A Moment Of Quiet

What I love most about the end of my day is the fact that I can just come home and relax with the one thing I love doing above all else: writing.

I'm sure we all have our own different ways of relaxing. Some people love to cook. Some people love to read. Some people love listening to music.

I love to write. It excites me. It's the one job I have that I can't wait to come back to. I go to my normal day job, and dream away the hours until I can come home and sit down with either my pen and paper, or my trusty laptop, and just do a brain drain.

Right now I'm working on my full novel, The Key Keeper, a short story temporarily titled "Hope's Soldier" that I'm trying to complete for Pill Hill Press's Shadow and Light VOL 2 anthology, a drabble for Sam's Dot 2013 drabble contest, and an article 'bout ladybugs for Imagination Cafe, and I LOVE it! I'm not stressed out at all. I can do what I want to do when I want to, and nobody has any expectations on it except me. That freedom is intoxicating.

I'm also plotting the outlines for a couple WIP's that I'm trying to complete. One of the several outlines is going to be the basis of the novel I'll do for NaNoWriWee, but I'm having a hard time choosing between them. I love all the ideas, and I'm not sure which one I want to pour my heart into for the next month. BUT, I love it. I wouldn't want to alleviate the agony of the choice by one little bit.

I've also decided I'm somewhat of an anthology addict. Anthologies are such a nice length of words... not too long, not too short, plenty of space for action and plot and character building without having to go too deeply into the sometimes terrifying job of worldcrafting. Anthologies are fun. I'm having fun with the MC of my short story, "Hope's Soldier". He's a poor, confused man with a destiny he's not sure about and a future he has forgotten. I can't wait to finish it and get some critiques on it from my writer friends.

Oh, and I also love drawing. Random fact. I hope one day to be able to write AND illustrate my own books. Wouldn't that be awesome?

AND... I got another story accepted into the SOMETHING FROM THE ATTIC anthology, publishing date TBA. That was exciting, 'specially since the editor said it was a lovely, great, really wonderful story. That brightened the li'l cockles of my heart.

Last fun news of the day: today is my brother and sister-in-law's anniversary, and today their baby is one day old. Little Samantha Renee DeLallo looks like a real treasure. God is good.

Happiness!

Yesterday was the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels.

Every time I think of them, it seems they are God's greatest fairy tale. Don't you agree? Each on of us is born with this incredible guardian, this invisible warrior who watches over us and wakes our conscience when we are about to do something we know we'll regret later. They are with us from the moment of conception, and when we come to die they will be the ones to escort us to heaven, if we so deserve it.

Not only was it the Feast of the Guardian Angels, I also got a story accepted into an anthology called Trunk Stories, publication date yet to be announced. There is nothing quite like the taste of acceptance, to know your story was good enough to be shared with the rest of the world.

That's all for now. I just wanted to wish you all a (belated) Happy Guardian Angels Feast Day, and woo hoo! I'm going to be in print!!!

Names

Generally, unless I'm writing plain fiction, I like my character's name to correspond with whatever theme the story is about.

So, if I'm writing a dark and depressing fantasy in which the bad guys are winning, a little ray of hope needs to appear that will make all things good, so my MC would have to have a name that means Hope.

If I don't have a language of my own that would work for this, I use Google Translate. (I'm confessing this here.) For my story, Fathom's Hope, the MC's name is Remeny, a Hungarian noun translation that means Hope. It all comes together.

My favourite language, if I can't do my own, is Old English. Those names have the right kind of feel for old-age writing. A lot of the humans in my fantasy worlds ending up having Old English influenced names. It's a weakness of mine.

However, sometimes just an unusual name I hear can inspire a story. There is someone I know whose name is Alandra. Thanks to her, I have a novel called Whisper Mansion that is in the process of being written. So, sometimes a story inspires the name, but sometimes a name inspires the story.