Choosing Your Novel's Title

I thought this was interesting. I've been toying with the idea of a steampunk novel for a while so I've been looking around getting the feel of what the genre is about (no, I'm not calling it genre fiction, at least I hope I'm not) and I kept seeing one author's name popping up over and over but oddly enough, the title of his novel would change, seemingly with each interview.

I'm not sure with this person's story is but his name is Trent Jamieson (his blog, which I haven't really read is here) and in three different features on him his steampunk novel is called "The Night Beyond Land," "Roil" and "The Festival of Float." I'm beginning to think this guy is a fabrication of some kind but there are other interviews with him, like this one and this one. Fortunately he is listed on Amazon.

Anyway, the point is that you're allowed to alter the name of your novel all you want, authors do this all the time. However, it's a good idea to stick with one title once you go public with your manuscript because I think that changing the title of it so many times in the public eye doesn't reflect creativity so much as instability.

1500 Books Someone Thinks You Should Read

Someone named Calazet has compiled a list of 1500 books he thinks you should read as well as some serials.

You may have some trouble getting the long list to load. What's interesting is not what's there but what is missing as well as some texts which most would agree need explanatory companion texts. There are also, as of this post, some mistakes like listing Orwell's "1984" twice, once as a number and once as text. Also, Issac Asimov's "I, Robot" is seemingly listed as just "Robot" in the serial section at the end.

There are some good things on the list to be sure but there is a subtle bias present as I suppose all lists of this length would have. For example, there are several religious texts listed, yet no books against religion nor are any books listed that explain religious texts in context, historically.

Still it's worth a gander.

Writing Tips, Advice and Cover Letters

Here are two quick links with advice about writing fiction in general and some advice for writing cover letters. I haven't read much on these two sites, but the portions I skimmed though seem worthwhile reading. Hopefully I'll have time to read more on there in the next few days.

Wordsmitten's Advice on Cover Letters & Holly Lisle's general tips for writing fiction.