Do You Share a Name with a Villain? And ROW80

Hangar 18: LegacyOne of my goals this week was to proofread my upcoming science fiction romance, Hangar 18: Legacy, and ready it for print. It’s coming along well, proofreading is done, and it’s uploaded to the printer, so that one’s met! However, while I was proofreading, I realized something I hadn’t noticed before: one of the bad guys–a murderer–shares a last name with one of my Awesome Coworkers, who’s also a friend–and a reader.

That struck me as weird. How will she feel about that when she reads this? Of course, it has nothing to do with her (or her husband)–I wrote this book years before I came to work at the current place. I didn’t yet know her when I did my last major revision on it. And her last name’s not an unusual one.

It’s never happened to me–which is kind of surprising, as Powell isn’t exactly an unusual name. And when I thought about it, I probably would think, huh that’s funny, and keep reading, no big deal. It would strike me as weird if I ran across my married surname in a book for any character, as  it’s not a common name at all.

So what I think I’ll do with my coworker is mention, hey, this bad guy in this book has your last name–I wrote it years ago, just so you know! And I expect all will be fine.

ROW80Logo175I did well with my other ROW80 goals this week, too, except once again, I did not get to the estate planning, as the proofreading and formatting took longer than I expected. Here are the details:

  • Format Hangar 18: Legacy for print, proofread, and upload to printer – Done!
  • Fitness activity 5x – Done!
  • One chapter’s exercises in the estate planning guide – uh, no.
  • Be a good ROW80 sponsor and visit all the blogs I’m supposed to at minimum.  – Done!

For this week, I’d like to:

  • Review Hangar 18: Legacy proof when I get it, and address any corrections needed
  • Find people to review it (hint: if you’re interested, I’ll send you a free ebook in the format of your choice! Just let me know. 🙂 )
  • Fitness activity 5x
  • One chapter’s exercises in the estate planning guide
  • Be a good ROW80 sponsor and visit all the blogs I’m supposed to at minimum
  • BONUS: Begin formatting the ebook version of Hangar 18: Legacy

Have you ever run across a character in a book with your last name? What did you think–especially if it was a bad guy? Or how are your goals coming along this week, whether or not you’re participating in ROW80? I’d love to hear from you – please share!

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