We have a title, thanks to you!!

Many thanks to all those lovely people who joined in my quest for a title for the ebook about Ecuador - both here and in my writing group. (If you've no idea what I'm talking about, scroll down to the previous post.)

It just shows (as if we didn't know) how impossible it is to please all the people all of the time. So I'm just going to run with the title that feels right to me. And, for those who disagree with me, here is my thinking:

I'm not going to use a title that includes 'boobies' - I floated that with tongue in cheek, knowing I'd never use it. I'm a feminist; I've signed the 'No More Page Three' petition; so I won't use female body parts just to make people titter. (And those who read this book will realise that I don't shrink from writing about hanky-panky. I'm no prude. And the birds and animals of Ecuador were having a lovely spring time while I was there!)

Which takes us on to Frogs and Frigate Birds - and the suggestion that I should drop the 'birds'. I can hear the poetry in Frogs and Frigates. But there are no warships in sight in this book. Not even one lurking in a harbour somewhere, nor creeping along the horizon. And so it feels, to me, misleading if I cut the 'birds'. I love poetry in titles as much as the next man or woman, but it also needs to give clues as to the contents of the book.

The next suggestion that needed much thinking: to add a third element. I recognise the strength of threes. But, to keep the rhythm of this, it needs a single-syllable word between the frogs and the frigate birds - making it Frogs, Fr?gs and Frigate Birds. Which, if I had met a frug or a frig or a frag would work - but I didn't. (Though wish I had ... What do you think a frug looks like ...)

So there we have it. Frogs and Frigate Birds it is.

Next stop - a cover.