Days later, I bought and began to read Salter’s famous novel A Sport and a Pastime, which begins, “September. Not too long after I’d been released from prison, the place where I wrote the first few words of what I envisioned then as a fictionalized version of my life story, I happened upon a profile of James Salter in my local newspaper. The first name I gave it was Luminous Days (there’s even a tattoo on my forearm to honor it). That being said, my novel has seen a few name changes. Names have made me think about the pressing thing or things I want to say, and have helped me consider my reader: What do they need from the language, the characters, the story? Names have always helped my ideas cohere (or at least transform from inchoate to an emerging form). Here’s a confession: It’s tough, close to no-way-no-how, for me to write something without first giving it a name.
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