What's in a name?

Apologies to Shakey for pilfering his words for the title of this entry, but it seems that I am incapable of original thought just now. Last night, during a rare foray into the seething mass of adverbs and POV switches that is Tyrone's NaNoWriMo novel, I hit upon what seemed to be a subtle and nicely mellifluous title for it. For a happy moment this inspired happy daydreams of seeing said title on said novel (now with its adverbs under control), and made me think that one day I might actually get the damned thing finished. This was nice, as ice ages have passed more swiftly than I am currently editing.

However (and of course there is a however), a quick jaunt to Google was typically disheartening. As you have no doubt surmised, a book of the name I had hit on already exists (as near as damn it, except that the existing tome prefers a definite article). I realise that this shouldn't matter. But incidents of this nature bring out my worst dog-in-the-manger side (no dog jokes, thank you), and now I like the title a billion times better for knowing I can't use it.

In the spirit of this post, I will close with the words of another. As Captain Darling so wisely said: 'Bugger.'