What's in a name?

Maggie Monroe

Callie

Thank you, everyone, who suggested a name for the calico cat who is going to make an appearance in my third Hidden Springs mystery, my work in progress. I have so many great names now that I can name a few hundred cats, and I love them all.



I not only got name suggestions I got pictures to spur my imagination about what my fictional cat is going to look like and perhaps hints about her personality. 

But back to the names. Callie/Kali/Cally was by far the most popular suggestions followed by Patches. Some of you said that Callie was the only name. Others of you said name the cat anything but Callie. Some suggestions were for Calico something, like Calico Zoe, Calico Liz, Calico Jo or Kelly the Calico. I had actually considered Calico Jane. 

Hissy Fit

Kate Tippi Toes

Stormy

A few of the more interesting suggestions were Hissy Fit. That cat's picture is here and her owner says the Vet says of course her cat has attitude. It's a calico. Kate Tippi Toes might fit in that category too. She was named after Kate Hepburn who never lacked for attitude. We had Coquelicot (French for poppy); Miss Priss; Pumpkin; Izzi; Stinkerbelle, Rainbow; Calicat; Rags; Puzzle; Kitty Boo; Cosie; Cali Lily; Crazy Quilt; Blotchy; Butters; Sassy; Sunny; Calliope; Sparkle; Queenie; Butterscotch; Moon Doggie, and many more.

I liked J.C. for Just Cat, Heinz 57 for all the colors, Marmalade for the orange, Muslin and Cotton for Calico cloth, Maple, Pandora for all the colors let out of the box on the cat, Stormy because of the clouds of black perhaps, and Perfect because every cat thinks she's perfect. 

Stella

One of the cats pictured is Maggie Monroe. I think her beauty mark tells you how she got her name. Then there were the regular people names because cats know they are people just like you names like Stella, Lucy, Wilma, Angie and Martha. 






So many names and great looking calico cats that I may have to write a dozen stories starring calico cats. But whether I do that or not, I have enjoyed all the names and meeting some of your cats. Thanks so much for sharing their pictures and names. 

Zita

Meanwhile, my cat still goes unnamed. I'm juggling all the suggestions and wobbling first one way and another with a name. But I do have many great ideas now. I just need to show them all to my elderly character, Miss Fonda, who is actually going to be the one to pick a name. 

So what's in a name? Do you have a favorite among these names I've mentioned here? 


And I am going to get that flower contest organized and give away some books Sunday. At least that's my plan, but you know what they say about "best laid plans." 



  

What's in a Name?

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child's name and how old he or she is. ~Erma Bombeck

That's true for mamas and also for writers. I'll be giving a book talk and somebody will ask something about one of the characters in my book. They will have forgotten the name, but they expect me to remember. That's certainly understandable. They didn't invent them and live with them for a year or more while they were writing their stories. No, that was me, but sometimes the names slip away, especially if it wasn't a major character in the story.

You see, there are a lot of people to name in a novel. Of course you start out with the main characters, your hero and heroine. Then you start fleshing them in with family members and friends. Think about all the people in your own extended family. Add in the people you went to school with. Now the ones you've worked with. Oh, and all those people at church. And don't forget your Facebook friends. 

Names circle us like a swarm of bees. Sometimes the names stick and rise up to our lips when we need to speak the name. Sometimes the name is firmly entrenched in our brain, but it refuses to come out where we can say it. At least, not when we want it to. It generally shows up hours later while we're thinking about something totally different. The name will pop into our head out of the blue and sometimes we'll say we knew it started with a "J" or whatever letter. 

I have named dozens and dozens of characters. Some years ago, I started keeping a record of my major characters' names. That's supposed to help keep me from using the same names over and over. I tend to like some names more than others. 

I'm editing a book I wrote several years ago that never found a publisher. I decided I needed to change one of my secondary character's name. I have seen other writers ask their Facebook friends for help with name, so I decided to do the same. I asked what they would name the small town newspaper editor. He's the kind of guy that sort of rubs people the wrong way with his questions since they feel he's always trying to get a story out of them. But he's not a bad guy. He does want the town to do well, but he also wants to sell newspaper. He's in his late thirties and the story is set in the 1990's here in Kentucky. His last name is Leland.

I had originally named him Miles which I do like, but it's too much like my main character's name, Michael. Readers might get confused if they were reading fast about who was who. So I asked my Facebook friends what they would name this guy. And before morning I had over 80 comments. Now, after a few days, I've gotten around 125 names. 

So tonight, for fun, I wrote down all the great suggestions. The amazing thing is that in all those names, there weren't all that many repeat suggestions. Clark was the most suggested name with 7. Phil or Phillip was runner-up with 6. Most of the names were single suggestions. Everybody had a different idea of what to name my pesky little editor. I wanted a one syllable name and there were many suggestions that had me nodding my head and thinking, yes, that might work. But he's just one guy and so he only needs one name. I've already tried Lloyd. No one suggested that name. And Kyle. Two or three suggested that name. Those names didn't seem to fit. And so, right now I'm going with Hank. That was suggested by a couple of people. 

Hank Leland. What do you think? Does that sound like a pesky newspaper man who is always ready to dig for a story? If not, what do you suggest? 

Naming characters is actually a fun part of writing fiction. But I do like for the name to fit. Sometimes that takes some brainstorming before a writer can settle on the perfect name. And sometimes that name gets changed and then changed again. 

No wonder I can't remember some of my characters' names. Could be, I'm still considering changing those names. LOL.

Two Bears and a Dog by Any Other Name...

What's in a name? How many times have you been introduced to somebody and the person's name made a jet fast trip in one of your ears and out the other? The same with some restaurant or store you hear advertised and plan to remember. Then later, you can't think of the name of the place for the life of you.

Well, my friends, Andy and Michael, the two guys smiling with me in the picture, aren't going to have that trouble. They came up with a great name for their book store. Two Bears and a Dog. I did a book signing at their store Saturday in Horse Cave, KY. From the first day I met Michael months ago at the KY Book Fair, I haven't forgotten the name of the book store.

That's good for me, because sometimes I'm not too sure I'm remembering my own name. No lie! We were talking about middle names on Facebook last week since it was "Middle Name" week or something. A time to admit and embrace your middle names. Got lots of fun comments about middle names.

To get the ball rolling, I was going to tell everybody my middle name, but there was a problem. I couldn't remember for sure how it was spelled. It's been years since I'd written it as part of my name because I use my maiden name as a middle name now. It seemed the least I could do since my dad didn't have any sons and he grieved about his name not being carried on.

But my middle name is Bernice. That's the way my mother spelled it when she gave it to me. At least, I think it is. Actually, I'm perfectly sure it is now, but I wasn't all that sure for a few minutes when I first thought about it the other day. Guess it's a good thing I have such a simple first name.

But then when I went to Horse Cave, KY Saturday for a book signing at a book store called Two Bears and a Dog, I figured I'd hit the jackpot in the name department. 

I love names. I work hard to come up with the exactly right names for my characters in my stories. In the original draft of Words Spoken True, Adriane was named Allison. I have no idea why she changed her name, but she did. And then in The Gifted, the Shaker book due out this summer, I wrote at least a fourth of the book about a girl named Isabella. But she never felt comfortable with her name. Finally she shook it off and became Jessamine. It wasn't until then that she came fully to life in my head. Thank goodness for the find and replace capabilities of a computer.

Last week I also got an e-mail from someone from Soddy-Daisy. That wasn't a KY place name, but our state has plenty of those kind of odd names for places too. The little community of Alton here in my home county that I base my fictional Rosey Corner on was once called Rough and Ready. Then somebody decided that wasn't a proper community name. The citizens of Horse Cave tried to do that too back in the 1870s. They changed their name to Caverna, but the railroad people wouldn't go along with the name change and kept calling the stop Horse Cave. After ten or so futile years of trying to be a town with a more sophisticated name, they went back to being Horse Cave. Any of you read Cold Sassy Trees? Seems that was one of the story lines in that book. A town in search of a better name.

What about you? What oddly named places have you visited or seen? Or share your middle name. Maybe you'll at least know how to spell yours!! Let's celebrate names this week.

Thanks for reading. Love it when you come to visit.

Stories from KY Christian Writers Conference

I had a good time at the Kentucky Christian Writers Conference in Elizabethtown last weekend. I don't think it's a big conference. I might not be a good judge of that since I've only been to it and ACFW last year. For sure, it's not as big as ACFW. It is a helpful and inspiring conference. This is a photo of the teaching staff and this year's co-directors. This was at the end and you can tell by everybody's smiles that a. it's over or b. we had fun. It's definitely b. we had fun. Or maybe after two days of smiling, the lips were stuck in the upturned position.

I do think there were more writers there interested in non-fiction and devotional writing, but I had some writers show up for my classes. I tried to share some experience and hints with a couple of topics. "Dialogue - the Fizz in Fiction" and "Facts in Fiction - Using History in your Stories." Not too many people were interested in the history one. I should have come up with a jazzier name for it. Say "Turning Truth into Lies." "History - It's Not for Wimps." I have no idea how I would relate that to writing, but it might have caught the eye of potential participants. Actually, I thought my history in fiction class was probably the more interesting of the two, or maybe that was just me since I was talking about the history I'd used in my books.

I met a lot of interesting writers among the staff and the attendees. I gathered a few names for my mental future characters' names file. One lady named Nellotie after her two grandmothers, Nell and Otie.  Then there was Mallonee. I love name tags. That's because I do better with a visual aid in remembering names. Of course there were all the usual names too. Sues and Anns and Barbaras and Jackies. I met one woman who had twelve children. I told her she didn't have time to write, but she said she did. She's the one who matters most there. What I guess I was trying to say is that IF I had twelve kids I wouldn't have time to write. I met a lady preacher who suffered some malady with a long name that made talking at first impossible and now several years later, very difficult. A preacher needs a voice. So she said she started writing to save her sanity. I know some writers, including me at times, who might tell her she was searching for sanity in all the wrong places. :-) But it seemed to be working for her. I met her husband too. He said he couldn't hear and she couldn't talk so they made a perfect pair. I got the feeling that was a much told joke.

Then there is Judy who is going through chemo - again. And yet she's always ready to pray for you and whatever problems you might be having when some might think she's got enough on her prayer plate. Plus she has a teenage son who called her last week to say, "Mom, I'm okay. I'm on the other side of the creek and the ambulance is on the way." That's what any mother of a teenager wants to hear!! He's dropped a rock on his foot and all turned out well, but though Judy could see her son across the creek in their subdivision, she didn't know how to drive to her son. But she found a way. Don't moms always?

And I can't not mention Barbara who went to church with a neighbor when she was nine and heard and heeded the call to salvation. When she got home, her mother asked her what happened to her, that there was a glow around her. I liked picturing her as a glowing nine year old. She grew up to be a preacher's wife and to love writing.

Plus there was Michelle searching for a way to keep her Christian bookstore open. Praying for the Lord to give her the opportunity to continue to minister through her store. The electronic age coupled with the down economy is making it very hard on brick and mortar stores.

Last, but certainly not least, I was privileged to listen to Cecil Murphey speak three times. He was very animated while he spoke and very determined to tell the truth about writing. No mollycoddling. But at the same time he was encouraging. Maybe what he had to say was even more encouraging because he did straight out tell the truth. He has published 122 books - some under his name, some as a ghostwriter for other names. That is an astounding number of books. He knows how to do it and he likes sharing what he knows.

Thanks for coming over to hear my tidbit stories about the conference. Have you been to a writers conference? If so what made it good for you. The workshops? The fellow writers you were able to swap stories with? The one on one conversations with published authors or agents and editors? I definitely enjoy meeting more reading and writing friends.

 Talk to you again Sunday. I'll be doing a book launch at the Corinth Christian Book Store in Frankfort tomorrow on Thursday, June 30 at 7 p.m. Would love to see you there if you're in the area.