There’s nothing more thrilling than reaching a deadline, is there? For the organised amongst you, this may involve a gentle jog to the finishing line, a small but heart-felt air-punch and that satisfied sense of a job well done. If you are slightly chaotic, as I am, it’s a bumpy ride. It goes something like this.

A fortnight before the deadline, you are calm personified – a mixture of Mary Berry and Barack Obama – cool, twinkling, confident.

A week to go and you take on the air of Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army, muttering ‘Don’t Panic’, under your breath in a less soothing, more hissy mantra.

You then hurl yourself into the task at hand. You work late into the night (never first thing – there isn’t enough coffee in the world that could jump-start you into early-morning writing). So working late is the only option but it’s okay because it means a glass of wine, a bowl of Kettle Chips and an episode of Modern Family as a reward.

See? Being a night-owl pays big time, my friends. You can’t be hitting the Chablis at ten in the morning. It may have worked for Hemingway but then he never had to do the afternoon school-run.

Then we reach the day before the deadline. This day is oddly calm. The hard work is done. There is a niggling panic that you have lost control of the book somehow, that it doesn’t hang together but then you remember that it’s hard to keep the detail of ninety thousand words in your head and the panic subsides. This day mainly consists of ticking off items on the slightly odd final check list such as:

–          Does Dan have size ten or size twelve feet?

–          Check number of times the word ‘wow’ is used & delete accordingly.

–          Decide whether to keep or remove the new vicar.

It’s not your average ‘to do’ list but it all seems vitally necessary during the intense adrenaline-pumped moments before you attach the manuscript to an e-mail and send it to your editor.

Finally, the moment does arrive. You simply cannot put it off anymore. The manuscript is saved for the final time. You send it off into the world, like a baby bird on its first flight and hope that it doesn’t crash into the first window it reaches.

You hold your breath and then realise that breathing is important and exhale. You stare at your screen for a moment and feel quite tired. Your brain is as weary as a toddler after an hour in a ball pool. Take a break, brain. You’ve worked hard. You need a rest.

The day afterwards is lovely. You emerge into the world, blinking at the light – a bewildered writing mole. There is no writing to do today. You have earned a rest.

It’s a day to tick off some of those things you don’t have time to do because you are writing, like communicating with your family and working out why the fridge makes that weird whining noise, but only in the afternoons.

Important stuff.

You write a shiny new ‘to-do’ list. It doesn’t seem quite as writerly and creative as the manuscript check-list. It contains items like:

–          Sort e-mails (2 years’ worth)

–          Check utilities bills

–          Phone the Inland Revenue

You give it your best shot. After a day of clenching your teeth as you try but fail to find someone from HMRC who wants your tax and weeping as your Yahoo Mail page crashes every time you try to archive something, you have an epiphany. Existing in the real world is too hard and actually, really quite boring.

Immediately, you know what you need to do. You e-mail your editor with a request and she is delighted to oblige.

The next day, you’re one happy camper. You sit at your computer with a fresh sense of purpose and a manic grin on your face as you type the words, ‘Chapter One.’

You have a new deadline. All is well.

 

There are many things I like about writing books. The staring out of the window is lovely. The drinking coffee whilst staring out of the window is also good.

However, when it comes to actually writing the words down onto the page (fortunately I like this bit too), one of my favourite parts is coming up with names and the more books I write, the more I enjoy this particular challenge.

Because it is a challenge as the writers amongst you will probably agree. You have to be very careful with names. Very careful indeed.

One misplaced Valerie and your old school-chum from thirty years back will be on your doorstep demanding to know why she’s been cast as a serial killer with a penchant for knitting woolly-faced effigies of her victims (Crime writer friends, feel free to have that one on me. You’re welcome)

When I wrote Not Quite Perfect, I was a complete name-giving rookie. I named most of my characters after my family and friends. In my defence, the whole novel began as a creative writing experiment but when it got more serious, the names sort of stuck. My sister-in-law still wants to know why my sixty-something bossy mother character is based on her (stop being bossy and I’ll tell you) whilst my mother-in-law was sorely disappointed to only play a walk-on role. You can’t please all of the people or indeed any of the people, especially if you’re related to them.

It may seem like the easiest thing in the world to give a character a name but names are tricky. You don’t always get them right first time. One of the main characters in Dear Lizzie was called Barney right up to the last moment when I suddenly realised that his name was Joe. Just like that. The poor man had been wandering through my novel, dealing with quite a lot of terrible things and I hadn’t even had the decency to give him the right name. Sorry Barney. I mean Joe.

Above all, you can have fun with names. You can play with them, you can
re-arrange them, you can invent completely new ones and stretch them into whatever you need them to be.

It’s basically the writer’s equivalent of Play-Doh and I’ve always loved Play-Doh (particularly the smell).

When I was writing Life or Something Like It last year, I was struggling with a name for a key male character. I was sharing this issue with my family over dinner, when my eight-year-old son fixed me with a look.

‘I have three ideas for you, Mum.’

‘Okay,’ I replied uncertainly. My son doesn’t usually offer much input regarding my books. Inspiration? Droves. Input? No. But into the mouths of gift horses, I will not look. It’s one of my rules.

‘Go on.’

‘First idea – Chris P. Bacon.’

Guffaws around the table. A raised eyebrow from me. ‘And the next?’

‘Terry Fied. Although that’s mainly for spooky stories,’ he said sagely.

‘Yes, this isn’t really a spooky book.’

‘Shame,’ he shrugged. ‘All right. How about, Robin Banks?’

‘It’s a fantastic name but maybe better suited to a book featuring a criminal?’

‘Probably,’ he said. ‘Well I can’t really help you. Sorry Mum.’

Never mind, son. Name-giving is an art. I’m no expert but I’m learning.

In my opinion, Charles Dickens is the top dog when it comes to names. There’s never a poll of best character names that doesn’t feature one of his.  I mean, I was pretty proud of Cat Nightingale as the name for my reluctant heroine in Life Or Something Like It, but Uriah Heap is pure unbridled brilliance.

Ironically, my favourite name in the book I’ve just finished isn’t that of a person. It’s the name of the road on which they live – Hope Street, based on the south-east London community in which I’ve lived for large parts of my life.

I like to think that Charles Dickens might have approved or very likely come up with something better. Like I say, I’m learning.

So I thought it would be appropriate at this stage to consider my favourite character names. Here’s a short but by no means exhaustive list.

1. Reginald Jeeves and Bertie Wooster

We don’t really need the first names do we? Perfect names, perfect characters, perfect stories. That is all.

2. Eva Delectorskaya

William Boyd’s heroine from Restless. He has Dickens-like talents for names. This one sticks with me largely because I can barely pronounce it but I also love Nat Tate, Logan Mountstuart and Amory Clay.

3. Huckleberry Finn

If you wanted a name to sum up the character of a chicken-stealing, grubby rascal then you couldn’t do much better.

4. Veruca Salt

Children’s books lead the way with excellent names and Roald Dahl is probably the master. Mind you, with Charlie Bucket, Augustus Gloop, Willy Wonka and Mike Teavee all in one story, he pretty much cleaned up.

5. Abel Magwich

Really, this entire list should be peopled by Charles Dickens’ characters but this meaty villain from Great Expectations wins for me. Any writer who created Dick Swiveller (stop sniggering at the back), Merry Pecksniff, Kit Nubbles, Pleasant Riderhood and Woolwich Bagnet as secondary character names should be crowned king of all the names forever.

I would love to hear your favourites if you’d like to leave a comment.

Right, I’m off to think up a name for an eighty-something female ex-librarian with a passion for cryptic crosswords. Maybe Ivy or Joan? Mind you, I’ve always liked Olive…