I have my 75,000+ Baby Names  book out again.

If you ever want to make a man’s heart skip, just leave that thing on the edge of your desk. I get the book out several times a year, always eliciting a look of panic from my husband no matter how many times I explain that I’m only using it for work.

Typically when Baby Names  comes out I’m starting a story, but right now I’m finishing one. This is the handy-dandy reference that helps me name characters, which isn’t nearly as easy as you might think. This time around, for instance, I’m not naming a character but renaming one after starting out with a name that sounds way too similar to a character in another author’s story. (It wouldn’t matter, really, but we’re in an anthology together and don’t want to confuse readers!)

What’s in a name, anyway?

If you’re a reader or writer of fiction, you probably know the answer. A lot.

So many memorable characters have cool sounding names: Roarke, Scarpetta, Holden. Frequently, names in fiction are chosen to conjure up images. (Han Solo, Clarice Starling, Bella Swan, to mention a few). But there’s more to choosing a character name than imagery, unfortunately. Oftentimes it takes me longer to come up with the right name than the opening scene.

Many of my characters aren’t born at the beginning of a book, but in the middle of one. I’ll be in the midst of a scene and boom, new character walks in and I have to figure out what to call him. Call him Sam and get on with it, you might think. Problem is, the secondary characters could end up having their own books down the road. And whatever name I pulled out of the sky on that fateful day, I’m stuck with it for months and months. So it had better be good, heroic-sounding, worthy of a 100,000-word story.

Here are just a few criteria I think about: How does the name sound? Is it too similar to other names in my story? (Anyone who has ever read a book populated with guys named Jake, Jared, and Jacob knows how annoying this can be. Why not just toss in a woman named Jaymee and drive the reader completely nuts?)

So I make an effort not to have all my characters names start with the same letter.  Also, I try to avoid names that end with “s” because that just gives me grief later when I’m making possessives. And that’s when the detective spotted it! On the rain-drenched sidewalk was Amy Meyers’s bloody scarf….

Usually I come up with a first name simply by thinking about my character and consulting my baby names book. Pairing it with a last name is where the trouble starts.

Here’s how hero-naming often goes for me: I think of something fabulous. It’s simple, macho-sounding without being over the top. The name works well with my heroine. Her  name doesn’t sound kooky with it, should they get married someday (I don’t want to end up with a Sunny Skye or something). At last, I have the perfect name for my leading man. I turn to my computer, hop onto Google, and . . .

Find out he’s a porn star. Or an NFL quarterback. Or a seventy-year-old radio personality whom I’ve never heard of but millions of people listen to daily.

Sigh. Back to the drawing board. And so it goes until finally I get it right.

How do you think of names? Besides my baby names book, I use the phone book, the social security web site, the newspaper. If you’re not a writer, how did you come up with names for your kids? Your pets?

I’m looking for fresh ideas here! Share your stories and one commenter will win a free book. In honor of this weekend’s Romantic Times convention, I’m giving away a signed copy of UNTRACEABLE, which was nominated for an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award.

Good luck and have a great weekend!

At the time you read this, I am probably going to be sitting in the doctor’s office (again) while she looks in my throat (again) and tells me (yet again) that I have the “walking pneumonia/crud/boogie-woogie flu.” Again.

Argh.

I managed to stay well through the Desert Rose Conference (which was absolutely wonderful), but I had apparently passed the crud on to my husband and my youngest son, who very kindly saved it for when I got home so he could pass it back along to me. Because he’s helpful like that.

Somewhere in this very addled brain, I had something interesting to say about the Voice class I taught, but… I barely remember my own name right now. (And it’s not like I’m really even sick! It’s just annoying!) So, because my head is fuzzy with a cough-medicine-induced fog, and my ears are ringing, and I am sounding about like a 5-pack-a-day-smoker, I think I’m going to cry uncle and do something fun and simple.

Let’s talk pet-peeve words. Words you just hate to hear. Or read. Things that sound awful to you, or things that, when you see them used incorrectly, make you want to bop the speaker or writer on the head.

I’ll start: moist.

:::::shudder::::::

Even when talking about a cake, this just sounds icky.

Or, to pick a word because of its meaning: stupid. Especially if aimed at a child. This is one of the worst things I think can be said to a child, and it makes me flinch to hear it.

How about you?

And let’s make this fun. To celebrate our wonderful Debra Webb’s fantastic new book (which I bought yesterday–started reading and am bleary-eyed, I hated having to put it down) — titled ANYWHERE SHE RUNS — every entry is eligible for one of FIVE free copies of Deb’s book. So let the fun begin! Pet peeve words…. go!

(Five winners will be announced Monday here–so be sure to check back! Must be able to receive the book from Amazon or B&N.)

My daughter is always cautioning me not to go making friends online…but when I met Carla Buckley through the International Thriller Writers, I just couldn’t resist.  She’s funny and sass-mouthed and smart, and when I picked up her debut novel, THE THINGS THAT KEEP US HERE, I was bowled over. It somehow manages to scare the pants off you and make you want to have coffee with the main character all at the same time.

Since then, when none of my usual procrastination techniques are working, I sometimes bug Carla. My emails are usually a variation of “I’m boorrrrreeeed, entertain me”. Meanwhile she’s trying to get her words done, poor thing. The other day I pretended I was interviewing her so she wouldn’t un-friend me…here’s the result:

Sophie: So Carla, tell me about potato chips.

Carla: I can’t really trace when my love affair with potato chips began, but it might have been back when Pringles first hit the supermarket shelves. The concept of chips in a tube was beguiling. All you had to do was uncap the container and tip the chips into the palm of your hand. No fuss, no muss. And best of all, no nasty rustling of a bag to let everyone know you’re stuffing your face with junk food. Although, when you think of it, potato chips aren’t really unhealthy. After all, they come from potatoes, which is a vegetable. Much as Raisinettes can be considered fruit.

Nowadays, I fortify my long days at the computer with a bag of Kettle Black Pepper and Salt potato chips by my side. They give me that carb and salty rush the way nothing else can, and the only downside is that I have to shake my keyboard from time to time to dislodge the crumbs.

Let me ask you this, Sophie. Have you ever fired a gun?

Sophie: As a matter of fact, for my birthday this summer my family is sending me to the Writers’ Police Academy so that I can learn to shoot all kinds of things. This will be the first time I even touch a real gun, as well as the first time I will get to try handcuffing, prison searches, and accident reconstruction. My favorite phrase from the brochure is “Touch, feel, hold, see, and wear actual police equipment.” Yowza!!

After A BAD DAY FOR SORRY came out, I received letters from a number of nice ladies who wanted to tell me about their personal gun collections. Seein’ as we’re fellow collectors and all.

I know you got to talk to some actual scientists and stuff when you were writing THE THINGS THAT KEEP US HERE. Are those guys (and gals) hard to understand? Are they really boring?

Carla: You know what, I think I’m supposed to be signed up for that same course! No lie. Do you think they’ll have to take out extra hazard insurance, seeing as we’ll both be there at the same time?

I love talking to scientists (and no, I’m not just saying that because I’m married to one) even though I’m a confirmed non-scientist. I’m not really sure what a Bunsen burner is, only that it should be capitalized. But because my novel’s about an influenza pandemic and one of my protagonists is a scientist monitoring it in the field, I had to get up to speed on a few fronts. Maybe more than a few fronts (see Bunsen burner, above.) The scientists I interviewed are passionate about their work, and I think anytime you interview someone who really knows their stuff and is eager to share it, you’re ahead by a country mile. For example, when I asked one of them whether he thought we’d experience a pandemic during our lifetime, his response was sobering. “It’s not a question of if,” he said. “It’s a question of when.”

Yikes!

I love the title of your book, by the way. Where did it come from?

Sophie: Ha! That title came from deep in the dark recesses of my brain…so deep and so dark that I don’t even remember writing it.

See, what happened was that I came up with the one and only title of my lifetime that I ever loved: DRINK IT BITTER. Isn’t that nice? Isn’t it evocative and weighty and wouldn’t it look great in shiny embossed lettering?

Well, the nice folks at St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne didn’t really think a whole lot of that title. Let’s have a few more ideas, they said, so I painstakingly wrote up a handful. Nope. Ha ha ha. They wanted a few more. Send us a dozen, how about. So it went, back and forth like a dispirited slobbery tennis ball the dog ate. In the end I wrote over forty titles. I was desperate; my mentor had me looking in the bible and old country lyrics for ideas. I have no memory of ever writing A BAD DAY FOR SORRY and fear it might have been an envelope scrawl that meant something else entirely…perhaps a compendium of complaints about my damn teenagers (most mornings feature one or both of them making us late so there’s generally a chorus of “it’s gonna be a hell of a bad day for you if you don’t get your ass in the car, you’re gonna be awful sorry”).

Anyway. Ahem. The title finally passed muster with the high-ups and now it’s a whole thing. You know, like the second book is called A BAD DAY FOR PRETTY and so on. (Remind me to tell you what my agent suggested calling the third one. When no one else is listening.)

Holy smokes, that pandemic-in-our-lifetime comment was so scary I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear it! Hey, what did you do differently in THINGS than you did in all your prior books? (For those who don’t know, Carla and I are charter members of the very exclusive wrote-nine-books-before-getting-published club.)

Carla: As a dog-owner, I totally get that slobbery tennis ball image. Only in my case, because I have little dachshunds, it’s more like a teeny tiny rope Frisbee.

How cool is it that you were the one who came up with your title (even if it was maybe something you wrote in your sleep)! You’re going to be the Bad Day girl. I can see all sorts of amazing possibilities. You and I and your agent can get together and toss around a few. While we’re eating potato chips, which as I’ve said, earlier, fosters all sorts of brain activity.

You’re right, Sophie, I have a long, painful track record of writing novels that didn’t sell. It was sheer stubbornness that kept me going. As in, no matter how many times they tell me I can’t be a member of this club, I’m going to keep submitting applications. And smile really really big.

It’s not like I wasn’t trying. I stalked my agent until she succumbed. I attended conferences, joined writers’ groups, and went through four computers. I think what made the difference this time was giving up the rules and writing from my heart.

We had just moved to Ohio, where we knew no one, and the news was filled with warnings about how we were overdue for a flu pandemic. The particular virus scientists were monitoring (and still are) has a mortality rate of fifty percent–half the human population would die? So there I was, all alone, worried about how I was going to keep my family safe, given that I knew no one and had no support structure. The novel came from that deep dark place, unlike my other novels, which were more like mental exercises.

Can I flip the question around and ask you the same thing, oh great Sophie with the most awesome title and cover?

Sophie: Well yes ma’am. Only, my response is just a variation on yours. It’s that stubborn gene that you and I must possess in spades, plus one additional factor — writing actually makes me feel good.

Not always. Not when I’ve missed the obvious or made the rookie mistake again or accidentally written two chapters in third person when the rest of the book is in first person (that was the book I just turned in) or cut a scene that I was convinced was the only truly beautiful prose I ever wrote or reread dialog and it sounds like drunk ESL students talking about two different subjects….no, at those times it can be, erm, maybe a mite painful, even, to be a writer.

But most days? I sit down and I write my heart out and the things that are bothering me kind of flow into the words and dissipate without really leaving their outline on the page except for the most discerning readers. For instance, this week I am having a real struggle with a person who may or may not live in this house and may or may not believe that rules apply to every other person in on the planet except for him or her. When I reread my words from yesterday, I discovered that I had dealt with this person by turning him into a four-year-old who had visions of the undead. The connection may seem tenuous. Maybe you had to be there. But I salute you, o’ subconscious mind…you are a genius.

No way I’m giving that up. So every time I got a rejection, I just cuss a whole lot and keep going.

So I guess we’d better wrap this thing up, though I could go on talking to you for forty-eight straight hours…my final question is: what’s something you’d like to learn or try in the coming year, Carla, that has nothing at all to do with writing?

Carla: Wow, that’s a really great question. Ever since I signed my book contract, I’ve been so deep in writer mode (also known in this house as “the time Mom stopped making dinner”) that I haven’t even been thinking about non-writer-related things. So…huh. What would I want to learn or try? (taps fingers.) No, no, this is good. This is like therapy.

Still thinking.

Okay. I got it. I’d like to try being hypnotized. I’ve already got the name of someone in my area who’s supposed to be fantastic. Just think. She could help me remember to hand in school forms on time, and get over my fear of giant hairy spiders. She might even be able to help me address my potato chip addiction.

What about you?

Sophie: With you on the no-dinner thing. Well, I’m hoping 2010 is when they invent a cigarette that lowers your cholesterol and has no ill side effects because when they do I plan to smoke like a chimney. Barring that, this one friend of mine who writes young adult has been telling me about her pole dancing class and I got to say the idea of spinning around upside down by one’s feet is oddly compelling. No way I’m wearing heels or, you know, that other stuff though — I’d wear my comfy writing sweats.

Or maybe I’ll try to grow orchids.

So how about the rest of you all?  What crazy, harebrained, misguided thing would you love to try? One commenter will receive a copy of Carla’s book, THE THINGS THAT KEEP US HERE.

Good morning! I’m so excited today! One of my favorite books hits the shelves–ANYWHERE SHE RUNS. I loved, loved, loved writing this book. I think in large part because of the heroine, Adeline Cooper. Adeline first came to be in last summer’s release, EVERYWHERE SHE TURNS. As soon as I wrote the first line related to her, she immediately tried to take over the story. I found myself regularly attempting to rein the spunky lady in. But Adeline wasn’t about to be exiled to the corner (Nobody puts Baby in a corner!). By the time I finished writing EVERYWHERE SHE TURNS, I knew Adeline would simply have to have her own story. So I began to plot a storyline where Adeline could show off her tough attitude yet be bombarded with all the emotions she tried so hard to hide.

“Pretty, pretty princess. See her smile…see her die.” This is the invitation Adeline receives. The cut-and-paste note is accompanied by a newspaper article about a woman who has gone missing in Adeline’s hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi. Adeline hasn’t been home in almost ten years. In part because the only man she has ever loved lives there and in part because her powerful uncle threatened to have her killed if she ever set foot in Mississippi again. Adeline has made a home for herself in Huntsville, Alabama, and hasn’t looked back until now. BUT, nobody threatens Adeline Cooper without a reaction. No matter that her life will be in danger from more than one enemy…no matter that she will have to work side-by-side with her long lost lover who is now the sheriff, she will go back to Mississippi with the attitude of kicking butt and taking names. That’s just who Adeline Cooper is. She is fierce, determined, and utterly independent. She needs nothing from anyone…she thinks. Romantic Times Magazine gave ANYWHERE SHE RUNS a stellar review along with 4 1/2 stars! ANYWHERE SHE RUNS is fast-paced, action-packed suspense, the way romantic suspense is supposed to be. Webb crafts a tight plot, a kick-butt heroine, a sexy hero, and a mystery as dark as the black water at night.

While researching the setting I discovered an amazing old legend about the area that tied in perfectly with the story’s plotline. I can’t wait for you to read it! Moss Point and Pascagoula are both fairly small towns so I was able to utitlize my vast knowledge of small town life! I loved every minute of it! I’ve read some amazing books where I hoped the author would write more stories about a certain character. Have you written or read a book where you fervently hoped a certain character or characters would have another book? One lucky commenter will receive a signed copy of ANYWHERE SHE RUNS and will be entered in the contest on my website where I’ll be giving away a $100.00 Visa giftcard as well as a one year subscription to Romantic Times Magazine (where great novels are reviewed every month!)! So, don’t hold back! And be sure to pick up your copy of ANYWHERE SHE RUNS!

Many years ago, I was telling a neighbor my plans to fly to Texas to join my husband after he finished some business. It would be a three hour flight.

My neighbor said, “You’re flying ALONE. For three hours? What will you do?”

“Read!” I was so excited that I would get three uninterrupted hours of pure reading! I had three small kids at the time and a busy life. So reading was a precious commodity.

My neighbor didn’t get it.

Non-bookaholics never do.

My youngest son (the one who I could barely get to read in middle and high school) realized when he started college that he needed to improve his Language Arts skills.

“Read,” I told him. “Find what you like, and read.”

Much to my surprise he took my advice and began reading. He found he loves nonfiction about war, police, history and biographies. His reading and language skills improved quickly and dramatically. (He’s an A/B student) He started buying books and now has an impressive collection of hardbacks. He asks for them on his birthdays and Christmas. On his last birthday I ran into his girlfriend and her mother—all of us were shopping for books for his birthday.

He’s become a true bookaholic and I couldn’t be more proud!

Non-bookaholics don’t get it.

I have a confession, I am a weird bookaholic in that I don’t keep a lot of my fictions books (I do keep research books). I’m a bookaholic who shares. My sister, another son, and a few friends and I exchange books. So how do I know I’m a bookaholic?

I have a few “symptoms” of a true bookaholic:

1) Have you called in sick to finish a book (or seriously considered it)?

2) Do you look forward to things like going on an airplane or waiting in a doctor’s office just so you can read?

3) Can you pass a bookstore without going in?

4) Can you leave a bookstore without buying something?

5) Do you compulsively look at Amazon, or other review sites, AFTER you read the book to see who agrees with you and who doesn’t? (Hmm, that might just be me!)

6) Can you meet your friends for lunch and not talk about books?

7) Do you know your favorite authors release dates better than your kids’ birthdates?

8 ) When you say, “Just one more chapter and I’ll start dinner,” does your family rolls their eyes and order pizza?

Are you a bookaholic? What are some of your symptoms? Everyone who leaves a comment will be entered in a contest to win a $15.00 Barnes and Noble gift card! Winner to be announced this weekend.