Great news: my pal and agency-sister Louisa Edwards just sold her first novel as part of a four book pre-empt to St. Martin’s Press! Now here’s the part where it gets really interesting (as reported by PW):
Rose Hilliard at St. Martin’s Press preempted world rights to four books by editor-turned-author Louisa Edwards via Deidre Knight. Set amid the New York restaurant scene, the first book in the series is called Can’t Stand the Heat and is slated to launch in fall 2009, with subsequent titles to appear every six months. Knight is a romance author as well as agent, and Edwards was her first editor at NAL. When Edwards left New York publishing, Knight briefly worked with Hilliard, who subsequently left for SMP.
Small publishing world, huh?
On the craft side, I’ve been naming characters recently. Sometimes names come to me, fully formed, and sometimes I have to cast around a lot until I figure out what their names are going to be. In this case, there’s been a lot of casting. I think part of the problem is that, at this point in the series, I have a lot of characters. So I’ll come up with a name and then go, no, I can’t have a Ryan. I already have a Brian. And a Ryder. And a Rainier. Or if I give this person a name starting with a P, then it will be obvious that all my villains have names starting with a P, and I apparently think it’s an evil letter. Or even: this character Hedwig is a little bit too much like this other character Hestia in my entirely unrelated book series for a completely different audience and why the heck does my subconscious think that people with names like that should have this particular personality and will anyone notice but me?
I think it may be hard to name actual children. Now I know why some authors resort to stuff like Phury. I actually discarded a potential name in the last book I wrote because I liked it for a kid. Turned out to be a fabulous decision, because the name I finally gave that character was awesome and perfect and made said character leap off the page. I’ve written before about how important character names are to me. If a character isn’t developing the way I think they ought, one of my go-to tricks is changing his or her name. It’s amazing what it can accomplish. Sally is a very, very different person than Theodora, and they are both distinct from Krystal.
Yeah, I think about this stuff. What can I say? I’m the only one here who can do it. No muses in my house!
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* I have none of these things.
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