So, here I am, planting an ear worm for a popular commercial in your head. Me, the writer who seldom watches tv. One of my reasons for writing is that it’s a quiet hobby for when my retiree husband watches sports (often). He’s forever grateful that I didn’t choose the French Horn as my retirement pastime.

I proudly proclaim creative writing as my ‘elegant hobby’. I write funny! (which you may take in all ways that word implies)

I’m also an insecure writer, having more time than talent, and abashed to not have an MFA. I’ve joined a new online support group that seems tailored just for me, but my blog is the 196th on the list. Affirmation, validation, conquest of fear without leaving my seat! You’ll find the group’s badge at the bottom. Perhaps you’ll want to join, too.

Today’s topic is to be a response to the questions: what’s easier/more difficult to conjure: characters’ name or the title of a WIP.

Math might indicate that the title would be simple because there’s only one… But this is not math, it’s writing.

Character names are easily accessed for me:

  1. I have a cache of former client names from my private speech-language pathology practice
  2. Hanging at coffee houses to write also offers an opportunity to hear some ultra-exotic names people have applied to their orders
  3. The news arrives via various outlets daily and, omg, people have some unbelievable names… Others are easily pictured, donchathink?

I could go on-and-on, but I have a deeper question I’ve pondered throughout my life. My mother belatedly shared that she’d wanted to name me after one of my way-back relatives: Tamsen. Instead I got monikered Patricia.

While Patricia is a lyric name, my mother only called me that when she was angry. Then, and always in my teens, I longed to be Tami.

 

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