What's in a Name?

Happy Monday! Hope you all had a fabulous weekend. Today I have a treat for you. Barbara Monajem is my guest and she's talking about a subject we've had lots of fun with here on the blog--naming characters.

Let's hear what Barbara has to say about it, though I may pop in on occasion too.
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One of the great pleasures of writing books is getting to name the characters. It’s like having an infinite number of children and being able to give them any names you like, no matter how old-fashioned or just plain weird. In Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil, the first book in the Bayou Gavotte series, I had a great time with names – a heroine called Ophelia who floats down a river with flowers in her hair, a hero named Gideon, and secondary characters with names like Constantine, Zelda, and Artemisia. (I particularly love the name Artemisia, but then I’m partial to plant and flower names.)

Me, too Barb. Did you know Artemisia was the name of my heroine in Distracting the Duchesss? And Daisy was in Vexing the Viscount. Flower names were very popular at one time.

Fast forward to the second book in the series, Tastes of Love and Evil, which was released last week. (This is one of the first ebook only releases from Dorchester. It's a great opportunity for you to download a free Kindle for your computer and try Barabara's newest story! For the purists out there, a trade paperback edition will be available in six months, but I predict you won't want to wait that long.)

I was a few chapters in when I realized I’d given the hero and heroine ordinary names – Jack and Rose. I’d seen those names a lot in other books and on TV. Was I drawing my names from the current collective unconscious? Could be – we’re all affected by what’s going on around us. The names suited my characters, but… sigh. I just couldn’t leave them at that.

Jack in particular. It’s a good name, but it’s usually a nickname for John, which is about as ordinary as you get in English men’s names. Fortunately, about the time I was writing the story, I’d seen a performance of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline at the Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern. It’s a wonderful theater, small and intimate. You sit so close to the stage that you can really see the players and sometimes even interact with them. In particular, I loved actor Drew Reeves’s rendering of the character of Iachimo.

Iachimo. Now there’s a different name! It could easily be shortened to Jack. So… voilà! Jack’s mother named her son Iachimo after a performance of Cymbeline she just couldn’t forget.
I already knew Rose was my heroine’s second name, and that her first name began with the letter T. Maybe my subconscious was playing with “Rose Trelawny,” a name I always liked the sound of. I’d even named the file for the story “Tearose.” Now, Rose is an irresistible vampire, with a strong sex drive and a vampire’s volatile nature. I‘m not going to tell you what her first name is, but feel free to guess. I had fun with this one. :)

Theresa. Theodosia. Tabitha. Tilly. Tamara. Temperance. Thomasina. Stop me if I'm getting warm.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about Ancient Rome, and I found some fabulous names there, such as Calpurnia, Claudia, and Livia. Rome had such sumptuous names! I already have plans for some of them.

Since I’m here to celebrate the release of my new book, here’s an excerpt from Tastes of Love and Evil. Jack, the hero (a sort of human chameleon, by the way, who can literally fade into the background), has just been shot by some bad guys, and although Rose doesn’t know him (she thinks of him as some random man), she’s given him her hotel room key so he can take refuge. But the bad guys are posing as feds, and they’re searching the hotel.

The room was empty.

No, it just appeared to be. “I told you there was no one here.”

Her nostrils quivering, every sense alert, Rose scanned the bed, the curtains, the embroidered mantle draped on a chair, the Elizabethan gown on the luggage cart. “Now get out of my room!”

The gunman ignored her, ducking in and out of the bathroom, glancing into the closet, going efficiently through every hiding place. Warmer, cried Rose’s senses, warmer, warmer, damn, oh God please no, as he shoved past the luggage cart to the window, and then as he returned, colder, warmer, colder, where the hell is the man? One-handed, the fake fed lifted the mattress and box spring, but no one was concealed underneath.

Sirens cried in the distance, and a second later the gunman’s phone squawked a warning. He left without looking back.

Rose retrieved her breakfast, double-locked the door, and scanned the room. Aha. She’d seen this phenomenon once before. She knew Random Man was in the room, somewhere near the window. “They’ve gone,” she said softly. “You can come out now. You need to have that wound tended.”

Nothing. Where was he?

“I brought coffee and doughnuts.” She put the food on the table. “I’d be happy to share, once we’ve patched you up.” Pause. “I know you’re here. I can hear you breathing.”

Nothing.

“I can smell you,” Rose said, her voice rising, tendrils of allure escaping. You and your blood. “I’m here to help, you fool!”

Still nothing. Or maybe…a faint shimmer, like heat rising in summer air, over on the luggage cart, right by the Elizabethan gown. Damn it, thought Rose. If he stains that costume… Anger coupled with the aroma of blood overwhelmed her senses, and her fangs slotted down. Purposely this time, she directed her allure toward the luggage cart. Another shimmer, instantly controlled, and then absolute stillness.

No more pussyfooting around. She smiled and sent a wave of allure crashing across the room. Random Man resolved into view, gold and tan and brown blending with the dress, then gradually reacquiring his own muted shape and colors, blue denims and Saints jacket, nondescript but definitely all there.

“God help me,” Random Man said. “Not another vamp.”

Back to names: What sort of names do you like? Popular? Old-fashioned? Invented? Foreign? Do you find unusual names distracting? Should names have meanings that suit the characters, or that have some symbolic meaning?

One lucky commenter will win a copy of Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil.

Thanks for being here today, Barb.

If you'd like to learn more about Barbara's Bayou series, please visit: http://barbaramonajem.com/ And be sure to leave a comment or question for her for your chance to win Sunrise in a Garden of Good and Evil.

ePiracy or Just a Book Swap?

(pic courtesy of Etirv!)
If I love a book, I tell my friends. I loan out my copy so others can enjoy it as well. I hope my friends will love it as much as I did and go look for the author's backlist. As an author, I'm totally thrilled when someone tells me they have shared their copy of my book with others. First, because it's a huge compliment and second because it's the absolute best way for an author to build a readership.

But what if that book was an ebook or pdf? Is it wrong to attach it to an email and send it to your cousin in Tallahassee?

Probably not.

What if someone was offering hundreds of titles online to people they don't know?

At that point, in my mind, even if the pirate is offering the ebooks for free, it becomes a theft.


As more publishers are turning to electronic methods of delivering their books, e-piracy is becoming more of a problem. My friends who write paranormal or erotic romance are more likely to be pirated than historical authors, but I have seen tons of Amanda Quick titles offered online. As more and more readers get comfortable with ebooks, epiracy will become a bigger problem.

I think part of it is that readers have been used to sharing books for so long, they don't see a difference between loaning one to a friend and offering pdfs to their entire Myspace friend list.

But the difference to the authors involved can be crippling. The only time a writer earns royalties is when a book is sold new. We earn nothing on used book sales (though I totally support used book stores. It's a great way for a reader to try a new author with very little risk. We hope a reader will enjoy the used one enough to buy the next release new!) Certainly nothing is earned on free downloads. Ebook piracy hasn't affected me much yet since historical readers tend to like a paper book in their hands, but several of my friends have lost a lot of sales to the pirated copies.

Occasionally, publishers offer a free download title from an author's backlist as a way to increase interest in an upcoming release. I downloaded a Sherilon Kenyon novel this way. This is something very different and perfectly legal. In this case, the publisher hopes the download will go viral and be sent from one reader to the next.

But how can we as readers know how an ebook got out on the web? Is there a way to tag something as a legitimate download? What do you think about this issue?

Coming late to the E-volution . . .

I've always loved the feel of a book in my hand. The smell, the weight, turning down the corner of the page to mark my place--it's all part of the joy of reading. Now I've discovered that my previous titles are also available as ebooks. Even my Diana Groe titles can be downloaded electronically.

This raises a whole host of contractual questions. I had my agent check the contracts and this is all legal and above board. In fact, I'll even receive a better rate of royalty on the ebooks after the first 100 sold than I do on my print books. But if my books are available electronically, can they be said never to be out of print and therefore the rights will never revert to me?

Probably.

So for now, I'll just rejoice that my work is available to a whole new generation of techno-saavy readers. And as usual with technology of any sort, I'm behind the curve. I know there's a big broohaha over which electronic format (Kindle vs just about everything else) is best. And there are several different types of e-readers available. As a condo dweller with limited space and a huge library, I'm beginning to see the charm in ebooks.

Do you read ebooks? Which e-reader do you use? Do you recommend it? Have you had trouble adapting to reading ebooks as opposed to the old-fashioned tree-killing kind? I'd love to have your imput!