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The Short, Sad Saga of Mississippi Jones

Don't eat me!
Don't eat me!
Scary. Freakin’. Fish. That is all. Move along.

Some names stick with us.

Bridget Jones, Holden Caulfield, Nero Wolfe — these names are all indelibly stamped into our literary consciousness.

Those names are evocative. Memorable. Unique.

Some writers are incredibly good at coming up with names.

I am not one of them.

Left to my own devices, I end up naming characters things like Adrienne Latwusdish or Coreen Meulerstein.  Pulitzer prize winners, these are not.

So what do I do?  What any sensible man does.

I ask my wife.

Turns out, she’s a genius with names.  Effortlessly, she conjures up lists of names that sparkle, names that capture the essence of my characters and make them real.

Unlike me — I come up with bell-ringers like Barry Haseltine and Norbert Crawhorn.

Ehh … Not gonna happen.

My latest invention? A dame called Mississippi Jones.

Catchy, right? Not.

Try typing “Mississippi said” a few dozen times, and you’ll see where I went off the rails.

So, the moral is simple: know your weaknesses. And then find that special someone who can help make you look smarter than you really are.

Trust me, it’s worth it.

What’s the worst name you’ve ever heard? Leave me a comment!

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