the problem with my protagonist being an angry self-hating little dude is that I am now stuck in "angry self-hating little dude" mode when I need to be making dinner

I like being a discovery writer. I mean, I’m not a total pantser, I go in with a rough idea of what I’m at, but at this point in my notes all it says is “horrible chaotic shit happens for about five or ten minutes in story-time” and I am delighted to discover exactly what that entails.

#amWriting

@cazmockett possibly only because there was nothing in the tank, so to speak

@onorio I was pretty deep into it so that was going well, at least!

jesus CHRIST. I was at the tensest part of the fucking story, hunched over my laptop with my fingers rattling away and my mind entirely on the nightmare scene I was creating

and my fucking headphones yelled “POWER OFF” in my ears.

I need a cup of tea and a lie down.

#amWriting

Slowly chewing my way through part two of The Hand That Touches Flame. It’s been a struggle because a lot of this section is about building tension, and writing tension makes ME tense, and I haven’t slept properly in a while so the emotional contamination is stronger than usual.

It’ll be fun once the tension breaks, though! For a given definition of “fun”.

@michael_w_busch @pthime Oh, I know many Michaels, it’s just that the USA seems to have even MORE, proportionally

There was only one in my university calculus class, for instance…

@Artemis201 Oh lord, Irish name lists written by/for Americans are always hilariously wrong in a few ways!

A céilidh (Scottish Gaelic) or céilí (Irish) is a WORD, not a name. It’s a social gathering.

@Artemis201 @piglet You could feasibly have a British Chaz, I think! It is hilarious to me that you actually work with two Chads, I still can’t quite get my brain to recognise it as a name real people have

@DrChris Russ is a good one actually, I’ve known some Russels but they’ve never been Russes!

@skittles I’ve heard of Kevinismus and associated names but I had no idea about Karl-Heinz and Malte and I find that absolutely fascinating!

I’ve only ever heard of two people called Genesis and they were both Filipino, but those other names you gave are ABSOLUTELY American-sounding.

@pthime First of all, this is wonderful, thank you for your contributions to the totally legitimate field of Global Name Science. (Actually, that probably is a legit field…) Glad to be vindicated when it comes to Brandon.

As you’re likely aware, the obvious issue with Chuck is that it’s a nickname so most US Chucks are of course Charleses. And it’s absolutely wild that there’s apparently so many Chads in Chad?? Is that really a thing? I need to look at where this data comes from, actually.

Gonna mess with this myself for a bit…

@Artemis201 Ah no, specifically John Paul together! Boys named after the Pope, as you’d know yourself. The hyphen is more or less optional, most of the John Pauls I’ve known haven’t had the hyphen.

I’d say most of the names you’ve listed are really common in the mainland UK too, so not seen as specifically Catholic there. Things can be different up here in NI… as usual

@Artemis201 Apparently it’s a super popular name in Australia: it’s Scottish in origin but idk, just seems to have caught on over there

@Artemis201 I mean, Ireland basically uses very similar names to the UK but with a lot of Irish names thrown in.

There’s some names I’d consider default Irish in comparison to the UK though, like John Paul, Gerard, most female variations of male names like Geraldine or Bernadette, Maurice pronounced “Morris”, double-barrelled girls’ names in general.

@croptopjin Oooh I heard that was a thing in Germany! They call it Kevinismus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevinismus

@Artemis201 I would immediately assume an Angus to be Scottish and a Lachlan or Lochlan to 100% be Australian!

@piglet I forget Americans might actually be CALLED Chad as it’s totally solidified in my head as a meme

@hattom Todd is for sure American though, you’re right on the money there.

@BenCotterill Are there Americans actually called Billy-Bob? I mean, apart from the obvious Thornton. Legit question.