Spring! Spring! Spring! Sun! Sun! Sun!

Good things are happening. Many good things in various spheres of my life. I'm in a good mood. I'll share the good things when they're share-able.

I had a tipping point moment last night with the next Marla Mason novel. (It's the Death novel. We had a Frog novel, a Dream novel, and now the Death novel.) I figured out a ton of stuff while showering around midnight. When I start a novel I always have several scenes in mind, I think of them as linchpin scenes, which are sort of the big cool awesome scenes everything else hangs on, that I look forward to writing, that pull me along through the book. I came up with about three linchpin scenes last night, and one of them even ties in a plot thread that I loved, but which seemed to be dangling rather oddly off from the main thrust of the novel. I'm basically at the point where I could start writing this thing... and I'll do so, after I revise Poison Sleep. The Death novel isn't sold yet, but I want to write it, so I will.

I have no ideas for a title, though. My working title, Sharp Angels, has become kind of loathsome to me. I'm open to better ideas. The book involves death (personifications of), knives, psychopomps, necromancy, the underworld, trains, love, an army of the ravening dead, etc. Suggestions for two-word titles (e.g., Blood Engines, Poison Sleep) are especially welcome. I'd call it Pale Dog -- the story with that title is actually part of the novel, in some ways the precipitating cause of the novel's events -- but, well, I called a story that, and besides, the dog isn't ultimately that important to the book. Any ideas?