(no subject)

Okay! Let's try this again. As Jeff Goldblum said, without the oops.

( Русский язык )

A little bit of gender swapping on some of the translate this sentence where the gender wasn't given, but I think that actually went way better. I hope. Now that I don't have two words back to front and can mind my e's and not e's.

Ahem. Oogh. Tired. Almost don't want to game tonight, except where being social wouldn't exactly be a bad thing. But I got way less writing done this week than I wanted to and I think my numbers are creeping back down, not to mention the projects I need to do that aren't getting done. Ugh. I need to work on that. Today, though, is going to be a fucking ridiculously busy day at work, so the odds of my actually getting to do any of that are slim. I'll be lucky if I can go across the street to poke at alternative wigs and/or stockings at the lingerie place.

I suppose I should have something more interesting to say here, except I don't. Writing tomorrow, sewing and costuming on Sunday. Possibly there will be going to see the Expendables if game doesn't happen. I will do my best to persuade the boy of this. Because it is a movie that needs to be seen if only to laugh at how it has every goddamn action hero ever. Or at least two thirds of them.

(no subject)

( Random language practice )

( 日本語 )

And that's all she wrote for that, because I have to do my emails and get ready to get the hell out of here. God my workstation's a mess. I really, really need to clean it up on Monday. Like, a lot. File my papers, break down boxes and clear them out, all that jazz. And probably clear some of the crap off my table as well, which here means trashing it. Or putting boxes too far gone down to the recycling. Oogh. Except today what I had to do was ship a fuckton of backordered yarn since it was finally in. And now the dyehouse for our yarn is waiting on their dye, which didn't come when expected. Oh goodie. Because what we needed was a BIGGER delay in getting that yarn in.

( 30 days of writing meme )

3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you're writing about fictional places)?

... Oh christ.

It depends on the circumstance. Usually the names just sort of pop into my head, the shape and sound of them, and with a little prodding they drop right in. Dale worked that way, I knew it was sort of a D-a type sound. Joss... I can't even remember how, but I know Martine was that way too. My go-to when I need a name right now and can't think that way is usually the environment around me. The news or newspaper or a news website, the paperwork at work. I'll pull first names from there, and last names, and mash them up together, sometimes altering them (from 'Jennifer' to 'Jen' or 'Miriam' to 'Maryam' or something ridiculous like that) or just taking a first name from someone and a last name from somewhere else.

Sometimes I'll need a cultural name. And sometimes when I need that, I'll google [culture] [gender] baby name, but a lot of times I'll go to literature or fiction or history and just wiki surf until I come across something I like that sounds right. I prefer looking in original sources for names, especially when I'm aiming for a certain geographic region. If only because then I know that I've at least gotten it somewhat right, even if that name isn't in favor anymore. Preferably matching up name, region, and time period, but you can't always have everything.

Fantasy names I've never been good with. Which is probably why most of my current works are urban fantasy. I am kind of fascinated with conlang, so I expect when I dive into fantasy or more distant sci-fi for a more concerted try I'll actually create a linguistic background for the names for my made-up culture. If you haven't already figured out that I'm something of a language geek by now, well...

Names for countries and cities and places and things... well, again, I don't do fantasy or sci-fi much as I used to, so that's less of an issue. Clubs and restaurants and things, I tend to go for either "stock" names or build off of names of places I've been, organizations I've heard of, and so on. So far it's been very easy to just mix and match or chop and paste. Sometimes I'll make it relevant to a plot element, or a character element of the character who owns or runs the place. Usually I try to make it either fit into the theme or just sound plausible.

Mostly, my favorite names just seem to click. I know them when I hear them.

(And by now I've been writing this post for about three hours, so I think I'm just going to post it and be done.)