for a long time I couldn’t give names to my characters. Nicknames like “Rat” or “J” were fine, because I just couldn’t give them actual names. Why not? I don’t know the answer. All I can say is that I felt embarrassed about assigning people names. I felt that somebody like me endowing others (even if they’re fictional characters I made up) with names seemed kind of phony. Maybe in the beginning I felt embarrassed, too, about the whole act itself of writing novels. It was like laying my naked heart out for everyone to see.
