Behind The Title

At the end of my last semester, I sat in my fiction professor’s office to hear his critique on the revision I’d submitted. It was a stroke of luck that I’d been able to submit it in the first place.  

I’d given him the first twenty pages of my work in progress, “Realm.” In the other fiction workshops I’d taken I was required to write anything other than genre fiction, which to me was nothing at all. All of my ideas are fantasy fiction. Currently, my revision is a portal fantasy (so far, untitled) and my work in progress ("Realm") is high fantasy.

Once I listened to what my professor had to say, I grabbed my backpack and turned to walk out of the door.

Except as I stepped out of his office, I stumbled back in, pulled by a great force that could only mean my backpack strap was caught on the latch of the door. One of my classmates sat in the lounge on a couch, her laughter filling the small space. My professor, also laughing, asked, “Are you okay?” and I muttered a quiet, “I’m fine,” before I walked away.

Imagine that, the last encounter with my fiction professor.

I strode down the hall, still laughing, and it wasn’t until I reached the stairs that I remembered something a good friend of mine told me.  

We were in the Writing Center at our school, where I used to tutor. Discussion had popped up (as it usually did, since most of us were English majors) on what our memoir will be titled. She had already come up with hers, one of deep meaning that was based off of a song. I loved the sound of it.

“What about me?” I asked. If I come up with titles, it would have to be first, and I wasn’t about to listen to all of the songs on my iTunes.

Without skipping a beat, half-joking, she replied, “My Awkward Life.”

It’s the same answer she gave me when I asked her what I should call my blog.

True, she meant it as a joke, but to me it was more than that. Everyone’s life is awkward, and moments like this are ones we relate to. And someone who spends the majority of her time staring at a computer screen, playing with her imaginary friends, is about as awkward as you can get.