Among the questions people ask me about being a writer, I often hear “How do you name your characters?”

Fortunately, naming fictional characters is more fun than naming real, live children. There are no worries about real-life consequences like lovely Ariella hating her name because in high school Anatomy class everyone notices the similarity of her name to “areola” and she must suffer through the rest of her high school career with an unwanted nickname.

No, instead, I can name my fictional heroine Ariella, and maybe she hates her name for above reason, but in fiction we’re actually supposed to torture our characters. So the unwanted nickname can become part of her backstory.

Okay, but back to the question… The truth is, I have no method for naming characters. Often, as I’m brainstorming, an appropriate name will pop into my head. I try to give characters’ names that reflect their personalities in some way. And if I don’t, there’s a reason. Maybe the heroine’s overly boyish name serves to make her more feminine–that sort of thing.

Occasionally I name a character for humorous purposes. One book featured a secondary character named Buck Wild. He was an aspiring rap star with a much less flashy name on his birth certificate. And I sometimes give my hero and heroine very romance-novelesque sounding names, because I think such names are deliciously evocative of our genre. Also they’re fun.

But I’m not above flipping through phone books and searching internet name sites to find the perfect name. Sometimes my characters will have to try out several names during the writing of the novel before I settled on The One.

A good character name is memorable. Who could ever forget the name Scarlet O’Hara, for instance? It’s unique, and it gives you a strong sense of what kind of woman the character is, without knowing anything else about her. And how about Hannibal Lecter? I can’t think of a more perfectly named character.

Do you have any pet peeves regarding fictional character names? Do you find certain kinds of names distracting or particularly appealing? What’s your favorite fictional character name? And finally, if you were going to pick out names for the hero and heroine in a romance novel, what names would you give them?

I cancelled my Facebook account yesterday with no small amount of glee. I never could figure out why people sent me invitations to online Easter egg hunts or asked me to fill out surveys about the ten things I last ate for breakfast.

I lost interest in Myspace years ago, soon as I settled on a wallpaper for my homepage. I’ve tried to do away with that account too, but for reasons I cannot fathom, the mysterious powers in control of the company requested that I send them a photo of myself holding up a sign with my name on it in order to cancel my account. Seriously. I’m not kidding.

I’m a spotty blogger at best, and I’ve dabbled in Twitter, but without any lasting enthusiasm. Friends will tell you I’m not even good at keeping up with email (you might get a reply from me right away, or you might never hear from me until one day a few years from now when I finally clean out my email inbox and realize I’ve failed to answer your message).

It’s not that I don’t see the value of social networking. I do. Sort of. (Okay, not really.)

I like to hear from my friends, but to be honest, I’m a bit of a hermit. ‘Socially gregarious’ is not a phrase that’s ever been used to describe me, and all the possibilities for networking with people online make me want to take a nap.

In spite of the hermit tendencies, I have a bit of a Jeckyll and Hyde relationship with my blog/Twitter account/whatever. I’ll be wildly enthusiastic about posting for a while, and then I’ll start to hate the responsibility and vanish. It usually happens when I’m overwhelmed with a deadline. When the impossible workload has been conquered, I’ll sheepishly come out of my cave and post again.

How about you? Do you have a favorite social networking medium? Do you Facebook or Twitter? What do you love or hate about them? Can you explain to me what the surveys and Easter egg hunts are all about? Here’s your chance to convince me of what I’m missing out on.

You can follow me/friend me/whatever on the following links, but don’t be surprised when I disappear. And if I never hear from you at all–don’t feel bad. I understand completely.

My blog: http://www.jamiesobrato.com
My Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/jamiesobrato

While visiting a friend-of-my-boyfriend’s house recently, I was presented with a horrifying scenario. It was a warm, sunny day, and the friend in question had a swimming pool and hot tub. I had not come prepared to immerse myself in any body of water, so the wife of the friend immediately coaxed me into a bedroom and began pulling bikinis out of a drawer.

“This one will fit you!” she declared, waving at me with a tiger-print scrap of fabric.

I eyed the swimsuit in question and cringed. Sure, it might fit technically, but it was one of those Euro cut numbers designed to cover approximately 1/8 of the behind.

And I hadn’t even been mentally eased into swimsuit season yet with the obligatory torture trip to a department store dressing room to regard with sober despair the results of a winter spent writing and consuming pastry products.

Before giving me a chance to argue for a bit more modesty, it was decided by the wife that I would indeed put on the tiger-print micro-bikini and present myself to a small crowd of people already waiting by the pool. She hurried me into a bathroom to change, and a few minutes later, I was staring at myself in the mirror, horrified to find that the tiny sides of the bikini bottoms virtually disappeared beneath a newfound set of love handles.

Never one to be called a bad sport though, I pulled my summer dress on again over the offending bikini and headed for the pool, praying I’d have a good excuse not to do the big reveal. The water would be icy, I was sure, and I would be able to lounge poolside with a glass of wine without ever having to show any serious skin.

And no, I didn’t have to get in the pool, but I did take a dip in the hot tub later (shrugging off my dress only when no one was looking, then doing a mad dash into the water), where I sat regarding my newly expanded waist and promising myself I’d run six miles a day for the rest of the spring and summer.

I haven’t quite gotten around to that running-six-miles-a-day resolution. Too many writing deadlines at the moment. In the meantime though, I’d like to suggest to pool owners everywhere, if you’re going to keep extra swimsuits on hand for guests, please, please get the full coverage kind. No bikinis bought while visiting the topless (and apparently virtually bottomless) beaches of the Greek Isles.

I’m also posting this story as an official warning to those of you, like me, who’ve failed to notice swimsuit season creeping up on us. It’s almost here. My resolution is to lay off the donuts and, okay, probably not run six miles a day. But I’m going to do something physical most days of the week. Yeah. That sounds good.

How about you? Do you dread the first big reveal of the season? Do you have a strategy for getting into summer-wear shape? And have you ever been forced to wear someone else’s tiger-print micro-bikini, or is that just something that happens to me?

Twelve years ago, I began writing my first novel. I was fresh out of college, having studied to be an English teacher. I still had my teaching internship to do in the fall, and I was terrified. I knew student teaching was going to be difficult, especially for a shy, awkward girl with a monotone voice and the stage presence of a cucumber.

I thought I should do something easy in the meantime to distract myself, something like, you know, write and sell a 300-page novel. I was sure I could do it. After all, I had a bunch of college essays under my belt.

I wrote a book in about six weeks, and I was thrilled when I held in my hands that hefty manuscript (a bit of trivia: the title of the book was Desert Rose). I packed it up and sent it off to a publisher. The same day, I also went to the library, thinking, hmm, well, while I’m waiting for the publisher to send me my first check, I should study up on writing a bit so that my second novel will be even better than the first.

I checked out a stack of how-to-write-fiction books, and I hadn’t made it through chapter one of the first book before I was overcome with dismay. In the author’s description of all the glaring mistakes first-time novelists make, I saw my own beloved novel. I’d made every beginner’s mistake, and I suspected I’d even invented a few new ones.

I didn’t have to wait long for my belief to be confirmed by a second opinion. Less than a week after I’d mailed the manuscript, it came winging back to me with a form rejection letter attached.

I wasn’t shocked at the speed of the rejection. By that point, I’d read all the how-to-write-fiction books, and I could tell by re-reading the first page of my novel—the first paragraph even—that it sucked. I knew the editor was right. I had to start over from scratch.

Which I did. Many, many times.

I went on to do my teaching internship, but afterward my then-husband’s job transferred us to a rural town in Germany for the next five years. I couldn’t find work there as a teacher, so I had lots of time to write.

After four years of frustration, rejection, and self-doubt, I got my first hint that I might not completely suck as a writer—I was a finalist in the Golden Heart contest. Then I got my first agent. And five years from the time I started writing Desert Rose, I made my first sale to Harlequin Temptation and my second sale to Blaze.

The moral of the story? I’m not sure. The stupidity of youth can pay off? Writing leads to lots of frustration and angst? It’s important to read the how-to manual before you write the 300-page novel?

What did you do when you were young and stupid that you’re most glad you did, because you might not have had the guts to try it once you knew better? I’ll send copies of my first two published novels, Some Like It Sizzling and Pleasure for Pleasure (or winner’s choice of any other two), to the person who posts my favorite answer to this question.