Writer Problems #2

When I write stories and I'm looking for names for characters I usually use a baby name generator to come up with something when I cannot think of a name. I usually like a name that's interesting, something that stands out a little.

I recently got a Baby Name Generator app on my phone so when I'm writing on trains (I spend most of my life on trains) I can come up with character names if writing on my travels.

The only problem with this is the people I sit next to probably think I'm an expecting mother.
I'm curvy, sure, but not pregnant.
One time the woman saw me using the app and gave me an all-knowing smile and I was like "No... no no no, I'm not pregnant. No..."
It was a really awkward moment.

Writing Music.

We all find inspiration in different ways. One of them is music. On the NaNoWriMo website it asked me what kind of music I like to write to. I've recently been writing almost exclusively to the Return of the King soundtrack and the soundtrack to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

One really awesome person has created a playlist called Epic Songs To Write To and it's totally true - I even own some tracks on CD or iTunes and have previously written to them. It has music by Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore, Ramin Djawadi, Florence + The Machine... essentially some of my favourite music creators. I'm really grateful to this person for creating such an awesome playlist. I'll try to make my own over the course of this month so that I can then share the track list with you guys. I'll maybe try to put it up on Spotify before the end of the month.

I personally like to write to music that is more instrumental than vocal/lyrical because it's hard to write words when hearing words. Music that relies solely on instruments to tell a story are often so much more powerful when it comes to helping us explore emotion and can be used to match the kind of mood we're aiming for when writing.

Writer Problems #1

Anyone else here an aspiring novelist? When writing I find the bit I want to get over and done real quick is picking a character name. I often like to try and use interesting names so I'll look for  inspiration on baby name generator type websites and pick a character name from there but HOLY CRAP. THE AMOUNT OF SHIT IT SUGGESTED THIS EVENING.

'Tiara Diamond'
'Lillie-Mae Daisie-Joy'
'Essence Arancia'
'Sybil Augusta'

internet, u kidin me? I wanted interesting but not that interesting.