Seventh Draft

Josh,

I went for a run today and tried to think of a name for this blog. I fretted. I came home and started pulling books from my bookshelf. I considered: "Too Loud a Solitude" (It was taken.) Skimming Sebald's Austerlitz, I considered: "But the truth is that we do not know what the herring feels." (Probably too long.)

Then I went back to your recent e-mail and considered a few of your suggestions:

NeuRoman (because it's my favorite font and punny! And pretentious!)

dialoghorrea (we'd have to say that this is pronounced Eva Longorea)

guitarface (I like this one, but it may be misleading/taken)

To be honest, I wasn't smitten. In the end I signed up for the blog and under pressure offered "Rough draft" which of course was taken, then "First Draft", also taken, then "Second Draft" and so on, until I got to "Fifth Draft" which was not taken. But what special ring does "Fifth Draft" have? None, in my opinion. So I skipped all the way up to "Seventh Draft" and that's what we have, although even then I would have preferred "Seventh Rewrite" or "Seventh Substantial Rewrite" or "Vomit Mouth", which my wife nixed, although this is certainly not her blog.

Anyway, in the end, I suppose what you wrote in your last e-mail is right:

"I would suggest not worrying about it too much, though--that's actually going to be one of my big personal challenges on this: Tossing shit off as if it didn't matter."

Well, with a name like "Seventh Draft" there's one thing I think we can be sure of: It won't matter...