One Brave Thing the Movie – Karen Creamer Author, Coach, Speaker

11/30/16: I decided to update this post. I made several trips to this shop after I gave them a free copy of One Brave Thing as well as newspaper articles about me publishing my book. On the third trip, I discovered that they didn’t know what they did with it!

I decided to trust the Universe and let this one go.

🙂

Recently, I wrote about attending an author talk given by Anita Shreve. I mentioned that I found out about it at the last-minute from my husband (an avid reader of newspapers). As happens so often in life, this even led me to another happy accident: I discovered a local bookstore that I had somehow missed.

I know, right? Unbelievable!

After Kennebooks (seriously, play the violins-I loved that store) closed, I thought that Kennebunk was now bereft of book stores.

Not true.

The Book Burrow sponsored Anita’s talk. That’s how I found out about it! It was like getting a free gift with purchase! I got to see Anita and I found a new local bookstore to love!

When I visited the The Book Burrow’s website, I was welcomed by a wonderful poem by Adelaide Love. Go to their website and check it out!

One note: I mentioned that I saw Anita Shreve speak years ago. I still have my book that she signed, my favorite book of hers: Fortune’s Rocks. What’s wonderful about this is that she put the date when she signed it! Yay! So I’ve decided to do this when I sign my book as well.

See? This author talk is the gift that keeps on giving. 🙂

When I thought about naming the characters in my novel, I thought it would be fun. I could pick any names I wanted! I didn’t have to please anyone but myself! No worries about coming to a consensus with someone else! My father-in -law’s mother chose his name from the society column in the newspaper. One of my siblings was named after the greyhound dog (I believe; it may have been a horse) that my father bet on at the track that kept winning. My husband and I could only agree on one boy’s name and one girl’s name we both liked. Good thing we only had one of each…

Anyway. You know that old saying, ‘Be careful what you wish for’?

The character naming wasn’t as fun as I thought it was going to be. In fact, it was hard. Bebe had several other names before I settled on Bebe. I started out using a baby name book. Then I started writing down names from the credits of TV shows. I don’t remember where I heard to do that, but it was in my memory from way back. I made list after list of first names.

I wasn’t satisfied with any of them.

I knew I wanted her to have a nickname, so I started over with that. I thought the main character was in the process of becoming herself. Becoming… be…Bebe! Beatrice was the middle name of a relative, so that fell into place.

I also knew that I wanted her to have an Italian last name. I thought of Bebe as coming from a family that had secrets, and after making list after list of Italian surnames, a thought presented itself: What is the Italian word for ‘secret’?

Segreti! I spiced it up a little by adding an additional ‘t’ to it and Bebe Segretti was born!

Fellow writers: How do you name characters?

P.S. So far, the voting for who should play Bebe in the movie of my novel One Brave Thing is not going the way I’d hoped…people are not voting for my number one choice!!! (Hint: this is her picture)