Character Names I'd Jack for my Kids

This delightful trope was stolen from Madeleine Rex over at Word Bird. The trope seems to be doing girl names (or doing both genders seperately) but I've decided to do them together, partly because I like the trend of mixed-gender naming. So just because it's a boy character doesn't mean I'd only name a boy that, or vice versa. Without further ado, here are some names I would totally jack for my kids.

Peter
From Peter Pan, of course. Not only do I adore this book and character and think reading Peter Pan to a kid named Peter would basically make my life, it's also a family name. I would've been named Peter if I were a boy, after my Uncle (who died long before I was born, but everyone loved him). Funny thing, I used to absolutely hate this name.

Charmain
Charmain Baker, from House of Many Ways. Not only is this name unique and beautiful, it also sounds like Charming and Charlemagne, so I'd give it to either gender. And there's a Peter in this book, too, so if I have twins, Charmain and Peter would make a good pair of names.

Caspian
From the Chronicles of Narnia. I unashamedly adore this name. Just the sound of it. And I rather liked the character, too. Another name that could be paired with Peter.

Sunshine
From Sunshine. Would I really name a kid this? You bet I would. My obsession with this book runs very deep. Runner-up names, in order of preference - Mel, Rae, Constantine. I'd feel weird naming a kid Constantine, and not just because it's out of fashion. Mel, for a boy, would be nice.

Robin
As in Robin Hood, from The Outlaws of Sherwood. Also, Robin Goodfellow (A.K.A. Puck) from Midsummer Night's Dream. Also, Robin McKinley, who is not a character but an author, and not any author but one of my absolute favorites.

Phineas
From A Seperate Peace. It's just a cool name, and everyone loves The Wonka.

Jean
Jean Valjean, from Les Miserables. Except I insist on pronouncing it wrong, like the material.

Any Name from As You Wish
Including Jinn, Viola, and Lawrence. The name Viola came from Twelth Night, and Lawrence from Romeo and Juliet. Jinn I just love, and jinn are one of my favorite creatures. I'm also partial to the author's name, Jackson Pearce, either of which I can imagine making lovely first names.

Any Name used by S. E. Hinton. Ever.
Seriously. Especially Sodapop, Jamie, and Rusty-James.

There you have it! I'd better have a bundle of kids. (More likely, the less unique of these names will be dispersed among my characters eventually, and since I'm not letting my kids and characters share names, my poor children will get the crazy ones.)

So, what character names would you bestow on your children? (And what are you going to say when they come home crying because the kids at school tease them?) I'd love to see a guy blogger chime in one this - girls can get crazy about baby names, but you guys must have ideas, too! Please link if you steal, these are so fun!

Review: Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George

Amazon Product Description:
“Blessed—or cursed—with an ability to understand animals, the Lass (as she’s known to her family) has always been an oddball. And when an isbjorn (polar bear) seeks her out, and promises that her family will become rich if only the Lass will accompany him to his castle, she doesn’t hesitate. But the bear is not what he seems, nor is his castle, which is made of ice and inhabited by a silent staff of servents. Only a grueling journey on the backs of the four winds will reveal the truth: the bear is really a prince who’s been enchanted by a troll queen, and the Lass must come up with a way to free him before he’s forced to marry a troll princess.”

I was excited to find this retelling of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” in my library. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but my risk-taking was rewarded: this is a truly masterful retelling.

The lass, who for the better part of the book doesn’t have a name, is a interesting and compelling character. She is tough, curious, and clever, and does things I would not dream of doing. Her relationship with her brother, Hans-Peter, her pet wolf, and the polar bear really bring out the best of her character. If she’s at times a little brash and foolish - well, I love her for it. The emotions and motivations were so well played that I rarely found myself questioning her.

The book follows the plotline of the original tale astoundingly closely (with embellishment, of course). One thing that I find I can rarely say of retellings - it felt like the narrative spent just enough time in each place. The plot moved along pretty quickly. I can’t think of any time at which it became tedious or when I wanted more description. (If the author’s note is to be believed, this is reputably the work of fantastic editing.)

George’s style has an almost lyrical quality well suited to fairytales. The description is rich, but not laborious. She handled both bright and bitter moments with finesse. The dialogue is spot-on, especially the little exchanges between the lass and her wolf. Norwegian and Old Norse words pepper the story in just the right amounts, though if you’re bad with names like me you may start to confuse the lass’ many siblings.

I will definitely be seeking out more books by this author. The fact that she’s done a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses has a little less than it might to do with that. Sun and Moon won’t be kicking any books off my top five, but it’s definitely worth reading, probably multiple times.

Characters: 5/5
Plot: 4/5
Style: 4.5/5

Overall rating: 4.5

Journals - Living Dead Girl (2)

Thinking about submitting a short story to an e-mag. My level of nervousness is supremely high.

In other news, English Journal #2 for Living Dead Girl. Only a day late.

I usually re-read books I like, but I'm not sure if I could re-read this. I'm not even sure if I like it. Maybe I loved it, but hated what it did to me. Kind of like a person.

Maybe I don't need to re=read it because I'm still thinking about it. It's been a few weeks now, but when something reminds me, all the feelings come back. It kind of bites, because I can't eat yoghurt without my stomach knotting up. Then again, it would be awful to forget.

Maybe I don't want to re-read it. The second go-through is usually where I start picking apart the language, the characters, the pacing. The story then becomes a book, and experience that can be analyzed because someone chose to share it. I'm not sure I want Living Dead Girl to be a book. It feels almost like I'd be holding in contempt all the real girls and real lives the book represents. I've done it before, but I don't want to do it with this one.

Maybe I'm just selfish. Maybe I just don't want to live through that gosh-darned ending all over again. There's only so many times you can walk away disatified Because you're walking away.

It's been a while...

I've not abandoned the blog, I promise. Tomorrow is a Sunday, which means if I have time between Easter festivities I will be posting a journal. ("I know! I'll have a feature! That'll make sure I post regularly." Oh, over-optomistic self. Ha. And again, I say, Ha.) For tonight, I'll do some other stuff I promised I'd do.

Beta'ing. So, My first ever Beta partner and I finished reading each other's work a few months ago, I finished editing my way through her comments, and I haven't touched Accidents since (except to do some self-conscious editing. I can't help myself.) On the experience of having work critiqued, it was very constructive and encouraging, and I think I had a good partner. I wish I had a partner I knew a better, since it's a little easier to do cross-examination with a friend. There were a few things, mostly small, on which I very strongly disagreed, and I had to just take it as a difference in taste/lack of understanding.

On the experience of critiqueing - I've done it before, on a smaller scale, but I find it very rewarding to get deep into the nitty-gritty bits of a story and try to make it shine its absolute brightest. It was a good story (outside my prefered genre by a fair margin, but what can you do?) and I don't for a second regret the time spent with the characters. I always knew I liked editing, but this kind of makes me think I might have the stamina for it, I mean professionally. I'd love so much to work with an editor...

The maiden Beta voyage deemed successful, I am now one step closer to being query-ready. I thought I'd have queried by now, this time last year, but there's still a little more I want to tweak. My goal is to get it going by this summer. Fingers crossed!

New Things...

So, I'm generally not an, let's say, adventurous person. So I'm kind of excited that I've let myself slip into a subdued fangirl state for two things I never thought I'd watch/read: Glee and Harry Potter.

I basically watch Glee for the Puck and Kurt, though I've always had an affinity for really good cover songs. I was surprised by how much I liked it, but really, I shouldn't be. I'm stubborn about avoiding things, but once I'm exposed to it, usually I can find the good side. And when the good side is adorableness and catchy music, that's enough for me.

Now, for Harry Potter I have an excuse. I've not been allowed to read it before. Don't have a panic attack, I've read a lot of other equally controversial books with my parents' consent, they just held a particular suspicion for Harry Potter. Don't ask me why. But I made a case that trying to write MG fantasy with having read Harry Potter was like trying to write Christian books without having read the Bible, and I got The Sorceror's Stone out of the library. Happiness ensued.

Speaking of new things, I decided to skip senior year of high school and go straight to community college. Is more important than reading my first Harry Potter? Maybe. But I'm going to act like it's not.

So, while thinking about doing new things, I stumbled upon a plot for a YA. I'd already had the character and a few other details, but now I've actually got something to go on. Now I just have to decide if that's the project I'm going to focus on next.

Networking

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not all that great at networking. It's not just that I'm a slightly technologically challenged teenager, it's also that I find it difficult to tell whether what I'm saying is interesting and I have almost no idea whether an online community will be good for me until after I get into it. I usually try something for a while and then drop off the face of the forum, either a week or a year later, and occasionally go back and look at my quiet page and think about what it's like to be an internet ghost. By the way, if anyone wants to write about an internet ghost, you can have that one. Like I said, technologically challenged here, and that idea frightens me because of the amount of research that could possibly be involved. Can spectral material travel over internet signals? How does chain mail feel as it zips through your entity? Are spammers really just ghosts that are as tech-illiterate as me trying to get our attention?

Anyway. Lately, when I go to join a writing site, it seems like it's either a big gaint community that intimidates me with it's connectedness, a giant community that really isn't very connected at all and isn't that great of a place to be, or a small community that intimidates me by its intimateness. And most WIP sharing sites have strict rules about what can be in manuscripts, and I break at least a few of them. This makes me kind of sad. I had no idea my book was too bad for the internet. The irnoy is cold and painful like a rusty scouring pad to my self-confidence.

Anyway. What I'm trying to say is I know it's not as easy as it seems to do social networking. People you meet over the internet can be just as, if not more, intimidating than real-life people. The pressure is all on you to be witty and charming without even having eyelashes to bat, and internet sarcasm has a nasty habit of going over peoples heads. So if you are a socially awkward struggling networker trying to find their place in cyberspace, don't be afraid to ask for help. Just not from me, 'cause I'm as clueless as the rest of you. I also use 'Anyway' way to much. I was just about to start another paragraph with it. I'll restrain myself.

...Check out these websites that have at least marginally worked for me!

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/
http://www.webook.com/home
http://fantasy-writers.org/default.asp

And fictionpress.com is okay, but you've gotta have a way to draw people in from other places, because that site is ginormous.

Til next time!

The Song of the Story

A lot of writers say this, but I can't help associating stories with music. A song can take one emotion out of the many connected threads which make a novel and make you feel it (my Christian Living teacher refers to this facet of modern music as 'emotional porn'. It's kind of funny, yet kind of disturbing). It's a way of increasing the emotional connection between the character and the writer/reader, because many songs (mostly popular song) are generic and can speak to the experience of the character while also speaking to your experience or your desires. Songs help you understand how and why people can relate to your character, because a large number of people in the general demographic have related to the song, if it's popular.

If the music fits the tone, too, you're on a roll.

There's a reason I've been thinking about this, but I'm not sure I want to go into it just now. Instead, I'm gonna list a few songs that make me think of books I've loved, or vice-versa.

The Reason (Hoobastank) - Girl, Stolen (April Henry)
Once (Caleb Kane) - Ink Exchange (Melissa Marr)
Chasing Cars (Snow Patrol) - The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
I'm Alive (Becca) - Howl's Moving Castle (Dianna Wynne Jones)
Ugly Side (Blue October) - Beastly (Alex Flinn)
I Will Possess Your Heart (Death Cab for Cutie) - Paranormalcy (Kiersten White)

I'm sure there've been more, but I've forgotten them.

Of course I do this with my books, too. Rather obsessively. Perhaps, one day, I'll be able to post some of those here, when people have actually read them. I will say that "I Will Follow You into the Dark" is rather permanently in my head as "the song of the story" for Accidents. There are a few others.

Now that I've prattled, I want to hear your thoughts. Do you agree with my match-ups? What songs do you associate with a book or character? What songs would you chose to represent your own work?