I have always loved naming- pets, as well as inanimate objects. When I was seven, my parents gave me a kitten and I promptly named her "Tiny." Not very creative, but I loved how good it felt to choose that name. When I was twenty and bought my first car (a '72 Dodge Dart Swinger), I named it Sancho because I had recently seen Man of La Mancha and was hoping that my car would be as faithful a companion as Sancho Panza was to Don Quixote (and it was!).

Through the years I've named assorted plants, other cars, and even a laptop or two! So it comes as no surprise that one of my favorite parts of writing fiction is naming my characters.

This is a vitally important part of any author's writing process. Here are some fun facts that will make you stop and think about how important it really is:

Scarlett O’Hara was originally named Pansy O’Hara

Holly Golightly's name was to be Connie Gustafson

Sherlock Holmes was supposed to be Sherrinford Hope

If the authors had gone with these characters' original names, would these characters have been as memorable? I doubt it.

I'm currently in the second draft of Sea Glass Memories (Seahaven Sunrise Book 2) and in thinking back on how I named the characters, this time around I did it a little differently. For lead characters Elana Jeffries and Jonathan MacKenna, I first held pictures of what they looked like in my mind, then I searched out images online (see above) that mostly matched how I was imagining them. And then I let the names come to me, a very intuitive process. I might see a name online or in a magazine that jumps out at me, or it might come to me in a dream. Heaven only knows where the names come from sometimes!

There's a third character in Elana and Jonathan's story. I knew right away that his name was Ryan, but it took me several weeks of trying out different last names to settle on the one that was "just right"—Ryan Summers (top row, far right). The other characters are an older woman named Bea Lively and a fifty-ish woman named Anna M. French. For Bea, I sought out a name that suited her "lively" personality, and for Anna, I was looking for a strong-sounding name befitting a well-known children's author.

Aunt Kit, a beloved character in Feathers in the Sand, who also plays an important role in Sea Glass Memories, is a firm believer in the power of synchronicity (more about that next month), and so I was pleasantly surprised—once all the names were in place—to remember that Anna and Bea were also the names of my dad's sisters. I wasn't even thinking about this when the names came to me, but I am delighted now every time I think of it!

Wouldn't it be great to get something in the mail that isn't invoices or marketing flyers? Well, I've got something great for YOU.

Email me your name and snail mail address, and I will send you a lovely bookmark with the famous Emily Dickinson quote (Hope is the thing with feathers...) on it.

I'll even sign it on the back, along with a recipe card (both sides) for Glory's Whoopie Pies! (Glory is a character from Feathers in the Sand.)

Just send a reply to this email. I'm looking forward to hearing from you and sending you these goodies.

P.S. The mailing address that you give me is JUST for this one mailing. I'm not creating a mailing list so I can pepper you with junk mail!

If you love reading inspirational memoirs, encouraging non-fiction, poetry, and more, check out this new

give-away. There are 30 books there ready for you to download and enjoy!

Don't worry, you don't need to download all 30. Just browse through and take the ones you want.

My very own Through the Eyes of SoulCollage® is there for you to download and enjoy also. It's full of short inspiring, essays about the creative, intuitive, and sometimes-magical process of SoulCollage® as created by Seena Frost.

 🏆 December Give-Away Winners 🏆

a paperback copy of The Miraculous, by Jess Redman.

Kathy from Texas

Marlys from Missouri

Rayleen from Texas

This month I'm giving away TWO HARDCOVER copies of The Measure, by Nikki Erlick. This is one of my top three favorite reads of 2022

What would happen if, like any other day, you opened your front door, but instead of the newspaper on your doorstep . . . you found a small wooden box? This box holds your fate because inside the box is a slip of paper that shows the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they'll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

This extraordinary novel moved my heart and soul in amazing ways as it follows the journeys of eight very different people. Do they want to know the number? Would you? And just exactly how do you measure a life anyway . . . by the number of years you've lived? Or something else?

To enter, just fill out the short form here and I'll do a random drawing THIS SUNDAY JANUARY 15. I'll send you an email notice that you've won on Monday, and I'll ask for your snail mail address after that!

(NOTE: I use the random generator at random.org to choose the winners

In between newsletters, I'll be posting more often on Instagram, my blog, and/or my Facebook Author page, so I hope you'll visit me there too.