Names, Dreams, & Peaches

Peach Parchment #4: Sept. 30th, 2024

Sep 30, 2024

What’s in a name? Everything.

This week’s newsletter is about unveiling the new name of my Substack:

PEACH PARCHMENT.

As I wrote about in my 1st newsletter, I had been toying with the idea of Substack all summer. Yet, the primary thing holding me back was a good name.

I knew I wanted a name separate from my own for this collection of writing, and not having one caused me hold off publishing here for weeks.

I journal almost every morning, and at the end of August, I wrote to myself: “If I start a Substack, a name will come to me. If I bite the bullet, one will come. Be patient.”

So that’s what I did. I started publishing these newsletters, hoping that a good name would eventually come. And late last week, a name came.

Previously, I only had two ideas for the type of name that I wanted.

The first idea was inspired by the production company Motel Mojave, which produced the movies Maxxxine. I liked the idea of evoking a physical place with a name—as if the writing here might was “located” within a physical liminal environment. Motel Mojave also communicates a tone and style. I love that both words give you a clear sense of atmosphere, both individually, but more so when they are paired together. And I love the alliteration.

The second name idea was color-themed. I was always taken by writers who had their published journals or diaries named after the color of the notebooks they used:

Albert Camus’ The Yellow Notebooks & The Blue Notebooks

Franz Kafka’s The Blue Octavo Notebooks

Paul Auster’s The Red Notebook

Carl Jung’s The Red Book

This naming practice is more functional. Physical and descriptive.

I had toyed with simply calling this Substack: “The Orange Notebook”, (mainly because Substack’s core color is orange) but that name didn’t sing to me.