Earlier this week I posted about taking donations to help out my buddy Mitch with his medical bills, and that we’d be taking donations in exchange for me using your name in a book.
So many of you jumped in that we had to close it the next day. We raised over $20,000 in a day and a half.
The goal was 20k, we were closing on that fast, and Dave had already spoken to several people who were in, but wouldn’t be able to donate until Friday. With them in there, that was a LOT of names. So I said to shut it down.
If you donated, Dave is putting together a master file for me with everybody’s names and information. I believe it is around eighty or so people. Once I have the file I’ll start incorporating them into books. I’ll do my best to honor special requests, but like I said in the last post, I’ll do what I can but can’t make any promises.
Logistically speaking, that many names is going to take me a long time and several books to work through. There are a few spots in Monster Hunter Siege I will be able to use for charity red shirts, but this is going to take years.
I tell you, once I run through these names, and I’m doing this again for some other cause several years down the road, I’m totally going to jack up the price on you guys. 😀
The important thing is that you are awesome, and you did something amazing for a good man. Mitch is already using this money to pay bills. Once again the Monster Hunter Nation has come through. I love you guys.
I wanted in! ):
It’s great to be able to contribute to an awesome cause, and get something really cool for it at the same time. I look forward to however you use my name.
It was both my pleasure and honor to help. Now to die a glorious death!
I hope it’s all helping Mitch breathe a little easier.
Raising the donation amount next time is a good idea. Speaking of which, can I do this twice – now and ~5 years from now? Just curious.
Monster Hunter Siege needs to reprint 2-3 pages from the local paper’s obituary section after a massacre so you can work through the names faster?
Hopefully the next time you do it, even with a jacked-up price, I’ll have enough money to jump on it. 🙂
Glad to be able to support. Can’t wait to be killed….
Sadly, I couldn’t get my money together in time; really bad timing as far as when money would’ve been available. Hopefully next time.
As a guy who occasionally writes short bits of fiction, I’ve always wondered how to come up with good names. Obviously you have the redshirt basket, but before that or when you have characters from countries with distinctive naming schemes, how do you come up with names?
Maybe telephone books aren’t obsolete after all?
Research. Lots and lots of research. 🙂
(read articles/history about the country you need them to come from and go from there)
Thanks. I normally scan Wikipedia articles about the country for that sort of thing already. Didn’t think to look at news articles. Though there’s still the problem with scifi or fantasy where the characters may not follow any human naming convention.
Those ones are even easier. Just decide on your own naming convention and go with it. I personally like to just play around with sounds until I find names that sound right for the characters (while being easy to read/pronounce correctly).
Also, if you happen to work in a day job where you see a lot of people’s names on a regular basis, write down any interesting ones.
In scifi/fantasy, just figure out what you’re going for and be consistent. As long as it makes sense to the reader you’ll be fine. If your characters are named Shalynaristamistal, Blast Hardcheese, and Bob, you’re probably going to need a good explanation.
There’s good names from different cultures everywhere. History, lists of famous people, I’ve used economists and politicians. But just be careful that you’re not picking from celebrities with weird names, like if somebody ignorant of American culture had the garbageman named Madonna and your dentist is Prince.
You are probably going to need a good explanation unless you are doing a VRMMORPG story.
Maybe someday my brother will read about a werewolf using my intestines as dental floss. Although I’m personally hoping to be a positively associated recurring side character.
Maybe you could have a character reading the wall of honor at MHI HQ. Or even put a digital one up here. Sorry I missed the chance.
Most excellent! And helping out is nothing more than paying it forward, thanks to you.
What??! It’s over? Noooo! I wasn’t going to be able to until now! ToT!!
*laughs!* But that’s my own fault. You guys are awesome, and boy you got there insanely fast. Note to self: Put aside funds for the next redshirting.
Do you have a 2021 update on killing me and Wifey off? And note that “five years” is a fine answer! hehe … just curious.
Not yet. I’ve got Greg and Marla still on the list. But I’ve still got 51 names remaining out of the giant pile I started with.
Thanks, Larry! We shall patiently await our brutal death. I look forward to your creativity ????
(and if you care to share: how is Mitch?)