So, this was not supposed to be the topic for my first blog post. I had some great ideas - the issue of resilience, the importance of great girlfriends in a woman's life, an intro into who I am and why anyone might want to read what I have to say, etc. And we'll get to all of those, but this is where I am right now: I hate titling things!
For instance, I had been letting the idea of my first blog post (on this blog, the YA Lit blog I've been talking about for six months is a whole other issue) for a few days, close to a week, and finally today decided to just jump and put it out there. And so I click on "start new blog" and the first blinky cursor to come up is in "Title." Well, shucks, I don't know what to title my blog, I haven't firmly defined the parameters of this blog, or what the goals are, or who my audience is, or or or or. So I finally type in "Percolations" after chatting with my friend Sharon, in Texas, who is awesome and didn't even tell me it was super weird to just throw into the middle of a conversation that I needed a title for a blog. And then I pick my layout (Simple) and head to my first blank page in the BlogWorld... and they ask me for a title for this blog post.
I never wrote titles for papers or assignments until I was finished with them. All of the titles of my documents in my documents folder, and now GoogleDrive, are as factual as they can be: KBlakeResume2.12.13, or AdministrativeAssistantCoverLetter, or Giver Quiz chapters 1 - 5. For me, titles are either factual or they have to come at the END of a task. How do I know what my final conclusions are going to be about this topic until I have fully processed them by writing them? How do I know what the actual focus of this blog post is going to be until I have finished it? So often writing changes my understanding of things that I am stymied by the idea that I have to write a title first.
That was always one of the most taboo things I would tell a middle schooler about a paper, a poem, a document... you DON'T have to give it a title right now. Give it a Working Title, and recognize that it can change. And for those kids that couldn't move forward until they had something centered on that first line I was always a little frustrated, hopefully only inside my head. Why was it so hard to just put something down for now and go back and change it later? Well, that was easy for me to say, I wasn't doing the assignment for a grade, or handing it in to someone to give me feedback. It took me a long time to get comfortable with using Working Titles and not feeling tied down to whatever I wrote at the outset of a task / writing assignment / project / etc. And, for some reason, I am right back to that original place of middle school panic about not having the PERFECT title IMMEDIATELY.
And why is this? What is it about a title or a definition of something that stymies so many people so fully, and so immediately? I think it is the sense of finality that comes with it. The title is the absolute first thing people see about a story, a document, anything that is given to us in written form. And there is a sense of finality about writing it down: once it is on the paper, or in the computer, that defines what has to come next; that defines what this entire written piece MUST be about. So how do you get past that? How do I re-remember that anything in writing can be changed? If I am the author, I have the final say. So, that title can be just a placeholder for now. For me, the computer has changed that. When I was writing with pen and paper as an adult, I would just literally NOT write a title down until I was finished with at least my first, usually my second or third, draft. And then I didn't have to look at it, or feel it mocking me, or feel constrained by my Title.
It is disconcerting to realize that I have taken steps backwards. That I was a teacher of writing for ten years, and constantly told kids that the first step was to get your ideas down and then you could go back and add and delete and change and fix, because as you write your ideas change and solidify and morph completely, so revision is completely necessary. And I believe that. I know that. I do that. Until I've had to come up with so many titles and headlines and such recently, I would have told you that I was completely fine with revision. But, apparently, I still have some roadblocks.
So, I hate titles. And I will probably want to change the title of this Blog several times, and I haven't even published my first post yet. Luckily for me, the Post Title box is still changeable, so I don't have to panic about that one quite so much.
Until my next title-ing panic attack, I wish you all a good evening.
