And did people think I was talking about deleting the first draft without keeping a printout? Of course you'd never do that. But yeah, Extreme Writing. I admired her courage.

yeah, that's brave.

My carpet is vacuumed. Bed made. Laundry laundered. Dog brushed.

Hello to the avoidance.

That said, I have pages! I have fucking pages! (Sorry, I'm very profane today.)

No avoidance, except in a damned good cause. I don't remember which thread I was in where we were talking about Roz Kaveny, but I've just got a wonderful email, with an attachment of something she's working on....

lalalala, me to read instead of write for ten minutes.

Seriously, I don't avoid. If I don't feel like writing, then there's a damned good chance that anything I'd produce if I pushed would suck salmon anyway. But I don't avoid. Haven't felt the need.

I think it is fair to say that Deb and insecurity are unmixy things.

Novel! I have the first bit of Roz's new novel! And it ROCKS!

off to send her Pensioner and Needfire. Because she and I both have things set in Oxford.

Happy happy.

I think it is fair to say that Deb and insecurity are unmixy things.

Betsy, are you mocking me with your monkey pants? Or are you mocking my monkey pants? Are are you merely commenting on my monkey pants?

I keep most of my hand-written drafts. I'm not sure what to do about the one I wrote on a muddied Nordstroms bag, however.

Have it shadowbox matted and framed, hang it and light it. Art of one sort or another.

I have written some of my best poems waiting in the car. I get ideas while driving, and jot down notes at stoplights. I make detailed outlines of long fiction in longhand, and even scribble down scenes, if they come while I have paper before me and a pen in hand. I used to write disconnected scenes, as things came, and found myself tinkering and fiddling with those and not writing the bridging pieces. So I wouldn't let myself actually write scenes ahead while working on my last piece of long fiction. I'd do a word sketch of it, or scribble down a line of dialogue, or a quick snapshot description, but I didn't allow myself to linger there, to resolve my vision of that scene. It kept me moving toward it.

You people (if any here) who write original fantasy set in alternate worlds, how do you invent names for characters, and what's harder, for places? People names often just need a tweak from a this-world name. But how do you invent a place name that evokes your this-world prompt, but still sounds sufficiently "other"?

But how do you invent a place name that evokes your this-world prompt, but still sounds sufficiently "other"?

Bev, I don't know about fantasy place names, but just coming up with real-world names that "belong" is tricky. If you come up with, say, a place name ending in "-dene" and put it in the mountains of Wales, you're going to raise howls.

Would choosing a fantasy place name be rather like choosing a child's name after it's already born? "Mathilda! This kid looks and acts like a perfect Mathilda!"

Um, like that? Or am I talking out my ass?

I think it is fair to say that Deb and insecurity are unmixy things.

I like Deb.

Um, like that? Or am I talking out my ass?

Tolkien invented a couple of languages just to deal with this issue.

Robert E. Howard used obsolete names from antiquity to name his places. Hyperborea etc.