Tag Archives: fiction

What’s in a Name? – Canine Edition

27 Thursday Sep 2018

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I have a confession to make. I don’t like when pets have people names. I mean, some of them kind of work, like Max or Butch or Millie. But some just seem ridiculous, like Zach, Zoey, Chloe, or Edward.

Feel free to disagree with me. In fact, go ahead and make fun of me—here’s my second confession: I name all my dogs for characters or places from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Naming a new puppy is serious business. Our new puppy has had no fewer than five—possibly six—names in his short life. After his rescue in the Cayman Islands, he was given the name “Ivan.” Upon arrival in New York, he was christened “Cadbury.” A kind of clever name, I think, since his coat is caramel and dark black/brown. He was then adopted out to a family with small children who—after school began—decided that they couldn’t manage a new puppy and the needs of their five young children—they may also have named him, we don’t know for sure.

When we rescued poor Cadbury from the humane society, he became subject to my family’s obsession with naming our pets for LOTR characters and places, etc. We’ve had a “Brandy” (the Brandywine River), a “Ranger” (his papers said “Aragorn, Ranger of the North”), a “Took,” and we currently have a “Bree.”

For Cadbury, I wanted “Beorn” or “Bear” (after the character from Tolkien’s Hobbit), but we decided that those names were too similar to Bree. When my husband suggested “Strider” (the name given to Aragorn when he is introduced to Frodo by the innkeeper in Fellowship of the Ring) I thought “Perfect! The puppy has such long legs.”  But after a couple of days, it just didn’t seem right.

So, we whipped out our printed copy of The Tolkien Companion. It didn’t take long for my hubby to find the perfect moniker.

Drumrrrrrrollllllll…….

BREGO!

brego 4

Brego! Kingly, wild, smart, loving – the perfect pound puppy.

Yes, yes, I know—it starts with “Br” just like Bree, but it’s him. He is Brego.

Here’s the etymology of the word/name:  Brego means “chief, leader, king, lord” in Old English, which Tolkien used to represent Rohirric in his works. In the history of Middle Earth, Brego was the second king of Rohan. Also, in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy, Brego is the name of a horse ridden by Theodred, the king of Rohan’s son. After Theodred dies, Aragorn advises releasing the traumatized horse who has “seen enough of war.” Later, Brego finds Aragorn after his fall from a cliff and carries him to Helm’s Deep. Read more about Brego on this great site.

Naming a pet is a like naming a main character in fiction writing. The name is going to be with you for a long, long time—through many edits and plot convolutions. You should make sure you like it, make sure it fits “personality-wise,” and make sure you don’t mind saying it and writing it over and over again. This is no joke. In the case of a dog (or MC), you might find that you say (or type) the name fifty times a day.

Wherever you find inspiration for character names—graveyards, historical records, mythology, fairy tales, baby name books, news sites—choose wisely. Names have power.

Read other thoughts I’ve previously shared on naming characters.

Haunted by Inspiration

27 Saturday Jun 2015

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There is a twilight girl who has been visiting me lately. She makes her appearance in those moments between waking and dreaming, or when the rhythms of life allow the mind to wander. She is but a child—eight or nine years of age—with hair of a strange white gold that is, somehow, also red. She wears an odd, old-fashioned dress of a drab and nondescript color that hangs on

her thin body. In semi-consciousness I see her walking along on a dirt path or sitting upon a broken rock wall with her chin resting on her pulled-up knees. I see her always from behind, at first. Either I am walking through the woods and come upon the path and the girl unexpectedly, or I am wandering amid a messy Victorian-ish garden and I catch sight of her through a cascade of vines. As I approach, she turns and looks at me through the corner of her green-gold eye, then she fades into nothing.

And even though I try to fight it—try to stay with the halfdream—sleep arrives…or slips away from me.

I know this girl’s name and I know her story. I know it because I am her creator. She came to life in a novel that I began months ago while taking a two-hour train ride along the Hudson River. The story began without planning, without warning, as inexorable as an avalanche. A magic combination of synapses fired in my brain, triggered by the images I saw outside the train window—a massive old house half-hidden on a rocky outcropping on the river, a strange stone fountain covered in dead vines, a ruined castle, and a wooden rowboat half buried in sand and—bam! My writer’s brain went into overdrive.

Bannerman Castle, Pollepel Island

Bannerman Castle, Pollepel Island

I wrote all the way into the city and all the way back home. The intricate weaving of mystery and history and horror frantically vomiting itself onto the blank pages of my notebook.

And then, once I returned to my routine, I found little time for writing. The next few days passed quickly, then the next few weeks, and then…well, here we are.

The girl and I.

She doesn’t bother me while I’m working, kind little haunting-thing that she is. She usually peeks in the window while I’m folding the laundry. Or sits in the corner chair in the kitchen while I make dinner, kicking her feet and silently waiting.

Okay, okay…I’ll make time, I promise.

But I don’t.

Last night I woke groggily after having fallen asleep on the family room couch and stumbled upstairs to bed. As I quickly drifted off, her ice-red hair flashed in the mirror hanging on the closet door. I tried to focus my eyes and mind and force her to materialize, but sleep won out.

And just before I opened my eyes this morning, I found myself on the wooded path. As I approached, I saw that she was not alone—the dead young man who also sits at the center of the novel was with her.

They both ignored me. I stood beside them and they seemed not to see me. I opened my mouth to speak and no words came out. It was a horrible feeling—as if I no longer belonged with them, no longer existed.

Then today I found myself in the middle of a rainy afternoon, all caught up on the laundry and the latest episode of my current favorite creepy drama (curse you cable TV). Cleaning out my purse, I happened to open my writer’s notebook to the page where I began the original story.

As I read the words—my words—the girl, Trill, came back to vivid life, I read and was consumed by the power of my own storytelling until…

…it cut off mid-sentence.

That’s all I’d written? I was sure I’d gotten farther. Of course, I knew what should happen, what I intended to happen, but when I let the next scenes play out in my writer’s mind I found that the plot was now altered. My girl wasn’t who I thought she’d been at all.

Her lips curled into a sly smile. She looked at me out of the corner of her gold-green eye.

Clever, clever little story ghost. Haunt me any time.

My Physical Book Addiction— A Rambling Confession of Guilt (Not!)

05 Sunday Oct 2014

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I like to tell stories about how I read voraciously as a child. Even when I put down my current book to eat breakfast or lunch, I would find myself searching out the words on the cereal box or the mayonnaise jar. I read everywhere. All the time. I couldn’t stop. It was a torture to me that I was subject to motion sickness during the long car trips my family made between Illinois and Canada and I was forced to read signs and mile markers and license plates and bumper stickers instead of books.

I’m grown up now (at least in years) and my addiction has grown to monumental proportions. It isn’t just reading that marks my “illness” now, but the thousands of physical books that I own. You see, I’m not just one of those crazed readers who consumes the NY Times Bestseller list in as few bites as possible or who belongs to some snooty book club who dissects literary one-hit wonders to the point of college literature class torture. I do, indeed, read, and I sometimes I even read e-books– (gasp!). But the book that earns a permanent spot on my shelf must have one exceptional quality that most new books lack.

I must want to re-read it.

Not immediately. Not for a special purpose. Not necessarily for research or inspiration—but simply because the writing drew me in. It took me to someplace new. The words made me feel and care and escape. Perhaps the writing wasn’t perfect, but there was something…some intangible magic that was called to life as I read, like a Pagemaster-y Inkheart-ish enchantment. I am forever searching for the story that has the capacity to ensorcell me again and again and again.

What books are on my shelf? So many, my friends, so, so many. Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien, George Orwell, Lois Lowry, Christian Jacq, Garth Nix, Victoria Holt, Neil Gaiman, Suzanne Collins, Madeline L’Engle, C.S. Lewis, Philippa Gregory, DuMaurier, Irving, Bronte, Stoker, George R.R. Martin (damn him!), Thackeray…the list goes on and on and on…new authors, old authors, young authors, dead authors.

And, as I’ve grown older, I’ve found that it isn’t just fictional stories that can transport my spirit, but poetry, nonfiction, history, and even just fantastic illustrations. I own an extensive collection of Elizabethan history books including antique first edition biographies of Elizabeth I. And I’ve become a collector of fairy tale books of all kinds—particularly old volumes with illustrations from the so-called “Golden Age”—Arthur Rackham, Caldecott, Greenaway, and Dulac are among my favorites (I recently acquired a copy of the Hungarian “Csoda Album” illustrated by LEFLER AND URBAN…so amazingly beautiful, sigh…).

Lefler and Urban, 1911

From The Csoda Album, illus. Lefler and Urban, 1911

I’ve also become enamored with Edward Gorey’s offbeat art and stories. And studies of world mythologies (Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces) and Victorian cemeteries and asylums have all earned a place in my personal library, as well as books on the art and craft of writing and the history of language.

I have over 2000 books on the shelves around me as I sit at my desk writing. All of these books mean something to me. I can pull any book off the shelf and know that it is a worthy companion. The physicality of the book is part of its relationship to me. It’s a little like the difference between hugging someone in person and sending them a little “*hugs*” message in an email. I don’t read or collect books in the way that some individuals “friend” others over social media. I’m not just gathering the largest pile possible or reading to keep up with pop culture. I have read the words, pondered and processed and daydreamed about the content, closed and opened the cover, reveling in the weight and thickness/thinness of the pages, and followed the trail of thought to the author’s last word or the artist’s brush to the final colorful stroke of expression.

I recently packed up my library and moved to a new house in a new state hundreds of miles away. Books are heavy, friends, very heavy. And packing and then unpacking and reorganizing my cherished collection in a new, smaller space has been challenging. After I mentioned this to someone in my extended family she asked why I just don’t buy electronic copies of my books.

I tried to explain but she shook her head, obviously not understanding. I think she felt sorry for poor book-addicted me–as so many other, practically-minded people do.

And we feel sorry for them, don’t we?

If Jane Austen and Charles Dickens had a baby…Middlemarch!

30 Friday Aug 2013

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I’ve got a confession to make. It isn’t an easy one for an avid reader and writer with a degree in English from a fine liberal arts college. I’ve always prided myself on my broadness of view and quality of thought–but here goes…

I hated Middlemarch the first time I read it.

There, I’ve said it. Now I can move on–thank goodness.

The first time I read Middlemarch, I was very young. Still all aglow from reading the complete Jane Austen, I had dabbled in Dickens without much enjoyment (excepting A Christmas Carol) when a wise professor recommended Middlemarch.

I dove in…and immediately fell in love with the high-minded Dorothea Brooke. She was a kindred spirit! I, too, felt myself “a cygnet among ducklings”–don’t we all, at some point in our lives? I read the beginnings of Dorothea’s story with a kind of rushed rapture. She was so passionate and thoughtful–a girl/woman breaking the bonds and conventions of her time–wait!

Why is George Eliot writing about all of these other people? Writing a lot about them, too. Smells like Dickens! I want Dorothea…turn the pages…okay, okay, I’ll read about Lydgate…and Rosamund…and Mary and Fred…but what’s all this about politics? Yuck! And pages and pages about boring peripherals: theology, drunks, farmers, clergymen!

I hurried my way to the end of the book, judiciously skipping some long-winded poo-poo, and prepared to be satisfied by Dorothea’s ultimate decision concerning Will Lladislaw. Instead, I found myself extremely disgruntled by the final passages detailing her future life. In fact, the happiness in the story seemed to have been the prize of the characters I had found most uninteresting!

For some time after my initial reading, I found myself agreeing with others who professed a dislike of the book, sagely nodding my head, offering high-sounding comments about the didactic tone, etc. So haughty and über-intelligent, wasn’t I?

Then, recently, I watched the BBC dramatization of Middlemarch. When the portrayal of Dorothea in that mini-series seemed to not quite match up with what I remembered from the novel, I recalled how differently I now felt about Dickens and how much more I now knew about the Victorian Era and its literature. Had I misjudged Eliot, as well? Semi-reluctantly I pulled up a free online copy of Middlemarch and began to read–carefully.

I still found it wildly complex and exceedingly long, but now the peripheral characters and stories seemed tantalizingly layered and important. I could see the irony and the sweet-and-sour poignancy of the myriad episodes that had once seemed banal, but now seemed to combine unusual psychological depth and realism. I found Lydgate to be (almost) as important to the story as Miss Brooke. And Dorothea herself? Not so perfect in my minds-eye, but somehow an infinitely more interesting character. Eliot’s work seemed a fusion of Austen’s sassy and/or ridiculous women and men and Dickens’s scope of vision (and word count!) elevated into a more truthful, less Disney-fied, and thought-provoking medium.

I could go on and on, you know. I could begin channeling George Eliot…

Just kidding! Here’s the “sum up”:

Middlemarch: an extremely long but worthwhile Victorian literary mash-up/masterpiece. Don’t be a hater!

Signs and Portents

25 Saturday May 2013

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It often happens that I become discouraged with the progress of my writing career. There are so many interruptions and distractions. After all, my writing hat is only one of many that I must wear–I am also a mother, a wife, a friend, an employee, a supervisor, a musician. Work deadlines, dinner menus, doctor’s appointments, bill due dates, sick pets, yard maintenance…they all do their best to interrupt my writing goals.

But, as the real world tugs me this way and that, sometimes succeeding keeping me from putting words on the page for days on end, there are always signs to keep me on my true path–my writer’s path.

Sometimes it is something as simple as a yellow finch singing outside my kitchen window as I mundanely wash the dishes. Proudly cocking his little golden head and hopping from branch to branch. What are the words of his song?

Or, shuffling papers to search for a receipt at tax time, an old photo slides to the floor. My Granny. The sweetest soul who ever graced this planet, smiles out from a faded Polaroid. How I loved her laugh and her stories. How unconditionally she loved me!

Other times a shooting star will streak across the night sky as I stand outside shivering while my dogs sniff around in the dark. Make a wish! Then my eyes connect the star-dots of Orion and I think of ancient times.

Once, after cleaning the bathrooms (my most unfavorite chore) I saw a bald eagle fly past my bathroom window. I ran through the house in just a towel, following it from window to window, desperate to keep watching it until the last possible second. My heart thumping. Massive majestic bird. What is he doing here? Where is he going?

Often when I’m singing, I forget where I am and who might be listening, and I am the song–the perfect words, the notes following one after the other like a bridge to something amazing. There’s magic in song. Magic in words. Magic in story.

Forced to attend a tedious business lunch, I meet someone new and they tell a tale about their life–an amazing revelation of uniqueness where I had expected monotony. For the rest of the day I look at the other ordinary people around me and I wonder about their stories.

The façade of an old building on a one-way street in the city. Gargoyles and supernatural beings, frozen in stone, beautiful ugliness, stare down over modern life. What would they say if they could speak? What if they came to life and walked among us?

And my fingers begin to itch. I need pen and paper, a keyboard, a digital voice recorder. I need to write, to create, to pour it all out like an offering. And I do! Scribbling like mad on the train on the way home–laughing silently as I feel the curious looks of my fellow passengers. “What is she writing about?” they wonder.

Everything! I am writing about you and me and everyone! Laughter and tears and war and wonder! The beauty of the ordinary and the secrets of the soul’s imagination.

The next morning, I’m tired. I have a headache from staying up too late or being woken an hour before the alarm by two geese yelling at each other on the lake behind my house.

No writing today. I can’t even think!

Driving to the train, I turn down a road I’ve been down every work day for the last five years.

And I catch my breath….

The road is lined on both sides with blooming pear trees back-lit by the red-pink rising sun. White wedding-dressed branches welcoming and waving me on as I drive slowly and drink in the loveliness of the picture.

And I know I’m a writer today and tomorrow and every day until the end of my time on this planet.

Amen. So be it.