Nanowrimo: Finding character names in cemeteries, and taking advice from the dead

Counteract the Nanowrimo crunch with a trip to the graveyard. 

WHAT, you say.  I'M DEPRESSED ENOUGH TRYING TO NAME MY CHARACTERS AND WRITE MY STORY WITHOUT A TRIP TO THE GRAVEYARD.  I ALREADY FEEL LIKE THIS NOVEL MIGHT KILL ME.

I know.  Day after day! This task is too big!  We're just mortals!  We'll soon be dead!  Probably sooner rather than later, thanks to these novels! 

If you're worried about your word count this month, or this week, or this day, or this hour, consider an expedition to a place those measures of time no longer matter.  Cemeteries are real great for putting things in perspective.  A disclaimer: I have no one buried here.  My grandfather's ashes were scattered in the mountains; grandma wants to follow suit, so I don't know if our family will ever have stones to visit, or plots of grass.  These aren't my dead.  They're simply the dead, and the words they always whisper are these:

This too shall pass. 

The people buried here saw plagues and famines in their lifetimes, crop failures and bankruptcy, marriage and heartache and loss.  Whenever I get too caught up in myself- in an encroaching deadline, a dead-end plot thread, a whole scene thrown away, a whole chapter, a whole novel- I come here to realize how small those worries are in the scope of an entire life.  And how small an entire life is in the scope of the world. 

Also, I come to steal names. 

Rule #1 for stealing names from graveyards: Don't ever use the first names and last names together.    
Rule #2: Don't let anybody catch you sitting on their dead uncle.
Rule #3: Enjoy the soft grass.  

Cemeteries are extraordinary places.  Memory, and permanence, designed to outlast lifetimes.  Plus the cemetery caretakers do such a lovely nice job of mowing and putting out benches.  And cemeteries are quiet.  I like the older sections, with the crumbling mossy headstones.  If the dates are all from the 1800's, chances are not many people visit any more.  No one will find you scribbling away beside their relative.   
    Cemeteries are wonderful places to write.  
    I don't think the dead mind; I don't sit on their headstones.  I keep them company, and they repeat their slow reminder that grows more soothing the more frazzled you are: 
    "Whatever you're worried about, small young mortal thing, it's really quite fleeting, and not so scary at all.  We saw worse, in our lifetimes.  We survived.  At least until we didn't.  This too shall pass."
    The sun will set; the sun will rise.  Winter fades.  Spring returns.  
 

Happy writing.

-mlj