Finding Beyoncé: The Aquatic Inspiration

That heading sounds like a weird inside joke, but I'll let you in on it. I may have mentioned before but I raise African cichlids. My current tank has one electric yellow, 5 pink zebras, 6 blue zebras, 5 orange-black peacocks, and a plecostomus (not a cichlid-- the algae eater that cleans up after them, but he's twice the size of the biggest cichlid and not at all shy). Well, that was the count anyway. I saw one little fry (baby) cichlid while cleaning this morning. Just one. Cichlids do eat the young and it keeps my tank from becoming overcrowded, so it may be the only one. If it survives, I'm naming it Beyoncé. Most of my fish have no names. The algae eater is Hoover, the yellow one is Sparky (Buttercorn Zapdos-- but I made the mistake of letting the boys name it), the big pink male PinkiePie, Naranja (he's a pink, but he's more orange than pinkie), and the newest to be named is Bowser, one of the OB peacocks and only because he attacks my gravel vacuum every time I clean. They get names when I recognize them all up in my face.

Names... I've probably said this before but they are not my friend. Not because I don't think of good ones-- that part isn't hard. I am just not someone who either remembers them easily or even uses them unless I can't get your attention. Even though I like my name, I hate introducing myself because I almost always have to repeat it twice when people ask 'Kristen/Crystal/Kristy/Christine?'. Most of my stories never use a second/surname let alone more. UnNamed was actually written to make fun of myself for the nicknames I give people and characters if I can't remember their names. I don't ever give someone the same first name or even another similar to it, so there's no issue with distinctions. Most books make a big deal of the full name, only to rarely use it again. I think GRRM gave Daenerys so many titles just to make fun of that tendency in fantasy. There's no way he did that without laughing.

There's a point somewhere. Oh yeah, inspiration. My named fish often get the privilege of a name because of a distinct personality. I've had plenty of people tell me I should do short comics about them just based on the way I describe their antics. They have already inspired character arcs in more than one story so I guess you can say they're even helpful against writer's block to some extent. I definitely consider short comics, but I really ought to focus on the webcomic too, not just find a way to avoid that.

Ideas can be fleeting like that-- another reason not to put so much importance on just having ideas. Plenty of people have them. Where you utilize them is the trickiest part. Most writers keep notebooks or emails or digital notes or post-it's-- any number of the bits of noise that may culminate into a full project someday. I have a lot of maybe projects, but I usually resist telling anyone about them because I put undue pressure on myself when it gets brought up again and it was never even started. I stick to anything I'm actually working on and don't throw in the maybes as much as possible. Ha, even though I do like to blog some maybes here and there... Have you ever made lists just to try to warm up to the idea of something on it? Yeah, that happens too...

Anyways, fishspiration... When I'm making up my own words, it's probably best I leave it at that. Writers often have pets, desk clutter-- many things that they use to combat writer's block, entertain the muse and inspire them. What are yours?