This has taken longer than it would have if I were just working, rather than working and flying, but my planned revisions on the novel I had been calling The Eyelet Dove are done. I’m pretty happy with it overall, though revisions have a tendency to take the shine off of things.
I’ve been considering changing the title for quite some time though, despite The Eyelet Dove being a phrase that nicely rolls off the tongue. The thing is, it makes it sound more like a novel aimed at female readers, and it’s really not. Not at all. I mean, there’s female characters, but they like to blow a lot of shit up, you know? Which is not to say women won’t enjoy it – I just want to make sure it doesn’t sound like something that only women would enjoy.
At the time I came up with the title, I hadn’t come up with a call sign for the character Michel. When I finally realized that I had subconsciously cannibalized my very first novel (practice novel – will never see the light of day – I can’t even look at it without cringing) for a lot of the themes in this one, I decided I might as well use the same theme for call signs as I had for code names in that old novel. Which was songbirds, and Michel’s call sign became “Redwing.”
Redwing makes a much better title, I think. The feel of it reflects the type of story it actually is, so I’m going with that.
Anyway, I’ve revised my query letter, and I’ve sent out a couple queries. And I’m done that in time for NaNoWriMo to start. Those who know me know I do that every year. I don’t know how well I’ll do this year – I’ve made it to 50k the last four years, but not the three years before that when I was going to school while working. Now I’m in school again, so that has to come first, but I’m hoping I’m prepared enough to be able to make it again. After all, I have a 20 chapter outline already. But I’ll post more about the next project closer to November.
In other news, I’ve posted a review of Jay Kristoff’s Stormdancer on the Punkettes Blog – go check it out – the book was everything I was promised and more. I think I’d call it the best steampunk related work I’ve ever read. Book two just came out yesterday, so I’m off to go pick up an e-pub copy.
Safe landings, all!
Lindsay Kitson - Author and Pilot 
While I have no problem with a book appealing mainly to women or mainly to men, I agree ‘REDWING’ is more gender neutral, not to mention short and catchy. Best of luck!
Thanks. And that’s exactly it, I don’t want it to sound like its directed at a gender – I want to reflect the material and readers can decide for themselves if it’s for them, male or female.
Isn’t there a sports team by that name? I still like the Eyelet Dove better. :p Maybe you should call it “Gears on a Plane” and have the planes flown by clockwork cats… :p
My WIP has a chapter called ‘PLANE IN A SNAKE’ which is actually about a plane that gets eaten by a snake. A very BIG snake of course, and a rather small plane, but big enough to contain my young hero and his mentor. It’s even weirder than it sounds, but so am I! Now maybe I can work in some clockwork cats…
BTW Lindsay, I read your ‘STORMDANCER’ review, which is quite interesting.
Clockwork cats are awesome. Turtle also hates clockwork cats.
😛 I know you still like The Eyelet Dove – that’s why I had decided not to change it before. But you seem to be the only one who doesn’t like Redwing better and agree that it reflects the story better. So I considered all the things I you and I agree on with regards to writing, especially on the subject of style, and decided it gets to be Redwing.
But I still love you 🙂
I think changing the title is a good move. “Redwing” is punchier and as you say less gender specific, aIthough I do think “The Eyelet Dove” has a kind of beauty to it as a title, but it doesn’t really make a massive amount of sense to me (eyelet is the small hole in a shoe that a lace goes through, a dove is, well, a dove…) and yet – there is something about it, some magic. It might be a title you can use another time.
Also, as someone whose read your story I know it’s not really “for men” or “for women” and whilst there is a certain amount of blowing up stuff etc. that is kind of irrelevant in terms of gender.
I hope something comes of your queries, and I’d be interested to see what you come up with for NaNoWriMo.
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Eyelet is also a type of lace, which is the main thing that makes it a feminine sort of title. I’ll probably recycle the title at some point, when I come up with something I can use it for. The title of my first ever novel was “Swansong”, and I really like that one too, but I haven’t found a story it really fits well yet.
As for the Nano, I’m really excited to get started on it – it’s going to be YA, and with the outline I’ve got, I know it’s going to come out as smoothly as the last YA novel I wrote. And it’ll be fun to get back to writing about flying 🙂