Why is naming characters so hard?

It seems like a such a simple thing to do, and yet, whenever I start writing something new one of the stumbling blocks I invariably have is deciding the names of characters, from the major ones to the minors. In many of my stories the character names have changed multiple times, just because I felt a certain name didn’t suit well enough.

But why is this? What makes a name a “good” name? And does it really matter? I know that when I read books I don’t really place much importance in a character’s name, it’s just what they are called. And yet when I write myself, I find something pushing me to find just the right name for a character. I can’t think of many examples of ‘good’ names of characters, only bad ones (for example, calling a character Hope, whether that character saves the day, or is symbolically killed at some point, it feels a bit obvious doesn’t it?).

The Magic of Unplanned Writing

I've been writing on and off for a long time, lots of little stories, stories that were never finished, and stories that are still tucked away as ideas in a secret folder (I say secret but not exactly well hidden. It just sits on my desktop, tempting me away from whatever I'm currently working on). When these ideas strike is always exciting, and the impulse is always to chase these ideas and see where they lead.

The problem with chasing these stories in the past has been that whatever I was then working on would inevitably get lost in the wayside. I've gotten a hell of a lot better about it though, which has resulted in me getting a lot further into the novel I'm currently working on, and some of these ideas for other stories have fed back into the novel so it's all good (Of course it's also meant my ideas folder has been filling up a lot quicker, but hopefully that'll come in handy later!).

But anyway, one thing I've discovered through getting so far in my current book is how much fun the unplanned things can be. As the characters begin to develop and grow they start to fill in the story much more than I planned. Certain elements of my story have been dropped as I've written more and found out that the characters, as they've grown and become more developed, don't want to do some of the things I want to (they're like unruly children that way). There's been many occasions where what I've intended to happen in a given scene has completely changed while writing it.

Kindle Publishing: A Journey of Discovery (Part 2)

So in Part 1, (over here) I discussed what it was like getting my story ready to put it up for sale. Now let's discuss what happened afterwards.

As I said before, I put it up with no intentions of advertising the book in any way. I didn't really expect anyone to buy it at all because of this, so I was surprised in the first week that it actually managed to sell 5 copies. Doesn't sound like much (and at a royalty of 35c for each book, it really wasn't :D )but it was still entertaining to see.

Kindle Publishing: A Journey of Discovery (Part 1)

So about a month and a half ago I decided I would have a go at seeing how the whole ebook publishing thing works on Amazon.com. I read a couple of things on the Internet about it but quickly decided the best way to go about it would be to dive in myself and just see how it all works. 

Of course first of all I needed something to publish. I was (and still am) trying to focus all my creative time and energies into the book I'm writing at the moment so I didn't really want to wait to finish that in order to try and publish (it might take a while...). I then decided the best course of action would be to use a short story I had lying around from the creative writing course I did last year. It's a bit of a zombie story and I figured they're pretty popular these days, and it would suit my purposes nicely.

I swear this blog isn't dead really...

Hello again!

Wow, almost a month without an update. It all started out so promising...

No excuses really, I just haven't had much time to write. The work I've been doing has recently moved further away so I now have an hour travel before I start work, and an hour travel back afterwards. Between that and working some slightly longer days, it's been pretty tiring for the last few weeks. It's been a struggle to write anything in the evenings when I get home, because when you factor in dinner, showering, preparing lunch for the next day, and just general tiredness it's hard to get motivated to do much, so the huge amount of productivity I had during December and January has diminished somewhat. What little time I have had to write has been spent working on the novel, rather than keeping this place up to date.

On the plus side though, it's looking like as of the end of this week, I'll be back to working somewhere a lot nearer to here than I have been, so hopefully wont have to keep getting up at 5 a.m. (Seriously, what straight-thinking person thought it was a good idea to invent a 5 AM ?).

But enough of that, it's time to get back to business around here. I will post again soon, probably about an interesting experiment I ran with Kindle publishing and an old short story.

Long days and pleasant nights,

James.

Past, Present & Future

So I guess I should give a little more detail about myself, if anyone is ever going to have any interest in this here place.

I am a guy in my mid-twenties (let's not get too specific here...) from south-east Ireland (Top of the morning to ya, Ooh, me lucky charms, ya feckin’ eejit, whatever other common Irish phrase you can think of…).  I’m currently travelling through Australia for a year on a working holiday visa, exploring new places and generally getting away from the horrible unemployment back at home. 

At the moment I’m working towards qualifying for a second year’s visa over here which involves doing 88 days of regional work(i.e. manual labour in the back arse of nowhere). I’m a little worried that once I hit 88 I’ll travel back in time but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. The work I’m doing for my time is swede harvesting.  It’s hard physical work but on the plus side it’s getting me more in shape, building some muscle and losing some weight.

One of the things I’m really enjoying about the work though, is that gives me time to think. It doesn’t exactly involve mental gymnastics or anything, so when I come home in the evening I write (most days at least. Sometimes I sleep). This has been great for me. I’ve gotten a lot of progress done on my book in the last month.

Ideally I will have fulfilled my quota of days in April (as long as it doesn’t get rained off too much) and that point I intend to do some more travelling along the east coast of Australia for a month or so. This will be followed by another few months of work (hopefully not involving manual labour) in order to fund some travels in south-east Asia and then home for Christmas.

This rough plan has given me a pretty tangible deadline to deal with. I want to have the first draft of my book completed by the time I finish my regional work. After this the time travelling (I mean time spent travelling, but I’m not ruling out the whole hitting 88 thing) should be about the right length of time to let the story rest in the back of my head. I might try and write some short stories while travelling to keep up the writing process, or maybe start expanding on one of the other pieces I have some ideas for. Then once I start the next period of working I can return to the book with fresher eyes and begin the process of wincing at the terrible stuff I had thought I was happy with and rewriting and editing the story.

So that’s the plan for the book. So what’s this blog all about, then?

Well it’s mostly a record of my thoughts as I write. Ideally it will give some insight into how I write and the quirks about writing that interest. Mainly this will be about the process of writing, rather than specifics about my current work. That may change though once I start on the whole submission process!

Of course, I’m sure over time the blog may grow and change, but it will always be about writing. And me. Also I can’t promise the occasional tidbit about monkeys won’t crop up.

You’ve been forewarned.

I’ll be back soon, but in the meantime, feel free to leave some comments below, above, or however the hell this blog thing works.

Long days and pleasant nights,

James.

Beginnings

Hello and welcome to my blog. This is the place where I will do my best to document the process of writing my book, the progress I make with it, and hopefully one day the process of getting it published. I can always dream can't I?

I have a few ideas for stuff I'd like to discuss about the writing process, which I intend to delve into as time goes by, both the good and bad aspects of it. Of course, this will have to take second place to actually writing the book itself, but I feel it may be good to relax and have an extra outlet so that all my writing isn't solely fixated on the world and characters I'm currently constructing.

Anyway, this is just my introduction to the world of blogging, I'll return soon with some more details about where i currently am in the novel, where I am in the world, and just some general info about me.

Long days and pleasant nights.

James