If I was ever going to finish this story, I realized it had to have a better title than Moraine, because that's just not descriptive of anything in the story. It's just the setting. So last night I rechristened the wretched tale "One Unicorn; Missing Uncle". This does two things for me:
- Aligns me with a camp in the on-going Unicorns vs. Zombies debate (I learned about the rivalry here). I also chose to start the Etiquette story, not the Zombie story, as my next project (I'm on page 4!), so I guess at least for now, I'm on Team Unicorn. This title, though still sucking, helped me start at the back of the story and do a bit more editing (on paper, maybe I'll type it in tonight...), working back-to-front for a nice change of scenery.
- Allows me to use my favorite piece of punctuation! A couple of years ago I took a copy-editing course where each of us, in order to introduce ourselves, had to tell our name, what we work at, and what our favorite punctuation mark is, and why. I said semi-colon, because once I was told by a teaching assistant that I shouldn't use more than one semi-colon on a page (have I told this story before? probably). That seemed like the stupidest rule ever, and I've strived to use semi-colons where appropriate ever since.