A 100% True and Factual Account of How We Entitled My Book.

So, titles, yes. Titles took a while. Age of Assassins[1] was submitted under the original title of 'The Uncrowned Heir'[2] which I kind of suspected might not survive as all my historian friends had pointed a certain thing out about the title and a few editor types too, picky people, basically, had also pointed out the same thing. So it didn't wash. Fortunately, I wasn't hugely married to the title so finding a new one wasn't a big deal.

A lot of titles were thrown about. I did like 'All Deaths Well Intention'd' but it didn't really say Epic Fantasy and just after I'd suggested this the final title came about. Would you like to know how?

Yes?

Then I shall begin.

It came to me, as things often do, in a dream. In this dream I was approached by the ghostly form of Grrr Martin[3].

'Grrr Martin!' I said.

'It's George,' he said.

'Sorry, I always read it as Grrr and it's sort of stuck in my head.'

'But it is George.'

'My dream, my rules,' I said. I'm not sure he liked that but he had important news to deliver so he humoured me.

'I have the title for your booooOOoooOOOooOOOk,' he said in a particularly ghostly manner.

'Oh, good, because I've...'

'Age of Assassins,' he said, cutting me off because, to be quite frank, I think he was a bit irritated by the whole Grrr thing.

'That, Grrr, is epic,' I said.

'Then all is decided, oooOOOOooOOOOooo,' went ghostly Grrr.

'To be honest, Grrr, I'm not sure I am that epic. I'm just me, you know, sat here, typing away.'

'You must believe in yourself, RJ,' he said, and then he vanished leaving behind an echoing 'believe, believe, believe' behind. Well, I thought, no wonder his book's not finished if he's spending his time in other people's dreams giving them titles for as yet unpublished books. I can't agree with his suggestion now, as this would only encourage this sort of behaviour [4]

'I won't do it, Grrr,' I shouted into a dreamscape not unlike a misty sequence from a 70's Dr Who episode.

Anyway, the next day my editor, Jenni, got in contact and said, 'what about Age of Assassins, RJ?' and now I was no longer in a spooky and entirely made up dream sequence I thought it sounded pretty good and was actually surprised something so epic hadn't been taken so I said, 'let's do this!' and my themetune played and I slid straight into a writing montage.

*INTENT WRITING FACE*

1. Which I have taken to saying in the voice of the Space Ghost narrator.
2. But aren't all Heirs technically uncrown... SHUT UP. Shut up or I will cut you.
3. Dressed as Santa Claus, which he really made work and it was also an obvious and useful metaphor.
4. Yes, I am the parent of a small child. How did you guess?