names

Five on Friday – The naming edition

I woke up when Cassie woke up this morning but it wasn’t my turn to get out of bed. So I closed my eyes and started thinking about names. I have a lot of things that need names right now. So those of you that are good at naming things, please leave me lots of suggestions in the comments. 🙂  Thanks.

1. My new netbook needs a name. I’ve never named my computers before but I want to start. The netbook is blue and is my after hours and traveling buddy. He likes steak and potatoes and chocolate. He’s very impulsive and never stops to read directions before he puts something together.

2. My new laptop (won’t be here until next week) needs a name too. It’s an apple green workhorse that will be my main computer for everything. She’s a dedicated over-achiever always willing to work late for no extra pay. She’s a bit on the shy side and goes barefoot all the time.

3. I was even thinking about giving my office a name. I guess now that I’m spending more time in here (6 hours a day so far) I think we ought to move to a first name basis. It’s got a cozy, garden cottage sort of feel to it and I smile every time I walk in there.

4. Plant Kid’s story needs a name. I’m not stopping the work on Flyboy but Plant Kid is there, tugging at the edge of my mind and the hardest thing for me to tell him is that I have no title for him. I can’t start a book without a title. No, really I can’t. It’s a story about a kid who doesn’t have much of a family so he makes his own. Oh, and it’s about plants. And about how some things you want to fix can’t ever be fixed and sometimes that’s a good thing.

5. This blog needs a name. No, I’m not leaving Livejournal but I want to buy a domain name, set up a shell of a website, and then put the blog front and center. From there I can add things that will build around the focus of this blog which will still be about me but hopefully more bits about inspiration, persistence, and motivation for writers.

The floor is open. 😉

Friday, September 4, 2009|Categories: Random|Tags: |15 Comments

other names for grandma?

Okay, I’m trying to brainstorm other names for grandma.  (Added later – this is not for a book about grandmothers. This is for my WIP and I don’t want to use Gram or Grammy or Grandmother.)

Gran
Gram
Nana
Nona

Anyone have some others for me?

Thanks! 

Coming later today – Jim Averbeck’s interview!

Thursday, June 12, 2008|Categories: Random|Tags: |50 Comments

plant kid needs

a name.

Really.

I can ALMOST work without a title for the book but this no name thing for the plant kid is making me crazy. I had one name and I liked it a lot. But then I started trying to figure out how he got the name and it didn’t work with the story and now I’ve lost my connection to that name. Then I thought I had one that would work but it still doesn’t feel right.

I’m looking for a one syllable boy’s name, sorta soft sounding, not hard. Not too common. (Piece of cake, right?) Anyway, if you are one of those people who excels at names, I’m taking all suggestions.

Thursday, May 1, 2008|Categories: Random|Tags: |30 Comments

Do you enjoy coming up with character names?

I came to the conclusion a couple of weeks ago that I needed to rename all the characters in my book except for the MC. Have I managed to do that yet? No. None of them seem right. What’s worse, because I need so many of them, it feels overwhelming.

 If you are one of those people who can use a generic name until the right one comes along, more power to you. I can’t.

I really don’t enjoy trying to come up with the right name for each character. It’s downright painful sometimes, like trying on a pair of shoes in the store and you think they feel pretty good but who’s to tell when you wear them to work and it’s too late to send them back and suddenly you have a blister on your heel and you fold squares of toilet paper into a wedge and stuff it into the shoes so you can make in til the end of the day and then the next day the thought of even looking at those shoes makes you want to cry. (This can’t just happen to me, right?)

Tonight’s mission is to find one name, just one and I’ll be happy. Like a name for a rough-around-the-edges adult female character who becomes a mentor of sorts to the MC. Or names for the 3 or 4 kids that are obstacles to the MC through-out the book. Or a name for the dog even. Sheesh. It shouldn’t be that hard. But it is.

Flipping through the baby books isn’t doing it for me this time and I don’t think I even own a phonebook anymore (which is how I came up with my own name). So what do you do to find the right name for a character? And when you pick a name, does it feel instantly right or do you have to break it in, just like that pair of new shoes?
 

Monday, November 12, 2007|Categories: Writing Process|Tags: , |25 Comments