What's in a name?

After the post about D'Argo the puppy yesterday, I have no idea what to blog about now. No ideas whatsoever. But just in case none of you have ever seen Farscape and were wondering where the name came from, this is D'Argo. Doesn't look much like my puppy, does he? Except maybe the eyebrows. . . .











Which brings me to another character in the Farscape series, John Crichton. He was, as you might expect, my main reason for watching the show, but they had some pretty cool villains, too. There's a lot of John in Jack, my heroine in Slave. John called his gun Wynonna (Jack called hers Tex) and would mystify the aliens he hung out with by rattling off pop culture references from present day Earth, which is something Jack does, too.



























Jack had a lot of John, a healthy dose of Han Solo, and just a touch of Captain Jack Sparrow in her. How she ever turned out female is anyone's guess, but since those are three of my favorite male characters, putting them all into the one who I think is easily my best heroine seemed appropriate for some reason. I was looking for a tough, quirky, unromantic heroine who needed a guy like Cat, and I think it worked.




























I'm currently working on developing the characters for Renegade. We've talked a lot about the hero. He looks like Benjamin Godfre, has a flame tattoo on the left side of his neck and cheek, wears a gold earring in his left ear, and braids his hair back from his face. His curls are as tight as dreadlocks and he always wears a white T-shirt and gray cargo pants with everything you can imagine stuffed in the pockets. We've talked about his name, and you all seem to like Jag, but the opening scene with Jack turned into a "Jag said, Jack said" thing that seems a bit confusing, so the jury is still out on that name. Several of you have sent me lists of words for cat in other languages, and Kotka (Bulgarian for cat) is my favorite so far, along with Nahuel (Native American for jaguar). Later on last evening, Marie and I were emailing back and forth and I came up with the name Dax, which she liked very well. It's not feline, but I like it.



Right now, my heroine is a Terran/Aqureian cross called Ava who has huge, aquamarine eyes, flippy blond hair, and can breathe underwater. Not a whole lot to go on, is it? I wrote the scene where her character is introduced last night, but I wasn't sure if she should be sweet and innocent or as quirky and tough as Jack was. We'll see. Guess I'd better start writing some more and find out, huh?

Look what I found!

On my on my way home from work Monday morning, I found a dog--one year to the day since I posted a blog on Wickedly Romantic about my yellow lab, Chewbacca, who had died earlier that week. I've been hoping another dog would show up the way Chewie did. He was the perfect dog, and just appeared one day and decided to stay.

This puppy was running down the middle of the road near my house, and if I hadn't stopped to pick him up, I probably would have hit him. He was wet and covered with burrs and came right up and tried to climb in my car when I opened the door. I'd been waiting for a sign, and this one was pretty obvious. Turns out he belonged to a neighbor who was giving pups away, so now he's out there on the porch where Chewie used to hang out, eating out of Chewie's bowl and making himself at home. He doesn't seem to like the dog house, though. He prefers to sleep on my boots!

























I think we've finally decided to name him D'Argo, which is what I told the vet's office when I made his appointment. Did you know puppies get shots every three weeks until they're four months old???? I don't think human babies get that many, but then, they usually don't go outside and roll around in the dirt!



























In other news, I hear that our friends Leslie and Lisa are a bit under the weather. I hope you both feel better soon!