Wow. I survived a hectic month of horror movies and creepy pasta stories.

Okay, there was way more to my month than this. I was getting prepared for Samhain. I had such an amazing day. I did my New Year tarot drawing, the witch new year if that is somewhat confusing. My cards said that I’ve been focusing so much on my past that it was time to start looking forward. Great advice!

What is in my plans now? I want to start downsizing. I don’t need anything that I own. If it has sentimental value, I will keep it, and unfortunately for me, I’m a sentimental person. Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone.

It’s time to get some gifts together for Yule. I like to play Secret Santa at work. So secret that no one knows I’m 007-ing it. Last year, I had Emory write up all these sweet cards for me and then I left them with the gifts on people’s desks.

I even left myself a gift to throw the hounds off my scent. It worked. It was so great! Everyone spent days trying to say who they thought the gifts were from. Well, now, it’s time to do this again. The biggest adrenaline rush last year was not getting caught. I now know how a mouse feels in a game of mouse trap.

November now, which is National Novel Writing Month. My goal is to finish two online stories that I’ve been adding chapters to throughout the year. It’s time to get them done and done! I have a new story in my head, ( inner fan girl walks in), that I’d like to toy with a little more.

Also, I have a few novellas I’d like to really focus on getting finished.

An old friend has walked back into my life and would like to work on a comic book with me. I have been wanting to work on a comic book for a while. I have a few ideas that would be brand new, or I have a novella that I’ve been working on that would be super cool seeing as a colorful art form. I see it as a zombie seasonal thing, but it’s still in its early, early stages of work.

I started writing fairly young, so all the names I used for characters happened to be students or family members. My best friend at the time was Amy, so every pet I owned and even my favorite stuffed animal was named Amy. My main character in all my stories also bared this beautiful name.

I was twelve when my mom signed me up for my first professional writing class, which happened to be for one night through the college “adult classes.” This is a separate group of classes offered through the college that basically give people a feel for whatever it is they want to learn.

The teacher said that to find better names for your characters, one should have a baby book of names. I was so excited by this advice, that I went to our local book store and bought the biggest name book I could find.

The cashier didn’t say anything, but she was clearly uncomfortable with a twelve year old buying this book. My mom noticed; I didn’t.

I ended up buying tiny baby name books at the grocery store too. I don’t think my dad blinked when I threw this palm sized $1.99 booklet onto the conveyor belt with the rest of our order.

My first serious boyfriend understood my love for writing and that I felt each book had a special name that the others hadn’t listed. He told me on my eighteenth birthday that he bought me a baby name book, but his mom made him return it due to the fact that if my family saw me open it, they would think I was pregnant. I personally don’t think it would’ve been a problem.

A decade plus a handful of years later, I have gone to rummage sales with my mom and I bought more baby name books. We also went to a yearly book sale at our local fair grounds and  I found more baby book names, but I put one back because I thought I might not have all the money I needed for them. Later, I found out that my mom saw the book I put back and she had bought it for my birthday.

Why do I have so many name books?

It almost feels like a deck of tarot cards. You have the cards in your hand and you get the strong feeling that a certain card has the information you need for the question you asked. That’s what these books feel like to me. I know there is a certain name I need for my characters and though these books might have a lot of similar names,  one of the books actually gives me what I need.

The name always fits.