Over the years, I’ve created many different forms of content, from stories to poems, to game playthroughs and levels. I’ve written blog posts and I’ve uploaded photographs, and one thing which all of these things have in common is that they’re preceded by titles.
I don’t know if I’m unique in this regard, but giving something a title is one of my favourite parts of creating it. When I can, I try to make a title have multiple meanings, and sometimes I simply resort to puns such as ‘Tauren the World‘ on my gaming blog. (I never said the puns were good.) I typically don’t give something a title until I’m done creating it, which has led to a plethora of interesting file names in my personal stories folder, such as the great ‘Desert World Rename’, the intriguing ‘Feminist Arthurian RENAME’, and the hit success that was ‘Not A Hitchhiker’s Ripoff’.
A title is a consumer’s first impression of your content, bar illustrative eye catchers. Therefore, it is always something I try to make as succinct and as impressive as possible, something which will make you go, “Ah! That sounds like a read!” I’d like to think that previous blog posts ‘Devil’s Advocate’ and ‘Infinite Butterflies’ represent examples of such thinking. However, sometimes ambiguity isn’t necessary, hence ‘Respecting Faith’ and ‘History Repeats’. Before I toot my own horn too much, however, I think it necessary to acknowledge some title gore which can be found on this very site; for instance, ‘Prospective Retrospective Perspective’ tries far too hard to be clever and only ends up making little sense, whilst ‘Ancients as Moderns, Moderns as Ancients’ just doesn’t sit right with me. They must have seemed like good ideas at the time, though.
In 2013 I tried to write a diary-type thing which I’d completely forgotten about until I re-discovered it the other day. Essentially, every day I’d simply document notable events in bullet-point fashion, thereby documenting the year whilst not spending too long on the details, which I’d surely remember after the initial memory boost of the bullet point. This project lasted for exactly four months, ending alongside April, presumably forgotten with whatever intrigues May thrust into my life. (Spoilers: None.)
At the beginning of this year I had a similar idea, one which sits with me far better. Rather than documenting my life, this project holds the aim of being ambiguous whilst still somewhat autobiographical. To get to the point, I am giving each day a title to represent the key events (or whatever the hell else I did) in those 24 hours. It is made with the intention of being able to look back and wonder just what on earth titles like ‘Coldplay Bullets’ were referring to. (To be honest, already forgotten.) January is home to numerous hits, such as ‘The Infuriating Redundancy of Battery-Powered Lamps’, ‘Rare Appearance of the Iridescent Zebra’ and, of course, ‘Dinosaur Head’. I may publish the full list of titles at the end of the year, assuming I stick with it and that it doesn’t stray into personal territory. So far, the project has been fun, taking very little time and producing amusing results. I highly recommend it.
Perpetually Perturbed 