The Hunt For The Perfect Title

I HATE opening my manuscript called "Untitled" because it just doesn't seem right. It's like having a baby that's several months old and still calling him "Baby." Come on already! Give the kid a name!

I want to give this new work in progress of mine a title and yet, I'm struggling to find one.

This is why: Every name I think is perfect for my new book, some other author is already using.

Going back to the "Baby" example, I'm one of those people who like their kids to have unique names. I grew up always being referred to as Angela S. because there were other Angela's in my class. I didn't like it. So my three kiddos have some pretty unique names (okay, my oldest's name is not too unique because EVERYONE started naming their kid Caden around that same time). My other two, so far so good. Anyhoo...I don't want to give my book the exact same name as several other books already out on the market.

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I actually found a title I loved, taking it from the text in my manuscript, but there just so happens to be one book out there with the same exact title. And since I'm writing a clean romance, having my book titled Sand and Water linked to a male/male romance/erotica book called Sand and Water might not be such a good idea. Had it been about building sandcastles, then maybe I could've gotten away with it. But in this case, where both are in the romance genre, I need to move on and find something else. (Maybe I could just call my book Dirt and H20).

So what am I to do? The only thing I can...keep writing my "Untitled" book until another possible title jumps out at me from the text. I've never had this kind of difficulty in titling my books before, so this is new to me. Hopefully a title will show itself soon. I want to have a better connection to the story I'm writing, and for me, a name does just that.

How do you go about giving a title to your story? What is your process? Do you struggle or does it just seem to come naturally? Leave a comment and let me know. Thanks. 

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