I shall call him George

Stumbling over old advice yet again, I've decided to share another little pearl here.

We've all had these moments. We're just getting the momentum rolling in our next, great saga. Our hero pushes open the door to meet... that guy... with the face... and the hair... and we have no idea what his name is.

Now, obviously, this can all be avoided by making yourself one of those handy bibles I've been hearing so much about. Basically dreaming up every detail of your world and writing it all in one place before putting a single syllable of your book to paper.

Look at you, with all your planning and preparation... Whatever. That's all fine and dandy, but let's face it, stories evolve. No one is capable of knowing every little detail that's going to spring up. The best laid plans of mice and men, and all that.

Recently, I had the problem of coming up with a name for a restaurant in my book. It needed to sound like a fancy place just by its name. Oh, and one little caveat, there are no foreign languages in my world. So De La Fantaisie is out.

I tripped over this moment and lost traction in my story. Why does this happen? Because writing is a creative process. You're dreaming up this world with the right side of your brain. Names and labels, on the other hand; you guessed it! Left side!

Now it may be a safe bet to say that the best writers have a pretty even balance across their brain. However, no matter who you are, if one side is on a roll, you don't want to fumble things up by getting in its way. If you run into this problem, and you stop to try and dream up a name, you'll be knocking all of the wind out of your sails. Assuming you do come up with a clever name, you'll find it so much harder to get back into your writing zone.

So what's the solution? Find & Replace! Just put something down. It will be stupid. It will be inappropriate. Who cares! Once you're done writing for the day, you can sift through your grey matter for a better name then just use the handy "find and replace" feature of any word processor and swap it out. The key is, don't stop writing!

My restaurant, by the way, was called Fancy Pants Restaurant for a week before I came up with something better. I also have a character in my book who has been named after one of the Thundercats since I dreamed him up... he may actually keep that name. There's my easter egg to you, once my book is published.