October Novel Prep Challenge

Might as well try to do one of these every day...

Names again. Names. The bane of my existence as a would-be writer.

I've come up with, I think, some good ones. But not great ones.

My greatest inspiration in life has been Bruce Springsteen. I have all the musical talent of a slug (not that I haven't tried), so the only way I can honor his influence is by writing. And Bruce can write more than songs - his autobiography just came out, and I devoured that thing.

But his biggest accomplishment outside of being the greatest singer/songwriter/concert rocker of all time is the names he puts into his songs. From the first song on his first album, he's come up with names that perfectly fit the characters he was trying to convey. Go-Cart Mozart. Outlaw Pete. Wendy (from Born to Run) - I mean, come on; the reference to Peter Pan couldn't be any more obvious, and yet it fits in the song without being trite. Rosalita. Spanish Johnny and Puerto Rican Jane from Incident on 57th Street. They just fit, and it's hard to imagine other names that would fit in these songs, thematically or rhythmically.

I like to think he spent a lot of time agonizing over the names, too, but probably not. They likely sprang, like Minerva, fully-formed from his Olympian head.

And yet... if there's one major takeaway for me from his autobiography, it's this: hard work and dedication makes up for a lot of lack of talent. Bruce never had what you'd call a melodious voice, or one with a large range. But he learned to work within those limitations, and, I'll say it again, became the greatest rocker of all time in spite of his rough voice. He also never learned to read music. (I can read music, and have played four different instruments, but I'm no musician.)

Everyone has a superpower. Everyone has dreams. If you're lucky, your dreams line up with your superpower. But even so, you're not going to excel at everything, and you're not going to suck at everything. Maybe you're good at coming up with names, but need to work on plotting. Maybe you're a great writer, but suck at the self-promotion you need to get your writing read.

Politicians will tell you that hard work is the key to success. Politicians lie. Hard work is a fragment of it, yes, but if hard work alone made you successful, then migrant laborers would be millionaires.

Then again, I don't know from hard work. I've been lucky enough most of my life to be able to indulge my laziness. But dammit, if Bruce can be the greatest with *that* voice, then I can achieve at least mediocrity without being able to come up with a decent character name to save my life.