That was my secretary's half-sister Dominique. Dad was LeRoy Jones (Mr Baraka, these days, I believe).

My secretary was Dominique's older sister Jeanne. All white. Also dropdead gorgeous.

A very successful Australian author once confessed to me that her breakthrough novel was written while she worked for the National Australia Bank. She was employed as a typist, and she was just very fast. They gave her a pile of typing every morning, she finished it by twelve and ... just didn't tell them.

I'm trying to work out what time of day to write at, even as we type. My most productive time of day is mid-afternoon, 3 to 4-ish. I've heard a theory that the time of day that you were born is your most productive time of day for the rest of your life. However, not coincidentally, this is the time of day that I'm usually at work (afterschool programs having a tendency to happen around then). So I'm thinking midmorning. Elevensies? But I'm trying to start up a daily songwriting habit, and I'm not yet sure about it.

I love to write longhand, though I no longer always do it. But if I do, it must be pencil, or a damned fine pen. Nothing interrupts the creative flow like blotty ink.

I am able to be creative in text, though, and my most recent short story has been composed entirely whilst road tripping. Which is a good deal of my life, so, shiny. This may explain why one of my main characters is hitchhiking, and the other playing pinball.

Somewhere in this house is the poem I wrote on the back of last week's shopping list. Dunno where, though. And also, the stuff I wrote at Woodstock (the second one, the one that was neither genuine nor filled with fire) is inexplicably (ha) muddy.

I have never had problems with names, but that probably has its roots in rpgs. I never have trouble coming up with screen handles that don't have numbers in them, either. Commonly, I bastardize names or sometimes just words from other languages, Biblical names, historic names. I recombine suffixes and prefixes from the preferred time period or culture: Aeolyta, Melosyne. If I'm world-building, then I like to think about the cultural history and environment. What do the people value? What is their aesthetic?

Place names can be harder, but you can apply the same principles. Also think about the history that time moves through. How did New Hampshire get named? North and South Carolina? Zanesville was named after Zane Grey. Who was important to your citizens?

You'll end up with all sorts of backstory, but it's handy to have anyway.

I've heard a theory that the time of day that you were born is your most productive time of day for the rest of your life.

Lets me out, then. I was a nearly-midnight baby and I work best at dawn.

I love these: Aeolyta, Melosyne. Those are sensational names.

My pantry full of marmalade? My crazy-quilt pillow top? Helllooooo to the avoidance.

Cat vacuuming! Don't tell me you've all forgotten that that's cat vacuuming?

Dang, I missed the only burst of real chatter in Write in the last few months.

Just to throw my stats in, I write at the end of the day (whenever that is.) My brain has to attain a certain level of fried-ness over the course of the day - somewhere between "beer battered" and "classic McD's fries"; if I go all the way to "KFC Extra Crunchy", I'm just delusional, not actually creating - to achieve a good writing groove. Proper applications of music and alcohol are also important.

I keep extensive notes in my 5x7, unlined, ringbound journals (from www.mrogerpress.com, I love them!!!) and I type my first drafts, edit on paper.

There was a big gap in my writing, about eight years, that ended early in Y2K. Since then, six novels and a handful of short stories. You know how they say your first million words don't count? I'm well into the counting. And the word mountain is only looking taller and taller, the more I learn about what I don't know about literary technique. Publication might be up there somewhere, but it's about the climb, not the peak itself.

Well, it's also about crash-bang action sequences and steamy bedroom scenes, but...

How did New Hampshire get named?

Hampshire is a part of England. Southerly, I think? FayJay? Am-Chau? My hometown, Hampstead, is a neighborhood of London, I think...

I mostly write at night. My best stuff normally involves insomnia. But then, I was born about eleven pm, so I still fit the theory.

Names for fantasy places have never been a problem for-- when I need a bunch, I go around for a day or two muttering nonsense under my breath until I get some good sounds together. I play with real names all the time anyway, so it's not hard. And onomatopoeia helps, too. My first fantasy world (an island) had a magical waterfall at its center, known to one and all as The PlishPlish. Stupid story (it featured what I now recognise as a group of five Mary-Sues), good name.

When I've been blocked, it's sometimes been depression, but more often I've been reading books on writing and how you should do it. It took me ages to connect "bought a book about how to write" and "having trouble writing". Illogical, but the case. The more I try and take other people's advice-- not about the story itself, always, an editor always helps rather than hinders, but about process ('write every day'/ 'always write long hand'/ 'always change your first draft'). Sometimes it was just because I used take one author whom I really admire saying 'I always write in long hand' to mean 'writing in long hand is the only way'.

On the other hand, I think I should use the WWJD mantra more often. It might stop me being too nice to my characters all the time.

Hampshire is a part of England. Southerly, I think? FayJay? Am-Chau? My hometown, Hampstead, is a neighborhood of London, I think...

Hampshire is indeed a county in southern England, just about the Isle of Wright-- contains the New Forest, for example (See this.), and Hampstead is a part (a borugh?) of London. Hampstead Heath is the famous part, although Hampstead School seems to come up most often in a Google.

Um... yeah. Right.

For names (place, character, and otherwise), I often go to [link] and browse the online foreign language dictionaries. [link] is a fun place to browse for names.

I went to South Hampstead High School and lived in Hampstead Garden Suburbs.

It's all connected.

It occurs to me that this thread hasn't seen poetry for a while.

This is from the project I'm currently doing, where I write an acrostic, and then rewrite it into a poem that's a sequel to the first, or enters a duet with the first, or is just a revision of the first.

THE FLICKER SPEAKS

Listen. Unless some small things are come to pass (pebbles and grass, dead leaves,
Ants crawling over rocks) you will not pull for the last moment. I've never
Not been benevolent, munificent, magnanimous, let you to use all of
Those little words you dreamed up. Frost traces your windows now.
Every moment inside your skin; don't dare forget. I wait; a moment later you are
Righted and set to minute. Counting your chickens. The wolf draws
Nearer to your homestead, your small lantern burning, your wooden door.


THE FLICKER SPEAKS II

The wolf draws nearer. Here, it's cold. Mildew grows on the back walls.
You wait, and shiver. 
Every moment inside your skin--
                                                                              don't dare forget. I watch you. 
There's a lesson lost.                               Breaking out like crocuses.
Another forty days of rain. Every bible's just 
another love story, sweet heart, time slowing.
                                                 The arc's been sighted. The candle waits.