What's in a name?

The picture here is of Polzeath in Cornwall. The interesting thing about living in Cornwall is that so many of the place names describe where or what they are or were. For instance if a place name is prefixed by 'tre-' then it means 'farm/homestead' and 'chy-' means 'house/home'.
I have been musing over the significance of character names. It is easy to pick names that you link with people you have known including all their character traits and quirks. I am having a spring clean of my unfinished novel and have decided to change three character's names. I was feeling unhappy about these original choices, so I decided to research names that could summarise their character or personality. I have had an amazing time trawling the internet for Native American, African, Sumerian, Irish and possible even Middle Earthnames and meanings for inspiration. I have settled on some great names I would not have considered and I am very happy with how the group of characters now looks on paper. Jon M shared with me when he visited last week that a character in his book was inspired by the contents of his curry

How do you choose names for your characters and do they secretly mirror the personalities of folk you know?

Word Explosion Success!

I have been away from my blog a very long time and I apologise to all those who thought I may have fallen off the blogging planet. Amongst lots of other things (Christmas, snow, illness etc) I have been responsible alongside a colleague for the first Children and Young People's LitFest in North Cornwall. We had a number of workshops run by Caroline Binch, Bridget Crowley, Tim Bowler, Helen Dunmore and Jon Mayhew. Jon travelled from Cheshire to Cornwall to do two excellent sessions on Gory Ballads and Scary Stories, one of which was at Bodmin Jail, the other at Bude Castle. He had the largest turnout with 40 adults and kids at Bodmin and his book is not even out till April!! It was also fantastic because a parent came up to us at the end of his Bodmin session and explained that her son was extremely dyslexic and had been shy about sharing his story, however he had really been inspired by Jon and the session as a whole, which simply has to be a mark of success. It was also a joy to spend some time getting to know Jon and introduce him to a taster of Cornwall (and I don't just mean clotted cream scones!).
In addition I went to the session with Helen Dunmore, most known for her Ingo books. She was gracious and approachable to all who came to see her... a real gem. So I think I can safely say that it was a great start and we have lots to develop and build on for next year. It also inspired and motivated me in my writing as I admit to having had little writing time, although I did submit a short story in January. I think I had lost a little confidence and needed some encouragment and inspiration to revisit it and pick it up again. This has begun with a spring clean of my blog with a new design and the intention to keep it regularly updated and more writing focused. It has been a brilliant week and a special thank you to Jon for traveling so far and doing such great workshops that inspired the children of Bude and Bodmin this week.