Wanna know a really great way not to get anything done? Just sit around skewing titles of great books to make them sound less interesting. Death of Pie. Or A Trolley Car Named Who Cares? Or Bananas of Wrath. Doesn’t that sound like fun?
A couple days ago, a writer/blogger/tweeter named Nicola Morgan posted a harmless tweet with the hashtag #lessinterestingbooks. In less time than it takes to drive from my house to Disneyland, her hashtag was the number 1 tweet in the UK. A few hours later it was the number one Twitter hashtag in all English-speaking countries. This is exactly how it happened, in her own words:
“I was on Twitter during my coffee break (in answer to my husband, who said, “Why weren’t you working?”) and someone mentioned reading Lord of the Flies. But I briefly misread that as Lord of the Files. And I thought how much less interesting the book would have been if it had been called Lord of the Files. Such is the incredible profundity of this creative mind. Not that I didn’t have a lot more important things to do than becoming No 1 on Twitter, of course. So, I tweeted: Lord of the Files #lessinterestingbooks.”
That’s all it took. Mutant morphisms of beloved and not-so-beloved books began to crowd the Twitter wire and then blogs, including this one, via a post by good friend James Scott Bell. The comments on this blog alone number over 100. Now I can procrastinate as much as the next writer, but I actually did not have the time to read the thousands of lessinterestingbooks on Twitter. But I did read these on Jim Bell’s post. And omigoodness, they are funny. What a way to waste some valuable writing time. Here are my favorites with their creators in parantheses:
- “Boysenberry Finn” (Katherine Hyde)
- “The Girl With the Hello Kitty Tattoo (bjmuntain)
- “That Bourne Guy That Can’t Remember Anything” (John Hagenson)
- “The Sit” (James Scott Bell)
- “Paws” (Joe Moore)
- “In Room Temperature Blood” (Mike Dennis)
- “Ambivalent George” (mine! for the kiddos!)
So how about you? Want to give it a whirl? Think of a favorite book. Mess with the title a bit but definitely make it less interesting. Post it in the comments. I will start with one of my own books.
“Man in a Hurry.”
GO!
The No. 23 Ladies Detective Agency
Funny, D'Ann!!
“Wanna know a really great way not to get anything done?” My first thought was “Susan's still pounding out those first 50 pages waiting for her MC to speak.”
Since I don't Twitter, I hadn't seen the other posts and titles, but these are fun. I planned to do LADY IN WAITING, but you beat me to it. So on to a few other faves:
“To Step on a Potato Bug”
“Here Burns my Mosquito Repellent Torch”
“Yours is the Night, Mine is Dragging Myself out of Bed at 5 AM”
“Though the Faucet Trickles”
“The Corpse is Lookin' Kinda Pale”
“Went to the Desert and Came Back with a Cheap T-shirt”
And, since Sooz is always included in my fave fiction:
“The Shape of the Paper Sack”
Thanks for the fun diversion. Creativity isn't wasted here.
Blessings,
Mary Kay
Nice one. How about “The neighboring field” instead of “The far pavilions” (M.M. Kaye).