Vote for a Title

Note: Additional potential titles added 1/10, 1/11! Plus updates! See below.

Now that I've written a bit more about what Destined to Choose is about, I want to share what Book #2 is about.

I have an in-progress 25-words-or-less summary of Book #2, working title: As in Days of Old, which is:

"Minneapolis Rabbi David Cohen intervenes to help catch a violent stalker while David's wife decides to get more involved in his career."

22 words. Not a lot to play with there, but I'll keep trying.

Now for the longer version of what it's about:

It's almost Chanukah, and Rabbi Batya Zahav, a Reform rabbi, David's friend, and wife of Arik, an Israeli-born Minneapolis police sergeant, is being stalked. It begins with threatening letters but quickly escalates. No witnesses, few forensics, and no idea who the stalker is or why he's targeting Batya.

Frustrated by the lack of progress, Arik involves David in his own investigation, leading them through a chain of fundamentalism and hatred hidden beneath the city's facade of "Minnesota Nice."

Simultaneously, David's wife, Sara, decides she no longer wants to be on the sidelines of David's career, and initiates actions that could jeopardize his future as a rabbi. While balancing all of this, David is also hosting a friend from rabbinical school and his wife, who find themselves dragged into the middle of a crime scene instead of enjoying a vacation.

That's off the top of my head, so it will change (dramatically, I hope) before it gets to any sort of official print.

And here's where I can really, really, REALLY use your help. I need some feedback on potential titles. What do you like? What do you not like? Why? Do you have a better title? (Acknowledgement will be given for anyone who comes up with the published title!)

You can leave comments or email me, because I really want to hear from you!

Here's what I have:

1. As in Days of Old (working title)
2. Anger Avenged
3. Broken Pact
4. For the Miracles (modified)
5. In Your Midst
6. Payback
7. Rededication
8. Rewards of Vengeance
9. Faith and Fear (new)
10. Safety From Within (new)
11. Strength to Strength (new) (also a common Jewish phrase)
12. Strength to Stand (new)
13. Strength to Prevail (new)

The published title might be one of these, or might be none of these. I'm too close to it and have been calling it one thing for too long. So knowing what you now know about the book (ask questions here if you need something more - except the ending, which I won't give away), what's your vote? (You may vote for more than one.)

Update: As of Thursday, 1/10, I've had quite a few responses both in the comments below and through email. THANK YOU! The general consensus is that title prospects 1-8 are likely not high in the running, but based on various suggestions, five more (9-13) have been added. I will note that I have a new favorite for lots of reasons, but I'd like to hear what you think first.

Update #2: Having just answered the comments I've received on the blog so far, I realized that I wrote something rather key:

"this book is less about choice than it is about standing up for what you believe in, especially when that belief is threatened."

While Judaism is certainly more than just a set of beliefs, the above statement really is the heart of the book.

Bonus Features 1: Behind the Summary

I said earlier that I thought books ought to have a bonus features element like DVDs do, with input from the director, outtakes, deleted scenes, the-making-of featurettes and so on.

And then I thought, well gosh, those are great things to put on a blog!

I've also been thinking about Batya's comment that a pitch for the second book must be for those who are new to the series, not for those who have already read Destined. And she's right.

In fact, when I started Book #2, I wanted it to work as a stand-alone novel, where you could read it without having first read Destined, or read them out of order, or whatever, and it would still make sense. (I read mystery series all the time out of order.)

And then I realized I had failed to do one very important thing: I don't have a summary of either book on the blog! (Bad Sheyna)

Until now.

Which brings us to the first in a whole bunch of bonus features, some of which I'm really excited to share because they were part of the research I did (hours and hours of research) for the series and while readers get to see the result of all the research, you don't always get to see the cool details.

The text on the back of the book reads:

When Anna Rosenfeld writes a college philosophy paper, she never expects it to jeopardize her relationship with her grandfather, Avram, or leave her alone and afraid on the streets of Minneapolis. Help comes in the form of Rabbi David Cohen, spiritual leader of Avram's synagogue, who is struggling with his own personal demons admist difficulties with both his family and his congregation.

Trained in both psychology and Talmudic argument, and armed with his faith in G-d, David must help Anna and Avram face the real issue that divides them before time runs out. Set against the backdrop of Tisha b'Av - a time of mourning commemorating multiple instances of causeless hatred - they bring together their memories and experiences as they confront evil itself and answer a cry for help that no one expected.

That was the official "teaser," though now, some four years later, I'd tweak it a bit.

In my experience life is complex, so there are several subplots as well:

• David's family is feeling the effects of him rarely being home, resulting in an unhappy wife (Sara) and his oldest son (Ben - 8) acting out at school and in synagogue
• The adult son of a prominent board member wants to marry a non-Jewish woman who is more intrigued by Wicca than she is by Judaism, and David is caught in the middle
• The board president (Billy) is far more interested in increasing the shul's budget than the spiritual quality of the lives in the congregation, and when David refuses to abandon ritual for fundraising, Billy is determined to find a different rabbi for the shul
• The cantor exercises the at-will clause in his contract and leaves for a large, influential synagogue on the West Coast, giving David and the board less than two weeks notice and no one lined up for the High Holy Days

A Jewish bookstore owner called Destined to Choose "Rabbi Small [series by Harry Kemelman z"l] meets Faye Kellerman," which was awesome praise, I thought. I need to get her permission to use that as a blurb!

What more do you want to know?

Setbacks Are Just Alternatives to Success

Today was the deadline to have the manuscript ready for beta readers, having allegedly gone through the out loud reading I mentioned earlier.

Minor setback: I got sick and this is the second day I've had no voice. (I only wish I could say it was all that new year's cheering, but alas, I was in bed early due to aforementioned illness.)

Wanting to press on, however, I found an alternative. I couldn't read anything aloud, but Husby could! And, it turns out, this may well turn out to be an even better way of checking the ms for understandability, word use, and so forth.

And so we read on...

Why It's Good to Read a Book Aloud

Most readers aren't aware of everything that goes into a manuscript after it's written but before it can be prepared for publication. But you aren't most readers because you're here and I'm going to share with you all the fun (sort of) ups and downs.

So, I finished writing the manuscript (shorthand: ms) last Wednesday. But before I can print out half a dozen copies and give them to my beta readers (more on that in a moment), it needs a read-through.

Out loud.

What may look good on paper and even sound fine when you're reading silently can be downright nasty when spoken aloud. That's not good. Downright nasty doesn't belong in a published book. I did this with Destined and it was amazing how many things I caught:

• How many times do characters begin their dialog with "Well,"?
• Do two or more characters use the same idiosyncratic speech pattern?
• Is the point-of-view (POV) consistent, or is there "head jumping"?
• Just how many times do you just use the word "just"?

Oh, there is so much to find, so much to correct. And it doesn't work quite as well when you're reading it aloud to yourself. Because, after all, you wrote it.

So we look for an audient. (I figure if many people in attendance is an audience, then a single person listening is an audient.) In my case, Husby is quite convenient.

Consequently, over the last few days (excepting Shabbat, of course), I've been reading the ms to him out loud. Lemme tell ya, my voice is starting to fade, and we're only to chapter 13. But it is already making a difference in what I'm able to catch both in basic errors and in structure and word choice.

Since Tuesday is a holiday (we did our New Year thing back in September; this one we celebrate pretty much simply by buying a new calendar), on Wednesday, the plan is to print and bind about half a dozen copies of the ms and give them, with a complimentary red pen, to my beta readers.

What are beta readers? They're people I've specifically requested read the ms and mark it up. I trust them to tell me the honest truth. If there's something that needs fixing, I want to know about it so I can fix it! Anything they love, hate, don't understand, anything that needs clarification, isn't accurate, or is a must-keep - they mark it and I use it to do Edit #2.

A few people who were beta readers for Destined have volunteered to read this one. And my favorite, to be honest, was a reader who wrote not only comments to me for purposes of the next edit, but also comments to the characters! I'm looking forward to her comments on this ms.

So that's the latest update. Husby gets to hear a bunch more chapters read aloud to him and then I'll move on to the beta readers. And all this before it gets to my editor, who will I hope, edit it within an inch of its life so that it can be the best book possible.

Hey Hey Haveil Havalim #147

Want to know what's going on the Jewish blogosphere? Go to this week's Haveil Havalim over at Soccer Dad's blog and see who's doing what or to whom.

Really. Go. I'll wait. You can always come back here and read more when you're done there. (Plus there's a link there back here, so you won't forget.)

Chapter and Terse

88,197 words

2,920 paragraphs

403 pages

33 chapters

20 major characters

6 beta readers

3 book editors

1 novel

DONE!

Yes, the first major edit of the completed manuscript of the second in the Rabbi David Cohen series is DONE!

Today's assignment is to break it into chapters. I don't write chapters as I'm actively working on the ms so much as I write sections. Later some will become chapters and others will remain sections within a chapter.

I need to look at how the story flows and where a good breaking point for a chapter would be (with an eye always toward cliffhangers and other nefarious means of keeping readers from putting down the book), and then also look at how many pages are in each chapter, to achieve some balance throughout the book.

Next up, making printed copies for my beta readers, who will have something to curl up with and mark up with red pen in January. Then it's on to my primary editor and advance copies to go out to pre-publication reviewers.

In addition to asking for your help with the pitch, you all are also de facto part of my focus group (isn't that cool?) so I'll be asking your opinions on a bunch of stuff, including your votes for the published title (rather than the working title I've had), votes for your favorite cover, and so forth.

You can help determine the future of Jewish literature!