What is in a name?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  How about a lotus?  It has other names: Nymphaea and Water Lily.  Here's one from Monet's garden in Giverny.  

They're amazing and beautiful and symbolic.  I love them, and I identify with them.  Part of it is that as a child a family friend called me Lotus Blossom.  I always loved that.  It made me feel like I was beautiful and special like a lotus blossom.  With a given name like Lois, people were constantly giving me nicknames.  That was fine by me.  I thought my name was old fashioned and lame.  It stuck out wherever I went.  Spelling it was a problem. Pronouncing it was a problem.  I've been called Louis and Louise more times than I can count.  Even my mother, who I was named after, didn't go by Lois.  It was even old fashioned in her generation.

I have made peace with my name over the years, and now I like it.  If someone comes into a room and calls for me.  I know it's for me.  There are not 10 people named Lois in any given room ever.  (Maybe at a Lois convention, but otherwise...)  There have been a few times in my life when there have been 2, but you get my drift.  It's unique, and that works for me now.

I was chatting with a friend yesterday about the name of my blog, my username, a possible pen name, and my real name.  As an author, what do we do with our names?  We want people to be able to remember them.  We want it to pop up with us first on the list of google searches.  We want our blogs accessible and welcoming.  What to do?

When I first set up my blog, I wasn't really thinking about all that.  I was looking more to being incognito.  I like my privacy and was concerned about putting myself out there on the world wide web.  Now I'm thinking I should have done things differently.  I'm thinking that before I do much more with this blog that maybe I should set up one with a more accessible name.  No one, as yet, has been able to get "domus muscida" on the first go round, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th either for that matter.  What?  You're not all Latin scholars?  

And Lotusloq as a username may have to go too.  It's short for Lotusloquax which is what I use on Livejournal.  It means "speaking lotus."  

I think I would like to keep the Lotus part.  It has depth, meaning, and beauty like the flower, and I think using Nymphaea is fraught with double entendre that I don't want.  Haha!  

Do you have any ideas out there?  What do you think?  Should I change?  Should I make everyone bend to my geeky ways?  Any name ideas?

Maybe I should go with just the English:  Speaking Lotus or Lotus speaking?  or Lotus Blossom Moss?  haha!  Can you see I'm floundering?  Help!  Please!

When inspiration strikes

What do you do when inspiration strikes right when you're going to bed--when that proverbial light comes on in the darkness?  Roll over, tell your brain to shut up, and go on to sleep? or are you afraid you'll forget?  Do you jump right out and grab a piece of paper or fire up the computer and get busy?

Last night a new idea for the beginning of my novel I've been working on for a while hit me right at that point of drifting off, and I knew I would not remember the details if I didn't get them down on paper, so I drug myself out of the nice warm bed and grabbed pen and paper and the ideas poured for 4 pages.  It pulls the whole novel together and sets the tone I've been looking for.  Woo hoo!!  I feel like celebrating!

International Stories

Ah!  La Belle France!  Paris!  I read a blog yesterday that was talking about stories set in Foreign locals.   It got me thinking about how much I love books that are set in far away places. I love learning about the cultures and the people that live there.  I would love to see more books like this.  I understand that the location needs to be integral to the storyline of the book, but I think there's a market out there for these types of books.  What do y'all say?  Books set in Paris or Cannes or Nice or wherever?  Are they for you? 

Let a little light shine through

Thanks to all of you for the comments on what YA writing is.  I think it's also important for those of us who are writing for a YA audience that we include a bit of light in our writings.  Whatever it may be for us.  Sometimes levity is enough to lighten a book; sometimes it is hope.  I don't think moralizing does it.   Preachiness is worse than moralizing.    

In the books that I have been reading lately, I want to avoid reading the ones that seem to have little or no light in them.  That's why I have 3 half started books and one series of 6 books that I have almost finished reading since I started those others.  I just don't want to pick them up any more.  Where's the light?

What kind of things do you think bring light into a book?  

Writing for money?

One of the blogs I follow regularly raised the issue of writing for money or literary acclaim.  It has started me thinking about why I write.  

What makes me sit for hours plunking away at a computer or pouring over page after page of my manuscript to try to make it work?  I like the story.  I like stringing the words together and making it all come together.  The actual act of writing is fun for me.  Sometimes it even makes me giddy.  I wish I could do it all day without interruption.  

I long to be an author, and yet so far I have nothing published.  Can I still be an author if I have nothing published?  I've done plenty of writing.  Does that count?

Do I want literary acclaim, or would I be happy as a hack making an obscene amount of money?  I always used to think I would want literary acclaim, but the more I write, the more I just want to create a story that people will enjoy reading.  If I write a book that is entertaining, will that lead to a tidy sum of money or at least some money.  I sure hope so.   Does that mean I'm a sellout?  Or should I just say "Who cares?" and go with the flow?

What do y'all think?