Happy full moon, folks! This marks one year of the Substack, since it started with last summer’s July Buck Moon… and here we are, still standing and moon-gazing. Thanks for being here with me on this journey.
I’ve been working on some pre-launch book stuff, and recently, someone asked me about the genesis of the title: Where Every Ghost Has a Name.
The title was one of the last things to fall into place, as I am very bad with titling things. If the book took 15 years to mature (granted with much time simmering on the back burner while I worked on other stuff), the title took 14.5 years…. There were so many bad titles!!! Here are a few…
From Fulton Street to Formosa
Taipei 101
Girl Meets Formosa (this was also the title of my blog when I was in Taiwan, which was probably a fine title for a blog but not right for this book)
The Lost Family
The Price of Freedom
The Cost of Freedom
Some of these titles are better or worse than others, but none was quite right for this book — a hybrid memoir that, while researched and incorporating serious historical moments, also seeks to be a literary adventure, like a nonfictional novel.
So where did this title come from?
This brings me to the theme of today’s post — a large field to wander in.
Writing teacher and my personal writing guru Natalie Goldberg talks about this in her remarkable book Writing Down the Bones:
“At some point in our lives we have to be crazy, we have to lose control, step out of our ordinary way of seeing, and learn that the world is not the way we think it is, that it isn’t solid, structured, and forever. We are going to die someday, and nothing can control it… Give yourself tremendous space to wander in, to be utterly lost with no name, and then come back and speak.”
Part of it is about giving yourself permission to take risks, to write garbage, to create the worst junk in the world…. Because so much of the creative process is unclenching, relinquishing control, and letting your mind wander. Dream the irrational dream, write the impossible phrase, conjure a little deep magic from the depths of your psyche.
So, wandering!
Two summers ago, I went on the best writing residency of my life, just about 3 weeks at Ragdale, outside of Chicago. It was an amazing group of people, too, but the residency itself suited me well. We were away from the city, but near a town, so it was easy to stock up on fruit or chips or La Croix at a moment’s notice; I had private quarters with a writing desk in my room, but there was a communal house with tables and porches and sofas and lots of books for reading or writing. Indeed, I got into an afternoon habit of editing previous days’ work with pen and paper on a screened in porch with a giant iced coffee next to me, a blissful before dinner activity.
But one of the nicest parts of Ragdale was the acres of prairie out behind the buildings, where we were free to wander and roam at any time of day. It was literally a large field to wander in, and as someone not terrifically athletic, this was an inviting and accessible alternative to mountain hikes or other more extreme outdoor offerings at other residencies.
So I would wander the prairie, and on one afternoon, I found myself returning, and approaching a historic part of the property that housed a small burial ground and memorial mausoleum.
I thought about how so many of the people in my book had now passed on from this life, as they had lived through these terrible trials in the 1950s and 1960s. I thought of my dad not living long enough to read the final book, and of all the ghosts of the White Terror period whose stories I sought to witness.
Maybe the title would honor these ghosts somehow.
A title flashed through my head: “where only ghosts can hear you scream,” and then quickly thought, no no, this isn’t a horror movie.
But then a second, friendlier title emerged: “where every ghost has a name,” and that one felt good. Interesting. I liked the sounds. I rolled it around in my head for a bit longer as I walked back to my room, took a shower, went to dinner. By the time I went to bed, I’d decided: this was my new title, unless something better came along.
In the Harry Potter books, they say the wand chooses the wizard. I had never had an instance of the title choosing the author until that moment. But it stuck.
Also at that residency, a friend offered a great writing prompt for unsticking your brain and choosing a new title for a piece, so here it is:
On a sheet of paper, write out all of the letters of the alphabet, vertically. Then, write 26 title ideas, one starting with each letter — and get as silly or weird or crazy as you want!
Our friend emphasized that a perfect title may not instantly materialize, freeing one’s mind is the objective here. Also, I tried this prompt about a week before the prairie dropped my title on my head, so the freeing one’s mind bit may have worked.
To quote Lucas from Empire Records, “Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear.”
To try to link all of this back to the moon, the Buck Moon is about animals growing, maturing, and summer bringing out change in all of us. So I wish you happy wandering! I have just started something new, and it’s in that wandering, playful space, so I’m trying to nurture it and shelter it and keep going and see what happens. I wish you happy wandering!
Also, here’s how to pre-order my book:
And if you want to wait a hot minute and support an indie store, WORD Bookstore is going to do a pre-order campaign soon, so I’ll share those details ASAP.
Love all of this! Preordering now! I was at Ragdale last year, and love imagining we shared that space.
Love this! I didn't know the story of your title!