I've been notebooking on Wicked Suspicion, the next book up in the Paladin League series. While I was working on this, a couple members of the team introduced themselves.
Well, sort of.
If you read Wicked Persuasion (released this August!), you met one of them already. Baggs, the new medic on the team. He replaced Griff since he's in medical school now and no longer on the team.
I thought the second guy was Mazz, who made an appearance in Finn and Zo's book, but that wasn't who he was. Instead, this guy is someone who has been undercover in all the previous books and I never met him before. I like meeting new characters, so this was fun.
Not so fun was the name game which followed.
If you've followed my blog for a while, you know that I don't get to name my characters. They pick their own names. If I'm lucky, they'll actually tell me what it is, like Mika did in Through a Crimson Veil.
I'm rarely that lucky. The name game usually involves me searching baby name websites until the character says "that's me!"
Sometimes it's quick.
The new guy who wasn't Mazz, found his name easily and we were good to go. The problem was Baggs. I thought he picked his name fast and effortlessly, but it didn't sit right and I reluctantly had to admit it was wrong. The only clue I had was I was pretty sure his first name was something Irish.
Then began a lengthy search across multiple sites. I tried out different names, wanting to see if he responded to them or not. I think--think--I have his name now. At least he talked to me when I used it and I didn't have a whole lot of crickets chirping. I'm not prepared, though, to say I'm 100% sure it's really his name. Not yet.
By the way, Case and Nyx were both easy name characters. Neither of them gave me the name, but Nyx was close enough to be nearly effortless. Case and I had a spelling issue to work out with his name, but that resolved itself quickly, too, and we were good to go.
Now they just need to share some more information. Everything I'm getting from them is deep, deep into the book. I'm making notes, but I need them to share the beginning.
