I like Fevered Planet.

So do I but the Editor doesn't. Once I've sold them on buying the book I can try to talk them into a better title. My current thought.

Clean energy, not dirty wars: How diverting military spending into clean energy can make America Safer, richer and healthier.

Do you need to get the war thing into the title? Is that more important to you than the issue of market-driven reforms? I ask because your argument sounds like the reforms issue was more central, but you seem to be dropping that from your title now.

Not sure. I mean both important. Market tinkering won't solve the problem. Large scale public investment will, really large scale. IN theory we could get the money other places than cutting military spending - taxes on the rich and so on. But in practice I think a lot of has to come from cutting the military for various reasons. So: don't know. The thing is too much to really fit in a title. So don't know what shouuld be in the title.

I like your initial suggestion of Windmills, Not Weapons, TB, simply because of the alliteration. Regardless of who you expect this book to sell to, you have to sell this to marketing/committee first. And they like catchy. And no, what they like is not always in line with what people out in the Real World are going to like. (Keep in mind, the same kind of people who thought "Light my Fuego" was a fabulous title for what ultimately became Adiós to My Old Life. IJS.)

Anyhow, they like things they imagine are liable to jump out at the book buyers for the accounts. Alliteration is always a good bet.

Seriously. Try not to think like a writer—think like a marketer.

of the current choices, I like Windmills not Weapons too although my instinct for titles is not all that...a few weeks ago, I just managed a "didn't hate it," from EQ. Keep the part after the semicolon short, if you can.

I've been mulling a huge, complicated story for days, trying to plot the path to get to the climax of something I've been working on for years. And the idea finally popped in, the one that makes my eyes go big and the minor choir of angels let out a celestial chord. So I've written down the outline of it and will let it simmer for a few days to see if it will hold up, but I think, finally, the path is clear.

It's better than sex, honestly, because you can get sex more often than a good story epiphany.

Generally.

Glad to hear the big idea popped!

Glad to hear that the idea popped and that you have a good sex life.

Glad to hear that the idea popped and that you have a good sex life.

Well, you're half right . . .