In my brainstorming, what little I did of it, before NaNo started, I didn’t quite figure out what I’m going to name everything. I ran out of steam. Could I have avoided interruptions to my first-day storm of words by thinking of most terms in advance? Yes, of course. But it’s hard to predict all the terms needed for a story ahead of time anyway. Will I keep everything I came up with in the middle of my creative outpouring? Probably not. I admit I would have preferred to know more ahead of time. But part of the fun of doing NaNo, are the discoveries made along the way. Even names and terms.

Interesting factoid. I wrote just over 3,300 words the first day of NaNo. While writing those new words I came up with twelve new terms for special things in the world I’m creating. Five terms I had prepared in advance.

Term I’m probably keeping: Gloss (term for magic)

Term I’m probably not keeping: Gloss gun

Clearly, gloss is an actual word. I like repurposing and redefining words to my own ends. This happens all the time with slang. “Cool,” for example. I’m using the term aura for what it generally means in a fantasy setting, but I wanted to avoid another historically used word  aether,  because I usually only see it in steampunk settings, which this story definitely is not.

I’m making these decisions as quickly as I can on the fly. While, I would have liked to had more figured out ahead of time, naming things is part of the fun. I’m looking forward to seeing what I come up with tomorrow.

(Now, if only naming characters worked as well.)