After about a month of total slacking I finally started in on the second draft of my first novel again yesterday. It went well, I know where it's going, I've resolved all of my quibbling little plot problems and it's just a matter of sitting down and doing it now. Fortunately, I've got 5 days off from Wednesday to Sunday to build up momentum.
As part of my renewed work schedule, I've figured out the name for my novel, for the series the novel is in and even the name for the next novel in said series.
I call the series The Sorrows of Earth and Heaven.
"Sorrows" because I'm writing a tragedy of the most Shakespearean proportions. I'm writing a fantasy novel in the Chinese tradition, not in the European, and I want to make it plain to my readers from the outset that they shouldn't be surprised if most of the major characters die by the end of the series; in Chinese drama that's pretty much what happens.
"Earth and Heaven" because that's the Chinese way of saying "the whole world." (tian di is more accurately translated "heaven and earth," but I liked the flow of the phrase better when I reversed it.)
The title of each book in the series will be two of the "sorrows" in question - in other words, two of the topics/themes/whatever that feature in that particular book. So, the first book is Fire and Jade and the second is River and Pearl and that's as far as I've got.
And after over a year of not knowing that, it makes me very happy to have it down.