Help me rename Max and Billy

hello lovely girls who heart – and write – books. I’ve a challenge for you this month.

When I’m writing a story, new characters introduce themselves in different ways, I find. Sometimes they stroll fully formed into my head. Circe Shaw, the  heroine of my first book, ‘How to Keep a Boy as a Pet’ did exactly that, showing up really vividly on the screen between my ears (i.e. my brain) from the first line of the book.

Sometimes, they mumble around in the back of my mind for ages before I can capture them on the page and then change and change again as I write.

Then, at other times, they just plain butt their way in…

Or they bray their way in at four o’clock in the morning…

Meet Billy the goat and Max the donkey who weren’t meant to be in my new book, ‘What Not to Do in The Dark at all. But, when I was on a writing retreat down in deeepest Devon a couple of weeks ago, Billy butted his way into my heart when I walked across his field every day, and Max woke me up at dawn every morning begging to be a star, so I promised I’d find them a role alongside Johnny Depp the cat, Daniel Craig the guinea pig and Harry the hamstericidal ratlet – the only thing is, I’ve come up a bit blank on good names! (I can’t use their real names – they might sue me!)

Can you help? Max, by the way, is a real softie with a serious apple addiction. Billy’s really nosy. Oh, and I tend to like quite unusual names. It’s a tricky business, naming characters, but I’d really love to hear your ideas, and if you send one I love enough to put in the book, I promise I’ll send you a finished copy with your name in once it’s finished.

Diane x