I need a tagline. Something appropriate for, let’s say, a bookmark. Put differently, I have to distill my entire book, the product of hours, days, months of work, into a few words. Not necessarily a sentence. A few words that suggest a sentence. If you are a marketing professional you might jump on this opportunity. Headlines! Titles! Taglines! Short, snappy and full of punch. This is the reason I am not in marketing. It is also the reason I don’t write short stories. They are, to be clear, too short. Actually, this exercise is one long flashback to writing the summary section of my query letter. (Deep breath, that one worked, surely I can conquer this hurdle.) Hmmm. Maybe I should look at that letter again and Wordle it? I’ve read that a tagline is mission, promise and brand. Give me 5,000 words and I can bring it home for you. Actually, right now, I’d settle for 300 words, since I’m staring 3-7 in the face. In a perfect world I would have worked my way through the problem to end this post with my tagline. Instead, I will end with the decision to go back to writing my next book. Never thought I’d say that the need to write a few thousand words was comforting.
