Julie Anne Long

Lord Derek Rockhard, or what's in a name?

Since my schedule is pretty bloody crowded lately, and since I know we all get a kick out of words, in general, I thought I'd repost (with a few little additions/edits) a blog I wrote in July 2006, which was a few months before I actually told anyone I had a blog. It's a fun one, though!

So I’m in the process of mapping out my next series of books, and I’ve been reflecting on how important and evocative names are. I mean, a romance hero is more likely to be named Lord Derek Rockhard than Lord Percy Throckmorton, though I suppose Lord Derek Rockhard could be masquerading as Lord Percy Throckmorton by day and robbing the rich to give to the poor by night or something (and no, that isn’t the plot of my next book). But a whole host of things, some subtle, some overt, some singular, influence the way we feel about a name—among them strong consonant sounds, ingrained assumptions, and whether or not someone named Derek dumped us for our best friend in high school. So naming characters is a funny little science.

I love metaphor and symbolism in general and I always sort of reflexively look for it, so I’ve always been fascinated how strangely prophetic or poetic names often turn out to be. There's my own last name, for instance, which is both an adjective and a verb, and because I was tall all through Junior High and high school (and remain somewhat tall), my P.E. teachers always called me "Julie Short!" And then there's, for example, Helen Gurley Brown, the founder and Editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine. “Gurley” sounds like “girly.” And how much more “girly” can you get than Cosmo? Or…Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue. When pronounced correctly, her name contains two very powerful words—“win” and “tower”— and she certainly towers in her industry. And remember that incident a few years ago, where 118 men were trapped in a Russian submarine and died? That submarine was called the Kursk, which sounds an awful lot like “cursed” to me. When I walk down the main street in my neighborhood I pass the offices of Dr. Chu the dentist and Dr. Vu the optometrist. I recently noticed that the last name of the wardrobe designer for one of my favorite television shows is “Rayment,” like “raiment.” And do I really have to mention Lorena Bobbitt, who's infamous for, er..."bobbing" it? Anyway, it’s kind of fun to think about.

And because I can never leave well enough alone and always end up digging a little deeper no matter what I’m doing, I like playing with the Anagram Genius, which can be both hilarious and downright eerie. If you haven’t heard of it, when you plug your name into the Anagram Genius it returns words and sentences created from the letters of your name. Here’s a fun example of what happens: I plugged my agent’s name into the Anagram Genius, and it returned the words “trade,” “love,” and “novel,” among other intriguing selections. And since his “trade” involves selling romance novels, I thought this was pretty bloody funny.  Maybe he was born to do it.

During the infamous dog mauling trial here in San Francisco a few years ago (two people were on trial for murder because their enormous dogs killed a San Francisco woman), I plugged the name of the defendant, Marjorie Knoller, into the Anagram Genius, and one of the words it returned was “killer.” A little shiver, there.

My own name, sadly, contains words like “alien,” “jungle” and “nun,” which might go a long way toward explaining something, but I'm not sure what. It doesn't sound particularly encouraging, actually. I should have changed my name to Julie Anne Filthyrich long ago. (or Or Julie Anne Buythisbook.)

Here’s what comes up when you plug the names of a few celebrities or historical figures into the Anagram Genius:

Albert Einstein—Ten Elite Brains

Jerry Seinfeld—Friendly Jeers

George Clooney—Energy, Cool Ego

Hugh Laurie—Hail! He Guru!

Simon Cowell—Lemon! I scowl!

Jon Stewart—Jest now, rat.

Michael Jackson—Manacle His Jock

Jennifer Aniston—Fine in torn jeans

Nelson Mandela—Lean and Solemn

Elizabeth Barrett Browning—Now brazen battier blighter.

Ashton Kutcher—Suck her hot tan

Angelina Jolie—I join anal glee

Anderson Cooper—Coarsened Porno

Gabrial Garcia Marquez—Quiz Magic, Rare Algebra

Henry David Thoreau—Another heavy druid. (love this one!)

Emily Bronte—Timely boner.

(The program came up with these, folks. I'm just reporting them.)

So I thought you might have some fun playing with the Anagram Genius…the link will take you to a page with a light sample version of the program. You can download a larger trial version if you really get into it. Tell me if you come up with some funny anagrams, and if they fit you! Try plugging in a bunch of names. And do you know of any really fun or prophetic names?

Since my schedule is pretty bloody crowded lately, and since I know we all get a kick out of words, in general, I thought I'd repost (with a few little additions/edits) a blog I wrote in July 2006, which was a few months before I actually told anyone I had a blog. It's a fun one, though!

So I’m in the process of mapping out my next series of books, and I’ve been reflecting on how important and evocative names are. I mean, a romance hero is more likely to be named Lord Derek Rockhard than Lord Percy Throckmorton, though I suppose Lord Derek Rockhard could be masquerading as Lord Percy Throckmorton by day and robbing the rich to give to the poor by night or something (and no, that isn’t the plot of my next book). But a whole host of things, some subtle, some overt, some singular, influence the way we feel about a name—among them strong consonant sounds, ingrained assumptions, and whether or not someone named Derek dumped us for our best friend in high school. So naming characters is a funny little science.

I love metaphor and symbolism in general and I always sort of reflexively look for it, so I’ve always been fascinated how strangely prophetic or poetic names often turn out to be. There's my own last name, for instance, which is both an adjective and a verb, and because I was tall all through Junior High and high school (and remain somewhat tall), my P.E. teachers always called me "Julie Short!" And then there's, for example, Helen Gurley Brown, the founder and Editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine. “Gurley” sounds like “girly.” And how much more “girly” can you get than Cosmo? Or…Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue. When pronounced correctly, her name contains two very powerful words—“win” and “tower”— and she certainly towers in her industry. And remember that incident a few years ago, where 118 men were trapped in a Russian submarine and died? That submarine was called the Kursk, which sounds an awful lot like “cursed” to me. When I walk down the main street in my neighborhood I pass the offices of Dr. Chu the dentist and Dr. Vu the optometrist. I recently noticed that the last name of the wardrobe designer for one of my favorite television shows is “Rayment,” like “raiment.” And do I really have to mention Lorena Bobbitt, who's infamous for, er..."bobbing" it? Anyway, it’s kind of fun to think about.

And because I can never leave well enough alone and always end up digging a little deeper no matter what I’m doing, I like playing with the Anagram Genius, which can be both hilarious and downright eerie. If you haven’t heard of it, when you plug your name into the Anagram Genius it returns words and sentences created from the letters of your name. Here’s a fun example of what happens: I plugged my agent’s name into the Anagram Genius, and it returned the words “trade,” “love,” and “novel,” among other intriguing selections. And since his “trade” involves selling romance novels, I thought this was pretty bloody funny.  Maybe he was born to do it.

During the infamous dog mauling trial here in San Francisco a few years ago (two people were on trial for murder because their enormous dogs killed a San Francisco woman), I plugged the name of the defendant, Marjorie Knoller, into the Anagram Genius, and one of the words it returned was “killer.” A little shiver, there.

My own name, sadly, contains words like “alien,” “jungle” and “nun,” which might go a long way toward explaining something, but I'm not sure what. It doesn't sound particularly encouraging, actually. I should have changed my name to Julie Anne Filthyrich long ago. (or Or Julie Anne Buythisbook.)

Here’s what comes up when you plug the names of a few celebrities or historical figures into the Anagram Genius:

Albert Einstein—Ten Elite Brains

Jerry Seinfeld—Friendly Jeers

George Clooney—Energy, Cool Ego

Hugh Laurie—Hail! He Guru!

Simon Cowell—Lemon! I scowl!

Jon Stewart—Jest now, rat.

Michael Jackson—Manacle His Jock

Jennifer Aniston—Fine in torn jeans

Nelson Mandela—Lean and Solemn

Elizabeth Barrett Browning—Now brazen battier blighter.

Ashton Kutcher—Suck her hot tan

Angelina Jolie—I join anal glee

Anderson Cooper—Coarsened Porno

Gabrial Garcia Marquez—Quiz Magic, Rare Algebra

Henry David Thoreau—Another heavy druid. (love this one!)

Emily Bronte—Timely boner.

(The program came up with these, folks. I'm just reporting them.)

So I thought you might have some fun playing with the Anagram Genius…the link will take you to a page with a light sample version of the program. You can download a larger trial version if you really get into it. Tell me if you come up with some funny anagrams, and if they fit you! Try plugging in a bunch of names. And do you know of any really fun or prophetic names?

Like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free

So I've been sucked in the MySpace vortex, and it's a lovely place to be—I'm having a blast over there, actually, running into readers who know me well and meeting readers who are new to me and my books.  And I'm also winding up THE PERILS OF PLEASURE, my book for Avon, and working on a million other things, and my brain is...well, it's toast. Whole-grain toast, perhaps, but toast, nevertheless.

Perhaps intuiting this, my friend Marla (aka "Marbs," as we discussed in the nicknames blog a while back) sent inspiration to me in the form of the following list of metaphors. Apparently they're collected yearly by high school teachers from essays they grade, but precisely how the best-of-the best is compiled and how the list is disseminated, I couldn't tell you.  I'm simply grateful that it is. :)  And I recall seeing some of these before. But they make me laugh every single time. I think I like #23 best, but it varies. So here goes:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.


2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.


3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.


4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room temperature Canadian beef.


5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh,like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.


6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.


7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.


8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.


9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.


10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.


11. From the attic came an unearthly howl.The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.


12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.


13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.


14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.


15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.


16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.


17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River .


18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.


19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.


20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.


21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.


22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.


23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.


24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.


25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

So which one is your favorite?? I think my favorite might be #23. Or #16. :) And do you guys have a reliable source you go to when you want a good, quick laugh? Any good website recommendations? How's life going, in general, this week??