What’s In A Name?

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
― William Shakespeare

Do you know why hurricanes have names instead of numbers? To keep the killing personal. No one cares about a bunch of people killed by a number. '200 Dead as Number Three Slams Ashore' is not nearly as interesting a headline as 'Charlie kills 200.' Death is much more satisfying and entertaining if you personalize it. Me, I'm still waitin' for Hurricane Ed. Old Ed wouldn't hurt ya, would he? Sounds kinda friendly. 'Hell no, we ain't evacuatin'. Ed's comin'!
― George Carlin

Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.
― Neil Gaiman,

I feel like I’ve written on this subject before, but I couldn’t find it in my archives so if I did it was long enough ago that I feel safe in repeating myself.

Do you have trouble naming your characters? Sometimes the name for a character seems obvious, but sometimes it can take a lot of work. In the very first novel I wrote for NaNo (where I only made it to 30,000 words), the lead character and her best friend were easy to name. The rest of the characters, however . . . I think the male lead character stayed pretty much the same, as did the bad guy, but the rest of the characters underwent several name changes and there are a couple of them I still don’t think are quite right.

But two years later I wrote a NaNo novel that was based entirely on a name that popped into my head. The name was strong and so was the character it was attached to.

Names play an important part of our identity. They give us a sense of who we are and our place in the world. So it only follows that they’d do the same for our characters. Would the Harry Potter series have been the same if he’d been named David Potter? Or Aloysius Potter?

You could have a lot of fun with replacing the names of famous characters. :-D

Naming a character can put you under a lot of pressure because you’re not just naming your character, it’s your readers’ first introduction to that character and they’ll make up their minds about him/her almost immediately. First impressions are important.

A name can convey background – I looked up Russian names for my serial The Pond, because it started out in Russia. Names can convey trust or misgivings, familiarity or contempt, warmth or coldness. They can be musical in pronunciation, making you feel a certain way.

You character names should be deliberate and memorable, especially your main characters. And don’t name your characters with names all starting with the same letter. You may think you’re being clever, but you’re really not. What you’re doing is confusing the reader. The only time this is acceptable is when a pair of characters deliberately name their children that way as part of their characteristic.

Names for characters can come from just about anywhere. I used to have a couple of 'what to name the baby' books, but now I go to name generators online. THIS ONE has an option for real names that is broken down by country. You can also find names in other books, reading obituaries or birth announcements, or wandering around in a cemetery.

Just remember to choose your names wisely.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Hmm, what word should I pick to describe last week? Disappointing – maybe a bit. I think a better word would be angry.

So . . . about four or five months ago I had a root canal. Or at least the start of one. The special dentist who took care of these things, did whatever they do to get the tooth prepared for the filling part, and instead of giving me a permanent filling, put in a temporary filling. A couple of weeks after that I saw a regular dentist who drilled out the temporary filling and . . . decided she couldn’t fill it because it was too deep and my gum started bleeding. So another temporary filling.

I still don’t understand how they could give me a temporary filling there and not a permanent one, but I guess that’s beside the point. Anyway, she said I needed to see a periodontist to fix my gum first. To make a long story short, I saw him on Tuesday, and I don’t know exactly what he did but I have a stitch in my mouth, I’m on anti-biotics and pain-killers, and I have to rinse my mouth twice a day with a medicated mouthwash.

Anyway, this is my long-winded explanation as to why I was unable to implement my master plan for getting my goals figured out this week. The anti-biotics make me nauseous and the painkillers make me sleepy.

NEW WORDS:
1928+827+488+924= 4,167
UP 624 – words from last week

I’ve been getting my posts done earlier, which makes me happy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take advantage of all that extra time last week, which makes me sad. But my overall words are up. I guess I had more to say.

Goals For Next Week:
Get my blog posts written figure out my goals.

EDITING:
0 hours

I thought about editing, but that’s it. Maybe if I’d been able to spend some time in my office it would have been a different story. I’m thinking if I can break the task down, like I mentioned last week, it might give me more incentive to actually start editing.

Goal For Next Week:
Get to work on Elemental Spirit or some other piece that’s collecting dust.

POETRY:
I did the second of the two forms I need for reference purposes for this week’s poetry form. I actually got my poetry post done early, which is always a relief. But while my example stayed true to the form, I didn’t like it as much as last week’s poem.

This week’s form is already picked out, but I haven’t done more than the research on it. It’s a tad more complicated than I remembered, so hopefully I’ll be feeling up to getting an early start on it. I hope it lives up to its hype. LOL

Goal For Next Week:
Get the other form ready to share.

CRAFTING:
I was hoping to get the wooden sewing case I got from my father-in-law cleaned out so I could get it repaired, but . . . just one of the many things I didn’t get done last week.

There was a stitch-in at the library last week, and I worked on my sampler from the kit. I’m still thinking about where I’m going with the zentangle sampler. But Wednesday I had the opportunity to sit out on the deck for a while and I picked out the stitching I’d done on the sweet peas on the zentangle sampler.

Thursday my pioneer costume arrived. Not only does it fit perfectly, it looks great. The only problem with it is the zipper in the back. I’m not sure if they’ll let me get away with it or not. There’s still plenty of time to change it to an invisible zipper, or I could put buttons on it if I absolutely had to.

Goal For Next Week:
Continue on my samplers; do the alterations on a couple of dresses I bought several weeks ago.

WHAT I’M READING:
I am still reading The Boy in the Rain, by Stephanie Cowell. It’s kind of a sad tale, about a young artist and his older lover, written in a time when you could be sent to prison for being gay.

On the Kindle, finished A Hacker, Vampire, and Chimera Walk Into a Bar, by R.K. Munin and I’m halfway through a book that’s part of a duo that tricked me into thinking it was a paranormal because the title had something to do with dragons. Yes, I failed to write the title down when I started it, so you’ll have to wait until I’m finished before I can tell you what it is.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the good reading habits.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Well, it wasn’t the weather that got to me last week, it was the unexpected dental surgery I underwent. Along with the medications and nausea, I’m supposed to stick to a soft food diet until my stitches dissolve – which they haven’t yet. They recommend foods like mashed potatoes, rice, and pasta, all of which I try to avoid because of my diabetes. I have avoided testing my blood lately ‘cause I don’t really want to know how bad it is. But that’s another reason I’ve been so tired.

I’m actually looking forward to finally getting into some editing, and I’ve started a vague goal setting plan of action for it. The whole story hinges on the prophecies, so I’m going to start with them. Nice to finally have a jumping off point, but I’m not kidding myself about how much work it’s going to be.

If I have any extra writing time, I’d like to try and get ahead in Winter’s Child. It’s been going smoother than I thought it would – I think it was always meant to be a longer story, not a shorter one. But I think overall it’s still not going to be as long as I’d hoped it would be.

There’s a meeting of the poetry group this week. I have my poemwork done but that’s all I’ll be sharing. I get tired of sharing forms, but that’s all I seem to be writing lately.

Gave no thought to the poetry book last week, in fact it slipped my mind altogether. I keep a hard copy of my poems in this massive black binder, but I’ve fallen behind in printing them out and before I can consider a book, I’ll have to update it. I do not relish the thought, but maybe I can get a start on that this week.

Reading hasn’t exactly been a priority with me lately, but weather permitting it would be nice to sit outside once in awhile with a good book. Well, in the mornings anyway. By afternoon it’s getting too hot to sit outside unless there’s a nice breeze.

Last week did not help me move towards getting back on track, but at least I didn’t slide backwards. It’s not much comfort, but I’ll take it.