Living the Fictional Dream

Naming is such a tricky thing. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, a character will spring to mind with his or her name already in place. Sarah Kirby from “The Widow and the Stranger” was like that. Some of the characters from my novel-in-progress — Caryn, Sean, Brilynn — as well.

And then there are the ones I have to struggle for. I flip through name books or name websites, looking for the perfect name. Sometimes I’ll pick a letter of the alphabet and go through all the names for the appropriate gender that start with that letter. I’ve always believed that characters should have names starting with different letters so it’s easier for the reader not to get them confused. In a novel, you can have a couple with the same initial, but the shorter the story, the more strictly I try to adhere to this rule.

I always thought that my experience naming characters would be helpful when it finally came time in my life to name a child, but now that my first little one is on the way, it’s not proving such an easy task. Of course, for the baby, my husband and I actually have to agree on a name. (Well, I guess that’s not always true, but it’s important to me — I want him to love what we name our child just as much as I do.)

The problem is, we have very different ideas about what makes a good name, especially for girls. We had our boy’s name totally picked out, but since the ultrasound said girl, we’ve been wrangling back and forth for months.

I love plant names… Sage, Holly, Rose, Laurel. He thinks that those names are too sissy, and has outlawed all plant names. Left to his own devices, he chooses many names that I think are too common or boring.

And, as if we didn’t have enough trouble between the two of us, there are always plenty of other people to offer suggestions and opinions. My sister loves the trendy names, like Piper and Taylor. My in-laws prefer more traditional names, like Ann — and they especially dislike names coming from the natural world (like Sierra) or names that would have nicknames. One friend told us that we should be sure to name our baby something that you can find on those racks of keychains in souvenir shops, because the child would be disappointed all of her life if she couldn’t be a part of that. Another friend tends to point out negativity in the meaning of a name (Leah was the unwanted sister in the Bible, Sage is a big ugly bush).

Now I understand why some people don’t tell anyone the name until the baby is actually born and the name is on the birth certificate, LOL! But a lot of times, the comments are helpful and encouraging, and sometimes other people see something that we didn’t see before. My husband especially gets a kick out of announcing the “name of the day.” I think it amuses him when people don’t like it!

We still have several months to go, and I have faith that eventually my husband and I will settle upon the perfect name for our little one. We have three top girl names that haven’t really changed in a while. And, of course, if the ultrasound proves wrong about the gender, we still have that boy’s name all ready. I suspect that, at this point, we need to meet our little one before we can decide on the perfect name.

But all this drama and back and forth over names has made me appreciate how much easier it was when I was just naming characters. Sure, those characters are very real to me, but if you’re writing along and suddenly the name isn’t working for the character, it can always be changed. And, when it comes to a character’s name, there is only myself to please.

Whether for a real person or a character, names are important. Names are identity. Names say a lot about who a person is. Nothing tells everything about a person, of course — I’m sure there could be an assassin or a ninja out there named Ethel or Maude — but names send a certain impression out into the world, and, for both my baby and my characters, I want to make sure that impression is a good one!

I’m working on another flash piece right now… it started with one of the prompts from my writing group’s April prompts writing contest. The prompt challenged me to write a story about ice. I wanted to do something different than just have the story take place in an icy setting or have an ice cube as an object. So, instead, ice is the main character… in a way.

Now I just need to buckle down and do revisions after my writing group was so helpful as to send critiques to me. I don’t know why I’m having such troubles making myself sit down and write or revise these days. Maybe my group should have more write-ins… I find myself being more productive at planned writing activities than in finding time on my own. When I’m at home right now, there is always something else to do — usually baby prep.

Memorial Day weekend is coming up, and we’re going to stay at my parents’ cabin for the holiday. It is usually so quiet and peaceful out there — also, there is no internet or cable to distract me. Perhaps I will find some good writing time while we’re there — when we’re not at my friends’ pool party!

So, I guess this is the last place that I haven’t talked yet about the biggest reason why my writing output has been down this year — and my reading and my blogging, too. Since this is a writing blog, I tend not to discuss non-writing/real life all that much, but maybe now it’s time.

A lot of you (especially the people that I know in real life) already know this, but for those who don’t, my husband and I found out over Christmas that we are expecting our first baby! The last ultrasound said that it’s a girl, and she’s due at the end of August! (Don’t ask me about names — we had our boy name picked out for sure, but we’re totally up in the air on girl names, and it’s looking like we’ll be that way until we actually meet her!)

We are very, very excited about this. It’s something we’ve wanted for a long time, though we only officially started seriously trying for it last year. There have been a few little bobbles so far, like a fainting spell and the morning sickness that didn’t go away until way into the second trimester, but for the most part everything is going really well.

I know it’s going to be a big adjustment. If it’s been this hard for me to get up the energy to write when all I’ve deal with so far is morning sickness and fatigue (I’ve been going to bed at 9:45, OMG!), what’s going to happen when there are 3 a.m. feedings and everything else that goes along with having a little one of your very own?

Whatever happens, it’s going to be an interesting journey, and I’m looking forward to every part of it — even the challenging parts.

I can’t not write — I’m always making up stories in my head, even when I’m too tired to sit down at the computer and write them down. I know that I’ll figure this out eventually, and writing will happen. We’ll just see how long it takes me to get there!

I actually forgot a publication! I can’t believe it.

Last weekend was pretty crazed for me. My best friend and her daughter have birthdays on the 13th and 14th, so we go for a visit and have a Christmas party with all my friends from high school on the same weekend — double whammy! We brought our nephews down with us this time, as well as two friends who are staying with us for the holidays, so it was a packed house in my parents’ little four-room (if you count the loft) cabin this weekend. Not to mention, no Internet.

With all that going on, not to mention the usual end-of-year craziness at work, I plumb forgot that a small drabble I wrote called “Dog Vision” was the story of the day at FlashShot  last Friday!

Though it’s no longer on the main page, you can still read “Dog Vision” in the “Last Ten FlashShots” archive. It looks like after that, the story will no longer be available on their website, so read it now!

This story was inspired by my sister’s dog (you can see a picture of him here, on her wedding blog). Whenever we dog-sit for her, her dog has this obsession with the shower in our master bathroom. He stares at it, barks at it, and just makes all kinds of fuss any time he’s in the master bathroom — especially if I’m getting into said shower. “Dog Vision” is my fictional attempt to explain this strange phenominon.

Enjoy, and if you have any thoughts, please leave a comment about “Dog Vision” here.

I mentioned previously that my sister got engaged last weekend, and now she and her fiance have their very own wedding blog. I thought I would link it here, especially for any family members or friends who read my blog and hadn’t heard yet.

I’m really thrilled for them, as they make an awesome couple. They compliment each other so well. And I’m also looking forward to helping out (as needed — I don’t want to be pushy) with wedding planning. I’m such a nerd! But, all that stuff I learned when I was the bride can finally go to good use!

I purchased my copy of the EDF anthology. I look forward to receiving it. Hopefully, it will come in time for Christmas!

I spent the day working. Blah. But I made good progress. Hope to finish by deadline (which is somewhat miraculous because my schedule was cut quite a bit from the norm because of holiday vacations).

My sister got engaged yesterday. Very exciting! I was there when the proposal happened — very fitting, since she was there when my husband proposed (has it really been 7.5 years since then? Yikes!).

I need to remember to keep my most updated stories on my laptop. I hate it when a story gets rejected and I want to submit it somewhere else, and I realize that the last time I worked on the piece was on a lunch break at work and that’s where the current copy is saved. Arg!

Well, this post is particularly boring, so I will sign off for now. Perhaps next week, once the work binge is over and now that the NaNo juggernaut is over, more interesting writing topics will come back to the forefront of my mind. That would certainly lead to more interesting blog entries!

While at the cabin this weekend, I typed my fingers to the bone and ended up on quota for NaNo for the first time this month. This is a first, actually — I’m the queen of dragging behind all month and then pulling off a miracle on Thanksgiving weekend. However, I have a feeling I’m going to lose that status today unless I force myself to sit down and write another 1200 words. I wrote some in the car on the way back, but I hit one of those moments where I’m not sure what should happen next, and it caused a bit of a lag.

I’m not worried, though. NaNo is what it is — it’s all about the end of the month, not the daily word count (in regards to winning). In the end, though, it’s the finished product that counts the most.

Checked my email when we got back this afternoon and found two more rejection letters. I don’t think I’m ever going to make it onto one of those fiction podcasts. I’ve been sending them reprints, but none have stuck so far. However, you never know, so I will keep trying.

Now, I have to run. My dog is waiting for me to pick her up from her hair cut. I can’t wait to see her with those little bows in her ears. She always gets them out right away, but they are so cute while they are there. Sometimes, when she has them on, she gives me this expression that says, “Must you?” It’s the same expression she gives me when I make her wear a Christmas hat for our annual Christmas card photo.

The weather is lovely this weekend — perfect timing for a week at the cabin. I’ve blogged about the cabin before. It’s my parents’ cabin, and it sits on about 60 acres just outside of the small town in central Texas where I grew up.

Many times, the peace and quiet of the cabin lends itself to fruitful writing time. The only thing that tends to break the peace is if my husband and my dad start working and get out the chainsaw or the wood chipper!

Other times, the cabin is a great reading place. I’ve got a cozy chair to curl up in, perfect for reading. It actually used to be my grandfather’s chair. I remember him sitting on that chair and giving me a horsey ride on “Ol’ Sam” (i.e., I would sit on his foot and  he’d buck it like a rocking horse). In fact, though now I can fill that chair all by myself, I remember being small enough that my grandfather and I could sit in it side-by-side.

Another fun thing about driving down is that I can always stop in at the library — my mom’s book collection! She’s even more of a voracious reader than I am (and I can read a lot of books!), and she’s had a couple more decades to grow her collection. There is always something interesting waiting for me to read — her collection spans romance, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, and whatever else strikes her fancy at the time.

This trip, I actually brough back all the books I’d borrowed from her in the past couple of years (some had been scattered all over our house and/or hidden under the bed, thanks to my husband!). I brought two full brown paper bags full down, and I’m taking about half a bag back with me. That will be enough to keep me in reading material for a while.

Well, that’s about all I have to say for now, so I’ll stop blabbing. I hope everyone out there is having as nice a weekend as I’m having!

Howdy out there. Just a quick shout out to my friend Meng (also known as my sister’s boyfriend) — the episode of Jeopardy! that he taped this summer is airing today. Much excitement around our house today!

I tell you, I always wondered if I had the skills to be on a game show like that. I’ve always been somewhat of a game show junkie — at least when I’m home in the middle of the day. But, after helping Meng practice for his appearance (OK, well, my “help” basically consisted of letting him DVR episodes at my house and watching them with him), I figured out that I don’t have the trivia chops for it. At least not for Jeopardy! If they still made Win Ben Stein’s Money, I might have a chance there! But, yeah, my obscure trivia factoids are nowhere in his league.

Because of this Jeopardy! madness, I did have the chance to read Ken Jennings’ book, Brainiac. I really enjoyed it. If you like trivia and you like memoir, you’ll enjoy it, too.

So, yes, this post was mostly a break from or regularly scheduled content, but I thought the event was worth the topic shift. And I kinda saved it by talking about a book, right? **grins**

All Things Girl’s fall issue is out, and I loved this article about being a “book aunt” by our own Miss Meliss.

I never thought about it in quite these terms, but when I read the article, I realized that I totally am a book aunt, too. When my best friend had her daughter, I got into the habit of always buying her a book at the holidays (her birthday and Christmas are so close together, so, from me, she always gets one book and one toy). I carried on the tradition with my other friends’ twins (well, they’ve only had the one Christmas and birthday so far, but I intend to continue).

Currently, due to the young ages of the kids, we’re still into board books, but I find myself really looking forward to the days when I can buy them some of my favorites… especially the girls, as that is the type of children’s literature I was into as a kid. I would love it if I were able to give them their first copies of Little Women, A Little Princess, and all those other great books I talked about in my recent childhood reading post.

Reading can be a very subjective thing, but it can be something that’s really awesome to share, as well. My mom brought me up on reading. I never had a book aunt in the way Melissa talks about in her article, but I didn’t miss it because my mom always made reading as something special between the two of us. She read with my sister, too, but we each always got our own story every night — private time, just me and Mom. Those are memories I cherish.

Did you know that Bambi was a novel with some rather existentialist leanings before it became a cute Disney flick? Mom and I read it together. She read me Tarzan books, too. I also remember Tom Swift, Andre Norton’s Witchworld, classics like Charlotte’s Web, and more. I even remember reading Star Wars books about Han Solo and a great short story called “The Love Letter” (not that movie with Sandra Bullock, but a cool story about a man who bought an antique desk and exchanged love letters through time with a woman a century before).

There was the A Tree Growns in Brooklyn period (recommended to my mom by one of her friends) — that one was a bit of a mistake, as neither of us enjoyed it, but no matter what the book was, I loved the time we spent reading together. I was probably the oldest kid I knew still getting a “bedtime story,” but it was a tradition I wasn’t willing to let go of for a long time.

All this time spent reading was time that helped mold me into the book lover and voracious reader today. I also credit her with making me into a sci-fi/fantasy fan (how many other kids’ moms read them Andre Norton?), and I wouldn’t have it any other way. (The Y/A literature obsession, though, is totally my own thing!)

So, anyway, I’m going to take a minute now to say thank you to my mom for instilling in me such a love of reading and for spending all those nights putting up with my pleas for “just one more chapter.” Those are some of my favorite childhood memories, and I hope you know how much it meant to me.

I hope that a love of reading is something I can instill in the kids in my life, whether they be one of my honorary nieces or nephews or a blood relation. I’m proud to be a book aunt!