Chatterbox: Blab About Books

Hey guys! So, I'm writing a book. 

*studio applause*

Or two.

Or three.

But let's focus on that one first book. It has chapters, and I'd like advice on naming them. It's in first person, and the main character is a sweet, super-smart, amateur photographer named Will. He's kind of insecure, and so far there's been no main problems, kind of following him around in his life. Within each chapter, he jumps around a lot, from subject to subject, thinking a lot about the past and what could have been and what might be instead of what's actually happening at the moment, because that's just the way his mind works.

Thus, I'm having trouble naming the chapters. Does anyone have any tips? Here is the first chapter, which I have tentatively called:

Green Umbrella

Photography is easy in New York. There are so many things to see, so many people hurrying to and fro, so caught up in their own lives that they don’t notice if you raise your camera, click the shutter, and take a quick snapshot.

And if they look your way, suspicious,  you just pretend that you’re extremely interested in that shiny silver-blue skyscraper right behind them.

Dad bought me the camera right away when I asked. He also got me the connection plug, photo printer, and a basketball. I didn’t ask for the basketball. Dad probably figured since I am freakishly tall, I’d like it.

Dad figures a lot of things like that.

He’s usually wrong.

The first photograph I took with that camera was of a girl, a teenager, right after it had rained. She was wearing this duck-yellow raincoat and holding a green umbrella, and she was just standing in Central Park, face upturned towards the sky as if drinking the sweet, wet smell that comes from storms.

I had stood, kind of at an angle, appearing to be looking at a strange tree covered with pigeons. I focused in on her hand, the right one, the one holding the umbrella. You could still see her face, though slightly blurrily— At peace, wistful. She’s on the first page of my fat leather photo album.

I call the green umbrella girl Angelica. She seems like that name would suit her. Someday, I want to meet her and ask her why she was standing in Central Park like that. What’s your story?

I know I’m probably never going to be able to, so I make it up myself.

She’s seventeen, going to college at Juilliard, where she’s studying ballet. She looks like a dancer to me, her strong, quiet posture, the way her feet rested, one leg slightly bent gracefully behind her.

She likes rainbows, blueberry muffins, and snow, the soft way it blankets over the busy city, as if tucking it in for sleep.

In the album, there’s space for a photo, and some lines for a description. That’s where I write down the stories. Every snapshot has one.

If I had one wish is to find all those people I photographed and ask them for their stories, the real ones.

I also wish I had a duck-yellow raincoat and a green umbrella, because then I would wait for it to rain and then just stand in Central Park, face upturned to the sky, and drink in the sweet, wet, smell that comes from storms.