Friday, March 1, 2013

A Quick Easy First Thing In The Morning Poll Question

Last night I realized if I'm going to be signing ARCS of The Shade Of The Moon at IRA in San Antonio and ALA in Chicago, I'd better have a short catchy phrase to inscribe in each copy.

For Life As We Knew It, I sign, Always have hope. For The Dead And The Gone, I sign, Never lose faith. For This World We Live In, I sign, Trust in tomorrow. That way I never have to worry about what to sign, and I can avoid those With Best Wishes kinds of things.

My first thought, given that nice big hunk of fire on the jacket was. Don't play with matches, but I decided against that pretty quickly. Then I thought about Fight For The Future. Granted it was four words, while the others were three, but it seemed decent enough, so I wrote it out a few times on the back of an envelope, to see what it would look like.

Sadly, it didn't look like much. My capital "F"s are serviceable and my small "f"s are okay, but my "the"s have always been problematic.They look like soft sloopy capital "X's with an "e" attached. They've looked that way since junior high, when I probably thought it was a charming affectation. Now it's just how I write the word, "the," which is the kind of word one writes a lot, even first thing in the morning.

So when I woke up this morning (less than an hour ago, and definitely at the insistence of Scooter), I came up with: Fight to believe and Learn to believe. No "the"s in either one. I did, when I handwrote them out, leave the "i" out of believe, but I'm confident I can remember to put it there smack where it belongs when I'll need to. I really do know how to spell "believe."

IRA is mid-April, so I still have 6 weeks to solve this dilemma. But I'll start by throwing myself on your early morning mercies. Let me know, by way of polling, if you have a strong preference for Fight or Learn, or if you have an alternative suggestion or you have confidence someone else does, even if that someone else might be me.

Just try to leave the word "the" out of it. And thank you in advance!

19 comments:

Marci said...

Fight for our (your) future.,

Susan Beth Pfeffer said...

Thank you Marci-

I like Fight for your future. It eliminates the "the" problem.

I'll see if I can find an envelope to practice it on!

Bonnie Jacobs said...

Learn to believe.

I'm all for learning and see no reason to connect the violence of fighting to a concept like believing. Even simpler would be...

Keep learning.

If you are committed to belief, maybe...

Keep believing.

By the way, this may be midafternoon, but I just woke from a nap. Does that count?

Mr. Cavin said...

"Dooooon't stop belieeevin'"

Then you could sing the Journey song at the top of your lungs all day while you're signing. (I voted for "learn to" by the way, though you could probably get away with just "believe".)

"Hold on to that fee-ee-eeelin'!"

Susan Beth Pfeffer said...

Thank you Bonnie Jacobs and Mr. Cavin for your excellent advice and fine harmonies!

Friendly Neighbourhood Bookseller said...

I like Learn to Believe. It calls back to Alex and Miranda's conversation.

Susan Beth Pfeffer said...

Thank you Friendly Neighbourhood Bookseller.

I'm thinking I might have a final poll in a few days to pick between the top listed (and unlisted) possibilities.

Anonymous said...

Never give up.

Anonymous said...

I like "Learn to Believe". It also speaks to a whole lot of cynicism we see today!

Anonymous said...

How does you "learn" to believe?

Susan Beth Pfeffer said...

Hello Anonymous, Anonymous, and Anonymous (and what a law firm you would make)-

The problem with Never Give Up (which is generally fine advice) is I don't remember a time in the book where Jon thinks about giving up. So it's good but not for this particular book.

And one certainly can learn to believe. If cynicism is one's natural state, it can take strength and energy to believe.

Anonymous said...

hi! im a really big fan of "the last survivors" series. If there is going to be a book 5 of the series, you should make it in Alex's point of view. Hes my favorite charcter too.

Susan Beth Pfeffer said...

Hello Anonymous-

As of the moment there are no plans for a Book 5. I think my publisher might shudder if I even brought the subject up just now.

But I'm glad you like Alex so much. I liked writing about him in The Shade Of The Moon, so if you hang on until Sept. 3, you can see how he's doing there!

Lilian E. Lauer said...

Fight. Definately fight. Learn sounds far too mellow for the Moon books.

Anonymous said...

I like Fight for your future.

As for a Book 5, never say never -- you never thought there'd be this one.

And your publisher is a gutless coward if THAT'S the reaction you get.

Anonymous Santa Fe

Anonymous said...

Correction: That's "How do you learn to believe."

Susan Beth Pfeffer said...

Thank you Catalina L.L., Anonymous Santa Fe, and Anonymous for your input.

Susan said...

I prefer learn to believe as it can definitely be a process. I actually like Marci's suggestion (Fight for your future) even better. Good luck figuring it out!

Susan Beth Pfeffer said...

Thank you Susan.

As of the moment, I'm going with Fight For Your Future, because Jon actually says something like that towrds he end of the book (I just edited the galley proofs, and there it was).

But I'm not 100% committed to it. I have about a month to change my mind!