Scribblings and Dribblings

I’ve been ruminating on the next book for a while, and delaying drafting it. The plot is essentially complete, although I know from experience that there’s no such thing as “complete” until the final edit, and even then it might not be.

The new book is a bit of a cross between The Matrix meets The Office. I don’t want to give too much away, but the working title is “Mark Ix”, after the main character who finds himself the target of bizarre attacks by the office’s mail-delivery robots, and an invisible protagonist named “Smike”, who would like nothing more than for Mark to be sacrificed to the gods of computing. Mark’s department has been moved so often that his boss now occupies Mark’s outer office, and the staplers keep disappearing from everyone’s desks. Mark’s been falling for the girl in the next office, Lillian, a passive-aggressive software engineer who refuses to talk to anyone except her plants. Most alarming of all, however, are Mark’s frequent blackouts, leaving him with missing memories and a door tag with a new last name every time.

So that’s the basic gist of it. Now, I have a few minor characters I’m developing who need good clever names. So, as a kind of contest, I’m putting this out there for whoever wants to join in. Help me name one of these characters!

1: He works as the company archivist. I picture him as reserved, gaunt, and so introverted and high strung that if he snapped, there’d be nothing left to bury.

2: The maintenance worker, lethargic, and resistant to any kind of interaction with anyone, except to complain about how much work he has, and how much the conversation is setting him behind.

3: The secretary, who is always backtalking, even to her boss. Her primary goal is to offload as much of her work onto others as she can. She is also a passive-aggressive type, and knows how to use office equipment as weapons in order to defend herself.

4: A security officer. This character is stoic to a fault, like the crack running across his/her jaw from being wound up so tight. He/she isn’t very smart about much, but those areas that he/she knows he/she is an expert in, in fact hyperintelligent.

So, there are the four characters up for naming. Anyone who would like to help name these characters can submit a name by responding to this post. The best name will be used in the manuscript, and I’ll thank the winning contributor by name in the acknowledgments. Good luck!