It is funny, but the hardest part for me when it comes to writing a book is not coming up with a story, nor is it world or character development or the writing itself, it is coming up with names for my characters that I truly love, and a title for my books. Oh, and a series name. Hate that shit.

Anyways, I have written 20 000 words of my new alien romance novel without naming either of the characters. Where I need a name I insert something like this Name1 and Name2 so I can go back later and easily edit the names. Imagine how embarrassing it would be if I forgot that.

Name1 narrowed his strange, black eyes. A low, rumbling growl vibrated in his chest, making Name2 stumble backward, suddenly scared of the big alien that had come to be her only hope on this foreign planet.

Ha ha…

For me, a story just comes to me and I have to start writing. If I stop to find names for the Hero and Heroine along the way it takes way too much time and drags me away from the story I have in my head.

Luckily I found it easier to name the characters in the first book I started. 90 000 words in, however, and I still have no clue what the title should be. It’s a 100% standalone novel that ends with a HEA, but since I will use the same universe for the setting of another book, it needs to have some sort of serial name as well as a title.

Why are names so impossible? And the cover, oh, the cover for an alien romance.  I can’t even think about that. I know the image I have in my mind will be almost impossible to put to paper. Photoshop isn’t that good, and I refuse to have my aliens mutilated. I know a lot of readers prefer to make up their own mind about how everyone looks based on the descriptions in the book – me included – but that still leaves me with the problem of finding a good cover for this alien romance. Sigh.

Oh, well. Back to writing I go.