When I made the decision to toss out pretty much everything I ever wrote in the gazillion (not much of an exaggeration) drafts of my current WIP I knew that there were more changes ahead. I didn’t, however, think that I would be changing all the names of the characters in the book. At least not at first.

But in last night’s writing session (where I didn’t even manage one true sentence ) I realized the time had come to let go of what was probably just a silly author prank on the readers. (Now, keep in mind that I started this book over 20 years ago, long before I had sold much of anything at all.) 

I can’t believe I am going to admit to all this but here goes . . . Because the book centers around airplanes I thought it would be interesting to name the characters in the book something that had to do with airplanes. Yes, that’s right. Airplanes. 

I was creative, for the most part. I mean I didn’t have a bunch of people called Cessna or Piper or Lear. They were more obscure names. Mostly. But here’s the thing, I’ve been thinking about my one true sentence and how it relates to the plot of the book. There’s one character whose name could be an airplane. Or not.  And I realized the story that went along with that could actually support my initial one true sentence. I think that’s good but if everyone around the character has the same sort of name it might lessen the impact. I think.

So tonight’s writing session will be all about finding the right names for these characters. Again.