Inspiration, or, What’s in a name? – Guest Post

Suddenly they all died.  The end.  It’s gotten me more compliments than I can shake a stick at.  One person even said that it

   was the best title for a writer’s blog she’d ever seen.

Comments like that make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 🙂

 

The idea for my site’s title comes from a story I wrote with a friend     many moons ago.  It was a terrible little story, but it was a lot of fun    to write and it was a whole lot better than playing pickleball.

Not that I can play pickleball.  Okay, I can play it, just not well.  But that’s beside the point.

Write or write not – there is no aspiring.  I get a lot of compliments on my tagline, too.  They say to just be yourself, so I got my geek on proudly with this one.  I love to write, and when I finally owned up to being a writer a couple of years ago, this seemed to be the perfect subtitle for my blog.  It’s much better than my previous tagline, which (if I remember correctly) was, “Or, mostly romantic nonsense.”

When I started blogging, I hoped to be able to make a living from it.  You know, I’d publish some short stories and poetry and maybe a well-timed political rant or two and have publishers come crawling out of the woodwork wanting to turn my blog into a book, just like all the other bloggers out there (by which I mean the exceptions, like Single Dad Laughing and Hyperbole and a Half, not the rules).

I think it’s safe to say I was probably a little delusional in this regard.

Anyway, I thought “Suddenly they all died.  The end.” was a pretty appropriate title for my shiny new blog for two reasons:

1.) All the bloggy places said to name your blog something that would attract attention.  If my title doesn’t attract attention, then I don’t know what will.

and

2.) When I started blogging, I posted lots of short stories.  This was how most of them ended.

Blogging has helped me refine my writing style, and now my title reflects my quirky sense of humor.  (I still occasionally post short stories, but fewer of them end the way my site’s title implies.)  And as for my tagline?  Well, what can I say – I’m a geek to the core.

And nobody messes with Yoda.

My point here (yes, believe it or not, there is actually a point to all this) is that inspiration is everywhere – you just have to open your eyes and look for it.  For me, I was inspired by an old short story and my geeky nature.  But I’m also inspired by other things: a bird singing, my kids chasing my cats, a random post about a project to reach Mars by 2020…

What inspires you?  Do you have a fun story about your blog’s title/tagline?

 

About Kay Kauffman

As a girl, I dreamed of being swept off my feet by my one true love.  And at the age of 24, it finally happened…and he’s never let me forget it.  A mild-mannered secretary by day and a determined word-wrangler by night, I battle the twin evils of distraction and procrastination in order to write fantastical tales of wuv…twue wuv…with a few bad haiku thrown in for good measure. 

I reside in the midst of an Iowa corn field with my hopelessly devoted husband and his mighty red pen; four crazy, cute kids; and an assortment of adorable kitties, chicks, and bunnies.

I’ve been spinning yarns for more years than I care to admit and I’ve got the calluses and paper cuts to prove it.  My first novel, The Lokana Chronicles, is currently undergoing a major rewrite in advance of another round of queries.  It’s anybody’s guess what will happen with it, but I hope someone will find it worthy and agree to publish it.  In the meantime, I’ll keep working on the sequels.

And procrastinating.  Cuz I’m good at that.  Wanna help me procrastinate?  Chat me up on Facebook or Twitter, or stop by my blog and start a conversation in the comments!