Writing Is Like...

...Getting in a car when you don't really know where you're going, but you have a credit card with no limit, "the mutha" of Squirt mixed with grape flavoring, and the feeling that you're going to arrive somewhere awesome.

With the top down.

Oh yeah.

Like that.

My Writing Toolkit:
1. Laptop
2. Notebook and pen
3. Pandora (or iTunes) and a good set of sound-canceling headies

What's writing like for you? What's in your writing toolkit?

Main Character Names, Take Two

As promised, here are the results of last week's male main character survey. At the time, I really didn't think it would turn into a survey, but it so did. And I added my male MC names, and that totally skewed the results. Yeah, the J's just skyrocketed. Ahem. Obviously, that post should have been entitled, "What's With the Letter J?" instead of "What's With the Letter K?" (Click on that title if you have no idea what I'm talking about. Cuz it was great fun.)

So this first chart is the names with my MC names. (Jon, Jared, Jess, Jesse, Jarvis, Jake, Jag and Josh included. Holy crap. Just looking at that makes my eyes cross. Why do I write so many J names? Because my last name is Johnson? J's are made of kewl? They're funner to write by hand? Which of these are working for you??) Some of you left female names, which was great and all, but I only included the boys.


And the second chart is without my main characters. Hey, I had a Hunter, an Adam and Ames, a Gordon (the only G in the above chart. Ha), a Zenn, a Miller, a Cal, a Ty and many others I'm sure I'm forgetting. But here's the one without the barrage of J-names from yours truly.

Either way, the results are interesting. Quite a large clumping in the J-N range, just as I predicted. Hey, maybe I missed my calling in life as a statistician. I did complete a brief secretarial stint in the Stats Department in college. Anyway, after the middle letters, it seems a lot of us go for names that begin with letters at the beginning of the alphabet. Z had a nice showing, as did the popular Wheel of Fortune letters R, S and T.

So that leaves me wondering why. Kat asked this question on her blog last week. But it's a good one, so here goes. How do you choose the names for your characters?

I left her a comment, but I'll repeat it here. Most of the time I choose a name because it just fits, or I want to use a nickname. In my NaNo novel I chose Gabby (I know, I know, it's a girl's name, chillax) because I wanted to use the male name Gabe. And Gabby has to pretend to be a guy...so yeah. Her real name is Gabriella. She goes by Gabby when she's a girl (well, she's always a girl) and Gabe when she's pretending to be a boy. Are you confused yet? Yeah, me too, maybe that's why I haven't finished this novel yet.

In Control Issues, a futuristic science fiction novel, I wanted a funky male name. Heck, I wanted funky names for everyone. I named a girl Tyson, my male MC Jag, his brother Pace and the "other boyfriend" Zenn. In the sequel to that novel, which I tinkered with last summer, I watched American Gladiators to find kewl names. I had to look since it's been so long, but I found Gill, Nash, Fret, Van, Viggo and Xan.

And Jet.

Holey Swiss cheese.

Another J-name.

Smack me. Smack me hard.

Work in Progress Wednesday

This week, I'm showing you my uber-cute notebooks again. I have two I'm writing in now; the second one is almost full. I also have a third notebook, labeled NOTES. Since it's almost impossible to go back and add a detail you've thought of later [when writing by hand], I needed this third notebook. (Oh, and LA stands for the working title, Living Assistants. I have other notebooks, but they are labeled with a totally lame black Sharpie. Not even a shred of cute paper on them. One's called "EH" for Elemental Hunger, another novel I've written by hand. Well, "written" isn't the correct term there, as that book is not acutally finished yet. I didn't write The Mirror or Control Issues by hand, but I have sections of those two books that I did completely rewrite. When I did, I wrote them by hand. That notebook is labeled TM/CI. That almost sounds like YMCA. "Tee, em, see, I! It's fun to read and write, tee, em, see, i-hi!" Yeah, see why I need to write by hand? I can get off on a tangent like nobody else.)

Anyway, back to business.

You see, I have stupid little marks like the ones below, indicating a place where I need something more. Since I didn't have space, I simply drew a line, put the lame symbol and wrote the inserted scene. Um, yeah, it's a mess. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to figure out where those three stars go...

So I made a new notebook. Now I have a purple marker and I put a number where I need to add something. Then in my NOTES notebook (it has pink paper! Squee!) I label the number, write what I want added, and go back to my regular place.

Note: This page is a mess. I had written the scene between my MC, Jesse and his BF Lorenzo (L-zo). Then I decided that wasn't going to work. So the conversation is between Jesse and his not-so-BF-but-becoming-at-least-a-friend, Ty. So the whole thing is just a complete mess of scribbles, and arrows, and other stuff I hope I'm going to be able to figure out. I had not worked out my NOTES system at this point, so don't judge me too harshly!

It's so much easier. And I think I'll be able to figure it out when I actually go to type this bad boy up. Which should be happening soon. My goal is to finish this novel by the end of March. I think I'm going to make it. But I suffer from that 3/4-writer syndrome, and I can feel myself getting bored. But I've made a deep, personal commitment NOT to introduce a new character, a new power, or anything new at this point. I just need to tie together all the threads I've got unraveled. I can do it. I know I can. *repeats to self five times daily*

But I sorta suffer from my-endings-always-suckitis, so we'll see how long it takes me to come up with something that's actually tied all together. *repeat above mantra one more time*

Sidenote: Turns out the photobooth is not the best picture-taking program. Go figure.

How was your writing week? Goals? Major breakthroughs? Lay it on me, baby.