This is a blog about writing.
This is a blog about how authors sometimes use unusual sources for characters' names.
This is a blog about how great minds think alike.
Now that I've set the stage...welcome to my latest insanity. We all get email spam. Nothing can really turn a good day on a nasty edge then to be trying to get a manuscript done, waiting for feedback from your beloved critique partners, logging into your email program and you sit there for five frikkin' minutes whilst oodles of spam downloads and is snagged--one by one--by your spam filter.
Dink-kaching. Dink-kaching. Dink-kaching. (My spam filter makes little noises so I know it's actually earning the bucks I paid for it). Dink-kaching. I usually at this point go to the kitchen, brew another cup of cappuccino and return to my desk just in time for the last of the dink-kachings.
Then I noticed something while I was scanning the spam folder just in case a lovely fan mail note was erroneously dink-kachinged: spammers have started using some really neat-o peachy keen fun names as senders.
I've started saving them. Do I have a problem or what? But I've started saving them because I thought at some point they might make a fun addition to a book as a character. It would certainly save me the time and headache of creating a name.
Because, you see, I spend a lot of time creating a character's name. I listen to its melody, its cadence. I work with is masculine/feminine principles. I want it to correctly reflect my character's, well, character.
So imagine, if you will, just what these lovely characters would be like (and I'd LOVE to see your feedback--give them stories and careers and post them here!):
Headley Knoblock
Paneling L. Crib
Ceased H. Comfy
Fox O. Ethereal
Dillon Furze
Myopic U. Romeo
Repetitive H. Neurons
Hoose J. Rochester
Shocking H. Separates
Hensel F. Chowdhury
Nosedives H. Cursory
Preppier S. Barometers
Hunter Valentine (I really like this one--I think he'd make a great hard-drinkin', gun-totin' PI!)
Puppet C. Zambians
Parsifal Gandara
Nails H. Quitted
Bluford Q. Longmire
Zvonko Belvin
and that's just in the past month and it's not even all of them.
Brilliant, eh?
So in my whimsy I email author-buddy Susan Grant. And guess what? (Here comes the Great Minds part). She's doing the same thing! She's not only saving spammers names but she already USED one in an upcoming release. The character? Tibor Frix.
Now it's up to you to make some good use of annoying spammers. Tell me--in ten sentences or less--about Zvonko Belvin and Nosedives H. Cursory, et al. Let's see how creative you can get (but keep it short, eh? Ten sentences or less).
Admiringly yours,
~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com
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I just got one from Beelzebub Zardar ...
ReplyDeleteOn the Romance Readers Anonymous list we're discussing the current and inexplicable prevalence of demons as leading men.
Poor Beelzebub would fit right in -- he was a sad and lonely demon, sentenced by Satanas himself to spend his never-ending years on the outside looking in. Until ... one day ... he met [gasp!] the pre-destined love of his life, and her name was Ananias Bonet. Two bananas shy of a bunch, but Beelzebub wasn't monkeying around. ((snickersnort))
I once whiled away a perfectly innocent half hour creating a historical romance between Blo Norton and Cockayne Hatley--both villages not far from me. Poor sweet Blo was being forced into marriage with the devious Hatfield Peverell. It was so tragic I had to blog about it (back in August, if you're interested. Slow month, August). But as for Zvonko Belvin and chums...
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't easy being the ghost of an FBI agent, but Fox O. Ethereal was learning to deal with it. Day by day, he watched his shortsighted nemesis, Myopic U. Romeo, try to make a move on Parsifal Gandara, the only woman he'd ever loved. It was breaking his heart, but Parsifal was a strong woman, and besides, Fox knew his best buddy, thye hard drinkin' Valentine Hunter, would always watch out for his deceased buddy's woman.
Well, I can't say I spend a lot of time saving spammers' names. Most of the ones I get seem to be either supporters or servicers of male genitalia ... or of ebay, paypal, various banking establishements, or the irs.
ReplyDeleteYes! The IRS. If you believe that the IRS is going to email you about the $46 buck refund they owe you --if you will only confirm a few details on the convenient link "Here" then you are too trusting, my friend.
However, I am fascinated by the names chosen by the subscribers to my bi-monthly newsletter www.rowenacherry.com/newsletter.
Also by the names of entrants in my various contests.
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Poor old Headley Knoblock. His cousin is the brilliant one, the wonderful and dashing racing yacht pilot Dillon Furze! But Headley, the blockheaded Knoblock, looks just like him and is mistaken for him all the time! Unfortunately Headley couldn’t navigate around his bathtub (even if it is huge to accommodate his 6 foot 7 inch frame) and Cousin Dillon navigates the complicated courses that wind around Saturn, Jupiter and through the asteroid belt without using the nav computer… So Dillon is using his blockheaded cousin Knoblock to run interference and side-track the gangsters who are after him because he didn’t fix that last race like he was supposed to… Of course he could let the bad guys knock of Knoblock and take his identity – Headley is RICH and Dillon is poor (as he sees things) but then he’d have to give up the two loves of his life – 300 meter solar sail yacht racing the luscious Lucy.
ReplyDeletePerspiration staining his white suit, Headley Knoblock sat uncomfortably, cooling his leather shod heels only figuratively as he waited for admittance into the esteemed presence of the regional overlord, Zvonko Belvin. The self-styled mob boss mopped his brow yet again with his handkerchief and tucked it away inside his jacket as the single door before him opened and Dillon Furze, the overlord's lieutenant stepped through it. At Furze's kurt nod, Headley rose to follow the tall, wavy-haired man back through. A dangerous man in his own right, Furze was the only person Knoblock knew who could boast routine access to most powerful man in the city-state of Kife Lajor. The door closed solidly behind him and his apprehension grew as Furze led him down a long hall. At the end, they turned left into an alcove where double-height doors stood open to a brightly lit audience chamber. Dillon Furze stood to one side and gestured Headley through. No words were spoken, and none had been expected -- Zvonko Belvin had had Furze's tongue cut out decades ago as a security precaution.
ReplyDeleteReluctantly, Headley approached the throne where sat Zvonko Belvin himself, instantly identifiable by his burning yellow eyes and the long white braid that rested against his gold-shirted chest. To his right was Parsifal Gandera, Belvin's top enforcer. Dark ringlets crowning his head, Gandera's beady black eyes bored into Headley's own. The man looked like death itself, all sharp angles and menace, and it was rumored his victims never heard a sound when they died. Sweat trickled into Headleys eyes as he turned to regard the overlord. Belvin gave a nod of greeting that Headley though quite out of place until he felt the burning pain in his chest. He looked numbly down at the pearl handle sticking out of his own chest, crimson running down the front of his jacket. He turned to look at Parsifal Gandera, standing placidly as before, but with the slightest hint of a smile on his swarthy face. And as he toppled to the floor, Headley realized, belatedly, he hadn't heard a thing.
That's more than ten, I know, but just couldn't help myself.
You guys are all a HOOT! Keep 'em coming. ~Linnea
ReplyDeleteOn a secret mission for the King,
ReplyDeleteHunter Valentine and his best friend, Dillon Furze, come upon Shocking H Separates and her wimpy fiance Headley Knoblock. With alpha male ego roaring, Hunter knows the ever beautiful Shocking deserves more and, determined to shock more than just her separates, he contrives with Dillon to kidnap Shocking and take her to his space ship. Upon takeoff Hunter takes Shocking into the officers quarters and proceeds to shock her clothes off and teach her things she never imagined possible between a man and woman. And what about that furze guy? Surely Hunter wouldnt mind a threesome now would he? What has Hunter gotten himself into? Might just turn the man to drink...
Mo
LOLOLOL! I love the names! I'll have to start paying closer attention to whom I get those penis enlargement and Viagra gel pills and patches emails from! hehe.
ReplyDeleteCarla : )
This is all very interesting, but I never do anything like this to come up with names for characters. I name the good guys in honor of real people (Palin for Sarah Palin, the first woman governor of Alaska) or from real Earthly languages that I love (Chinese, Japanese, and Irish Gaelic mainly.) The bad guys usually get a respelling of a mythological character. For example, Ariez is a re-spelling of Ares, the Greek god of war. Okay, now I have to go blog this!
ReplyDeleteMo, I shoulda known that was you from the start. *ahem* Fox O. Ethereal really prefers to have her first name spoken last. It gives the whole thing that come hither sound. Paneling L. Crib? Interior decorater, natch, with a rap twist. Hoose J. Rochester: washed up dirt track driver, whose favorite pick up line used to be Hoose your daddy? Myopic U. Romeo: The guy graduated from the worst university in the country, but the girls say he's an A+ kisser. Repetitive H. Neurons: Research biologist at some hole-in-the-wall college back East. Puppet C. Zambians: One-man travelling carnival. Does a twice-daily show out of the back of his '76 AMC Pacer. Bluford Q. Longmire: Personal injury lawyer. Obviously. Nails H. Quitted: Retired professional Quidich player. Last name is actually Hexema, but his early retirement so shocked the wizarding community that he gained an extension to his name. Ceased H. Comfy: Bed, sofa and recliner tester for numerous name brands.
ReplyDeleteOf COURSE!! I thought everybody did that. I've been doing it since they invented spam. Before that I used the staff list in T.V. Guide -- for mundane names. Oh, and some actor's names.
ReplyDeleteFor people who have no connection with our current reality, that's another problem.
ONE CAUTION -- those spammer names are not all made up. They are often real people whose eddresses have been appropriated.
Being on the inside of the server business, I learn the darndest things.
So if you use spam names for a character -- mixnmatch first. Take the first name from one and the last name from another -- then change the spelling.
You wouldn't want to get sued for an accidental resemblance.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
While I won't use any of the current names as such, do to a fallen letter at a hotel, I once ran a post apocalyptic RPG where the main villian was V'ndin Ice. Naturally, it was meant to be "Vending Ice". And the name even sounds cool. It was a pre-apocalyptic billionare scientist (think Victor Von Doom) who had himself frozen in an experimental cryonics cpsule. Then the war happened, and he wasn't awakened for centuries. Because of the time spent inside the capsule, the various mutagenics he was exposed to, and random "because I said so factor", the man who awoke was no longer entirely human, and took on the name V'ndin Ice. Basically, he was a vampire with certain cold abilities and really disliked warmth.
ReplyDeleteSkipper skippy (who also has a former guest as the bad guy in his Satamway stories ["where do amway people go when they die...straight to hell...God doesn't want amway in heaven"] by the name of B. J. Rusk)
Wagner Sprayer paid a visit in my spam filter today. I'm not sure if his problem is an enlarged prostate, or a hippopatamus-like desire to paint and thereby lay claim to my room.
ReplyDeleteCommanderinchiefsmalltree also got his taproot tangled in my processed meat filters. What seductive service he had of interest will forever be a mystery.
And, while we are on the subject of internet misunderstandings and strange compounding names:
ReplyDeleteTry reading these real companies' urls in a hurry.
<<
1. There's the Italian Power Generator company,
www.powergenitalia.com
4. And the designers at Speed of Art make a splash at
www.speedofart.com>>
These are all tooooo good! LOLOL! ~Linnea
ReplyDeletekeep 'em coming...
Cranny Plunge adores his job. He is a plumber and a sex god, and he loves the view from under a startled and grateful maiden's sink.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
Rowena Cherry
PS this must be A Sign. My word verification puzzle is zwloo
This weekend's latest additions:
ReplyDeleteBojorquez O. Stroupe
Beasom D. Maple
Why do I envision two portly barristers wearing vests with pocket watches, narrow specs balancing on long noses...? ;-) ~Linnea