Some Thoughts About Words

1. Someone told me long ago that foreign speakers always seem to think English has an overabundance of S sounds. When I think of that while speaking, I get kind of self-conscious . . . I mean anxious . . . I mean painfully aware. There, no S's. 
2. If I were to ask you what the most beautiful word in the English language is, what would you say? Another someone told me long ago that it was thought to be "murmur." I never really learned or could figure out why. Probably because it doesn't have any S's. Do you agree with their selection?
3. On the other hand, I saw this on the Merriam-Webster site the other day and was totally delighted: A top 10 list of Funny-Sounding and Interesting Words. I loved the sound of #1, but I was won over by the fact that #7, "widdershins," used to mean a bad hair day. Let's bring it back!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is not known for its amazing children's books. And I'm probably going to be too busy eating my weight in my mother's rolls to do anything about it, but if I have a minute, I may pull out this one-and-only classic from my childhood.

A very unusual holiday story, but you might say it's the perfect bridge between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Because witches celebrate too.

Do you have any Thanksgiving favorites I just don't know about?

Names

Choosing names for characters in my book was an interesting experience because all of them seemed to come about differently. Long before I had a finished manuscript or even a chapter one, I had the first sentence of the book. And I wanted to fit that in with the main character's name, so that's how I got her name. I had a certain idea of what the dad would be like, so I picked a name that seemed to fit. The mother's name was a little more elusive. I tried out a few different names, but none of them seemed right. They sounded fake, which indeed they were, but I wanted them to sound real. Oh, the irony... After a while, I happened upon the right one (after searching popular girls' names from the 1960s when she would have been born, had she been real), and I knew it instantly.

It was an involved process to name the main characters, but sometimes I only needed to come up with a throwaway name for another student we'd never see in the book again. And I wanted those to sound real too. I tried to pick middle-of-the-road names—names that were a little unique, something unlike Bob Johnson, perhaps, but not too unique so that the name detracted from the story, like Petal Kazowsky, for example. Although the more I look at Petal Kazowsky, the more I like it. Maybe I'll use it in another book someday . . .

It was this way with place names too. Sometimes I used combinations of names and places that were familiar to me, and sometimes I dreamed something up in my head, only to look it up and see that it was an actual place and the name of several cities across the U.S.—and none of them near me. True story.

Anyway, this is all to say that it was sometimes hard to come up with the right names, names that felt right. For characters, I tried to use different kinds of names: modern, classic, ethnically diverse. And while I was in the thick of writing, I was absolutely fascinated when I came across this supercool map of surnames in an issue of National Geographic.

Here's a link to the NGM blog post about it, where you can also enlarge the map in case you don't have superhuman vision.

Anyway, it's incredibly interesting to me to see how common last names are distributed in the U.S. It shows the countries of origin for the surnames, and you can see patterns of where immigrants from certain countries settled. The article also listed a website that lets you find hot spots for last names around the world: http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org/ You can look up your own, and it's very, very interesting. Frankly, I didn't know Scoresby was of Celtic origin.

So I tore out the map, and now I keep it in my writing stuff because I love it and it's useful to look at if I can't think of last names for my characters. Besides Smith, Johnson, and Miller, there are plenty to choose from.

QUESTIONS: What are some of the best names in literature? What would you say makes a good name? Any names that have bothered you?

If I were to write a book based on the dream I recently had . . .

. . . here would be the synopsis:  In a not-too-distant apocalyptic future, war is on and I am in the business of making special coats for people to wear to keep out harmful radiation, or something, which was called meconium. The coats looked like they were made of purplish-blue reformed laundry lint, so I don't know how effective they were at keeping anything out.

In the dream, I remember talking to some lady about how much I was selling the coats for. ($39.99, if you must know.)

She said, "If you really are trying to help the human race, why are you charging seven times what it costs to make them?"

I believe I said something in response about profit margins.

My dream brain is smart. Also, I almost never have interesting dreams, so this was a special occasion.

So this leaves me with two questions:

1. True or False: At the time I had this dream, I was studying up on how to care for the caterpillars—and resulting caterpillar waste (a.k.a meconium)—that my daughter got in the mail. (You decide.)

2. Is this book idea the bombdigity, or what?

Distractions

I've said before that I have ADGD: Attention Deficit Google Disorder. It seems like every time I sit down at the computer to do pretty much anything, my mind suddenly thinks up 10 or 20 other things I need to google RIGHT THEN—approximately one per minute—and none of them relating to what I sat down to do.

Distractions, when writing, are a given. And google's only one of them. Here's what I have to do to stay focused:

1. Makes rules for myself. When I sit down to write, I have to mentally tell myself email and facebook are not allowed. Otherwise, if left to my own unruly devices, I will be emailing my great-aunt, thinking I have good reason, before you can say chapter 1. And my brain will always justify getting distracted, so I have to stay on top of it. I don't always keep the rules, and I allow myself some messing around once in a while, but if I want to get anything done, this is sometimes what I have to do.

2. Treat myself. Making rules also may or may not involve rewarding myself if I keep said rules. Sometimes I say to myself, "I'll write for the next hour, and then I can watch the next episode of _______." Or "After I finish this scene, I will look up new recipes for a dessert I have to make." I can focus more if there's an end in mind and a reward, no matter how pitiful.

(Also, is it weird that the brain that justifies any distraction is the same brain that makes the rules and gives the rewards? Does this make me totally insane? Possibly. Or maybe it's just called self-control. Who's to say?)

3. Take notes. I set a notepad by me wherever I'm writing so that when my brain will think of anything and everything but writing and come up with a bunch of things I just HAVE to do right then, I write them down so I don't forget. But then I wait until later to do them. This notepad habit also works for getting writing ideas when I'm not at my computer. I have two notebooks in my purse, several random notes on my phone, and post-it notes coming out my ears.

Do you make rules for yourself about stuff? Please say yes so I don't feel like a total nut bag.