What's in a Name?

Ron has Stoner2. Well, my current work in progress is something I've been calling Thin Ice 2--TI2. Thin Ice is a book I wrote in the late nineties. Since then, every now and then, one of the characters would pop up and whisper to me. So this past year I finally got to it. TI2 is not a YA, but another attempt at adult hen lit. The main character in TI2 was a secondary character in TI1.The brother's girlfriend. Pretty quickly into the project I realized the new novel was only dragged down by keeping the ties to TI1. The main character in 2 shares only a couple of things with her 1 character: she's a single mom of two girls and a naturalist/science teacher. So, I've kept three characters but jettisoned all other carryovers.

I've known all along that the three carryovers can't and won't have the same names their origin characters had. But I just didn't get around to changing them. For months I've been thinking of them as Claire, Hannah, and Gwen.

I'm about four scenes from finishing the novel and I realized this morning that it was time to do it. You'd think I could wait a day or two until I get those scenes written, but no. Like a dog with a bone, I spent the whole day playing with names. The girls weren't much of a problem, but renaming the main character has been a nightmare. I pored over lists--women scientists, rose varieties, characters from the Bible. Just when I got one that seemed right, I'd get up and head for the coffee pot and by the time I was in the kitchen I knew it was a lousy name. I took a long walk and during that time I settled on and then discarded several possibilities. At about three this afternoon the perfect name appeared out of the ether. I celebrated by going out to work on the flower beds. I didn't even have my gloves on before the perfect name was smelling like decayed leaves.

I do think I've got the right names now. Not to be coy, but I'm keeping them under my opening-day baseball cap. Don't want to jinx it. They're nothing special, I'll say that. Simple, serviceable, Midwestern names. I haven't written a word of those remaining four scenes of course, but it still feels like I've put in a good day's work.

An Inner Karl

Karl Lagerfeld, the designer, said that the reason he works so hard is to prove to others that they're useless.

He does work hard, too. Always sketching and changing his mind and ordering people around. Yet the people who work for him adore him. They think he's a genius (he probably is) and treat him accordingly: what he wants he gets.

Fine. Good for him. What I'm really interested in today is his attitude, the one that wants to prove to others that they're nugatory at best.

Kids' writers are an amiable bunch, clement and fraternal/sororal. But what if we each had an Inner Karl, a cool killing machine with a very high collar.

All of us could trade war stories about stupid or mean kids' writers, snotty and fat-headed ones. I don't mean that. Inner Karl would never show himself in workshop or the faculty lounge or anyplace else. But he would be a guy who could motivate us to work so hard our friends and foes would drop their pens and brushes in despair.

Could you stand to have others brought to their knees by the ruthless beauty of your work?

Just asking.

RK