental theft

9) Attempted murder and accidental theft

10) A novel by Sam

If number 10 is the best one, then we might as well give up now…

Trust me, at least one paragraph of the novel is better than the quality of those titles. Perhaps even one page. But, really, is there any mileage in any of those or should I try again? I genuinely would appreciate your feedback on this if you’re able to give it, so why not add a quick comment under the blog to let me know?

The titles list does disappoint me a little but I’m preparing to teach a novel called ‘The Road’ next year and that won the Pulitzer Prize, so if you can succeed with as bland a title as that then perhaps I’m not so far off?