What's his name again?

What's in a name? that we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet

Sound familiar?

William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet

Today I share a daunting experience in writing that, like most of my peers, have endured during the process. Character names. When I started writing my graphic novel, I didn't have a clue as to how to pitch my project to a comics publisher and which writing group can look at my work. Hell, I didn't know where I get my character names from.

I stumbled upon up to several naming websites and found behindthename.com which has information on every name across the planet. What blew my mind was how my protagonist, Rhea Ortiz, has a unique meaning behind her name. According to the website Rhea's a latinized form of Greek. In Greek mythology she was a titan, the wife of Cronus, and the mother of Zeus, Hera, Hades, Demeter and Hestia. Also, in Roman mythology Rhea Silvia was the mother of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome.

And with that I chose Behind the Name as my source for naming characters.

Where do you go for naming your "children"?

Interesting Characters, Part 2-Talon

And we're back with another edition of my Interesting Characters series. Today I discuss another character I came across in recent years...Calvin Rose-Talon.

Calvin Rose made his comics debut in Talon #0, created by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV and Guillem March in 2012. Not possessing any superhuman powers (accelerated healing at the time of his resurrection in Talon #8), Rose is a gifted escapologist trained as an assassin by the Court of Owls. Like all Talons before him, Calvin was recruited from Haly's Circus as a child. 

Rose was eight years old when his father locked him in a dog kennel on a stormy night, literally throwing away the key. He kept hitting the chain at the gate for three night with no progress. On the third night he found the chain's weak spot and hit it with all his strength and ran as far away from the house. He soon discovered an old man who performed at Haly's Circus, who took him in and trained him in escapology until his death. At thirteen, Calvin was set to become a star at the Gotham Spectacular. However, Mr. Haly took him to a private performance for the secret cabal the Court of Owls. After performing his usual act, the Owls had found their new Talon.

Years after training to become a new Talon, Rose was sent on a mission for the Court to kill his target but he saw that it was an innocent family which opened his eyes to the truth. After his disobedience he fled the Court who want him back...dead or alive.

What makes Calvin Rose an interesting character is that he's relatable in a fashion. A loner by nature but he's willing to do good after the what he's been through with his former masters. Being an escapist has come in handy in the most dangerous situations for him when he's facing the Court of Owls. For me on another level is how he's able to think ahead and improvise on the situation. That's what makes him a likable character.

Interesting Characters Part 1-Gorilla Grodd

Today I will be blogging a series of posts on characters I've come across who are interesting in my opinion. And I start with The Flash villain, Gorilla Grodd.

Grodd made his comics debut in The Flash #106, created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino in 1959. For those not familiar with the character's powers, he possesses abnormal intellect, super strength and telekinetic powers such as mind control telepathy. Grodd was a normal ape until an alien being crashed landed in his home in Africa. Later, he and the rest of his troupe were imbued with great intelligence and psionic abilities, created an advanced civilization called Gorilla City. When a group of explorers discovered their existence, Grodd took control of one them and killed their leader. Then replaced him with plans to conquer the entire world. That put him on a collision course with Barry Allen-The Flash.

What makes Grodd interesting? In an interesting and terrifying way, he can be classy and menacing. With his intellect he can make his own inventions and combat that of his foe, The Flash. In a more scary fashion, his telepathic powers make him dangerous when he's transferring in his consciousness into his victims.

And that's what makes Grodd an interesting character to me.

Casting Call-If my books became Movies.

Like all writers, I've pictured which actors/actresses would play the part of the characters in our stories. I often look at who would be who in my stories but it's the main characters that come to mind. With that being said, here's my idea for who I'd picture as my heroes/heroines.

Lindsey Morgan-I love her work on The CW show The 100. Her character Raven has that toughness and vulnerability which she wears so well. It's something I see in my "first" protagonist, werewolf Rhea Ortiz.
















Ryan Reynolds-In my humble opinion, he can be serious and funny when he pulls it out. His role on Blade: Trinity was a slight influence on my male protagonist. I think Reynolds can do the cop role when it calls for it.

Ciara Renee-For the role of college coed/superheroine, I think of Ciara Renee. Her portrayal of Hawkgirl in The Flash, Arrow, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow is good. The whole "coming-into-your-own" character is the central concept for my superhero comic I have in mind for everyone including young girls and Renee pulls it off.

And that's my dream casting for my characters coming to life on TV or movies. 

How "Consider" opened me up to YA fiction.

Tonight's blog is part book review, part personal account.

I've made it a personal goal to read ten authors this year and on the list is my Writing Challenge tweep Kristy Acevedo and her debut novel Consider (Holo series #1). Recalling my humble opinion how reading makes you curious, I pre-ordered the book on that account. Truth be told it's been a long time since I read a book rated T for teens.

My thoughts on Consider? It won me over. Acevedo created something that's thought provoking with heart about the idea of Holographic messages forewarning the end of the world and facing a critical choice to stay or leave.

For the heart aspect of the book is how the main character is facing a unnatural event as well her own anxiety disorder which touches the humanity of the book, and how it resonates with anyone with mental issues. It's the kind of turmoil delves deeper into the concept Acevedo's debut.

From a reader's standpoint, I didn't just enjoy Consider but I'm touched by how human the story is. This is on par with the earnest honesty that S.E. Hinton addressed in her novel The Outsiders. With that being said, this book has opened me up to the YA genre for the first time in years.


    My overall impression on my writing compatriot's novel is very good debut for teens, adults who read YA fiction, or better yet, all ages.

Now's a good time to "consider" a good read.

#MayWritingChallenge Final Report.

And we're back for the final report of the May edition of Twitter's Monthly Writing Challenge!

I officially wrapped up the month with writing 3 comic book scripts and ready to roll on to #JuneWritingChallenge with a new hashtag leader (check out the website for more). But I made an unexpected turn in my writing. When I was finishing the third (and supposedly the final chapter) of my comic mini-series, it was turning into a four issue story. As mentioned earlier this month, I broke my story down and reworked it from scratch because of it not being what I expected thanks to the input from my writing group. So for next month I'm going to write the conclusion.

And now for the Week 4 results:

Day 22-Finished the second part of the story with the final word count of 3,628.

Day 23-No writing. I had to take the day off so I can come back to the story with a fresh mind.

Day 24-Started strong with 521 words. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Day 25-Written 776 words in fifteen minutes. Slow start but I won't argue with myself on that number.

Day 26-Pushed it with only an hour and thirty minutes (90 minutes) on the keyboard.

Day 27-1 hour of writing.

Day 28-Wrapped up the writing session with 1,537 words after a 30 minute sprint.

Day 29-Another 90 minute session.

Day 30-The finish line at 2,476 words for comic book #3! Boo-yah, baby!

 The whole month has been fun and unexpected. I made a crucial decision for my story and faced a turnout that came out of the blue. What rewriting the whole book has taught me is that you'll be making tough calls for the sake of art, and to not be afraid to change it to something different if it's not working. As a whole, we artists had to tear down a project to make it work after a number of times it feels like it's not working or it needs something different to put it on the right track. That's a given notion.

All right, I got some plotting and words to write. Check out the Twitter Monthly Writing Challenge for details on how to join on their website. It'll be a fun experience, I'll tell ya what.

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#MayWritingChallenge Weekly Report #3

Good morning and we're back with more #MayWritingChallenge progress by none other than, moi.

 Can you believe the month's almost over?

I can honestly say it's been rather a slow progression for me when I came back to Twitter's Monthly Writing Challenge after four in a half months of college courses. But that's the beauty of it. Progression is what you make of it in the work you do, friends.

All right, now. Let's take a look at my Week 3 results.

Day 15-1,336 words in 35 minutes. I wasted five minutes being distracted by social media and made up for it. Slow but I can't argue with what I put down.

Day 16-Took another 30 minute sprint for improvement. The result was 1,543 words.

Day 17-1,788 in 30 minutes.

Day 18-90 minutes of writing Wednesday night.

Day 19-1 hour & 16 minutes of writing.

Day 20-15 minute sprint. A little slow but I plowed through and finished with 2,447 words a little before midnight.

Day 21-2 hours of writing. I can see the finish line for the second issue of my WIP.

What's the takeaway from the past week? Keep trying those writing sprints. I know I can be a slow writer most of the time, but it's important to keep on to not only carve out a word count, but to improve your speed on the keyboard. Distractions are a given, yes. You just have to push through them with whatever the time you take for writing. For this week I'll take another shot at writing 30 minutes to improve my words per minute and move on to the next comic book script.

That's a wrap for my weekly writing challenge report. I'll catch ya'll cats at the end of the month!