Titles are Hard

(Quick Prologue: This has GOT to be fate! As I was writing my blog tonight, I got an email from Kate Spade alerting me that they now have BOOK OF THE MONTH clutches. PURSES, shaped like NOVELS. Seriously. It simply doesn't get better than Book Clutches.) Okay, continuing on...

Should I be writing a memoir? I learned today that Justin Bieber has a memoir coming out (First Step 2 Forever. Um…okay). Really? Really, Justin Bieber? Okay, well, it seems that I too am qualified to pen a memoir.

First thing’s first. I have to have a great title. It should be punny, as I just really love puns. Pharon Nuff (say it fast)? I could also name it something really heavy and serious to totally mess with the readers. The Tragedy of Misfortune – and it’d be, like, hilarious. Or maybe something like Eat Drink Love (Then Eat Again…and Probably Drink Again)? I don’t know. Okay, let’s not start with the title. Titles are hard.

Now, what’s happened in my life that warrants a good memoir? My sister Prinna is working on hers. She’s one of those pesky “legitimate writers” who has all this "talent" and “material” to put down onto paper that actual people will want to “read”. Annoying.

The problem is, I haven’t learned any great truths in my life (yet), and I’m not a multi-millionaire, platinum-record selling, international superstar (yet). If I were to write a memoir right now, it’d be about what I’m having for lunch today and what my lunch may consist of tomorrow. Not exactly page-turning stuff, folks.

Yes, I realize there is irony in blogging daily about things that basically boil down to things like “what I had for lunch”, and then writing about how I’d have nothing to write about if someone actually asked me to write about something. I get it. But penning an actual BOOK, on paper, that has a binding and sticker price slapped on it seems so different to me. I’ve always had a love affair with books. I love the smell of the binding, I’m one of those hated – and misunderstood – “page-folders” who turns down a corner of the page to mark my spot, and I love running my fingers over books on the shelf and feeling their rough, tangible covers.

So, to put something together that would sit on someone’s bookshelf seems like such an incredible feat to me. I wonder if people think about this when they write their memoirs. Did Paris Hilton take note of the texture of the pages as she signed the zillions of copies she sold? I doubt it.

But I started reading a memoir tonight called The Glass Castle (which I HIGHLY recommend!) and I caught myself remembering the way my mom’s top dresser drawer always smelled just like her Estee Lauder perfume, and I couldn’t stop myself from writing down all the contents of that drawer. Which led me to write about her pair of black patent leather high heels with leaf-shaped cut-outs that I used to put on and pretend I was at a gala of some sort. I loved those shoes. And I loved that drawer. And I really loved writing about them.

But, if I end up putting those things on paper, printing the pages out and binding them, I should probably rethink the possibility of a title like Getting’ Drunk and Bein’ Irresponsible.