Organizing some old stuff and found this story I came up with as a kid, I wish I remember how old I was. Here are the key points I plotted out:

1. Joseph gets a sword.
2. Joseph meets Milee.
3. Joseph gets magic.
4. Joseph meets Thorten.
5. Thorten gets magic.
6. Goblin steals sword.
7. Joseph, Thorten, Milee fights Goblin.
8. Joseph gets sword back.
9. Thorten gets club.
10. Joseph meets John (his twin).
11. John gets Freddie (alien bird).
12. John leaves (without Freddie) to planet Zoblo.
13. Milee gets staff.
14. Goblin (Creeper) comes back.
15. Goblin joins Joseph.
16. Joesph, Milee, Thorten, Freddie, Goblin go to planet Zoblo and get an Elf.
17. Elf gets named Alcorrey.
18. Goblin gets named Creeper.
19. Joseph, Milee, Thorten, Freddie, Goblin, Alcorrey return to Earth.
20. Joseph's team fights Orges to get the Elf.
21. Joseph gets magic orbs and wand.
22. Joseph's team meet Milee's father (A wizard).
23. Milee's father is named

Now that final point is excellent because I still completely derail whenever I need to come up with a name.

So I'm writing a book. I knocked out 51k words during NaNoWriMo and about 16k more since. As a fantasy book totally dissociated from earth, I wanted nonstandard names. My approach was to rely on an old favorite tool, the markov name generator from donjon. This is the kind of AI that I enjoy: I select the dataset, generate a ton of options, sift out my favorites, then search them to make sure they're not swear words in another language or something. Very manual.

So, for example, the Swordmaker character is generated from a list of types of swords, and I landed on Kokanta. For a couple key later characters, I decided to use a poem for each.

Seanghaken is generated from Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou. I have a lot stoic or serious characters, so the Traveler was meant to bring in joy. She also brings in knowledge, strength, and revelations to the story, as well as indirectly encouraging the main character to feel the same herself. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48985/phenomenal-woman

Tuso is generated from Little Gidding by T.S. Eliot. Tuso is a complicated character, both villain and victim, a ghost from the past, so T.S. Eliot's poem wielding fire as the main metaphor for the devastation, mourning, and morality of WWII. His introduction comes right before a major conflict, and his opinions also represent a certain mortality that doesn't coincide with the main character's, though his insight and experience is still significant and valuable. http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/winter/w3206/edit/tseliotlittlegidding.html

I haven't been able to work on my NaNoWriMo project so far this holiday weekend, so I'm going to talk about the story a little bit here. I left off on the part where the main character, currently just called Torch Heart, is talking to Kokanta Ephiar, the Swordmaker in the cursed fortress of tear-forged blades. It's the middle of the night, Kokanta is still super cursed and cannot stop smithing, and Torch Heart just woke up and can't sleep.

Looking forward to this slow burn relationship that I get to sabotage and then rebuild. Any relationship that starts with a fire magic versus flying swords battle is sure to be a strong one.