And here I get panicky if I leave my book in the terminal when I board the plane.

Parents board flight, forget toddler at airport.

I spend a lot of time thinking up names. For heroines, heroes, villains, sidekicks, and federal agents, and for their parents, henchmen, acolytes, and pets. I make lists. I let characters try names on for size to see if they fit. If a name’s wrong, I toss it. Sometimes a character starts the first draft of a novel with one name and ends the final draft with another.

Fortunately, the Husband has gotten used to this. When he sees 10,000 Fabulous Baby Names on my desk his jaw no longer drops. He assumes I’m populating a book, not that we’re going to have yet another nine-month dustup over what to call our offspring. Those arguments get messy, and turn unpleasant when the obstetrician and the labor-and-delivery nurses throw in their own gratuitous suggestions, and inevitably end with me heaving a whole slew of names at everybody in the delivery room. (And to Dr. Get the Hell Out and Take Your Ugly-ass Plaid Golf Pants with You: Hi! Hope you’re well!)

Anyway. Here are the top baby names in the U.S. for 2007. Emily and Jacob top the list.

And if you want to track the rise and fall of various names over the last 130 years, check out Baby Name Wizard’s marvelous Name Voyager.

The Beatles get hold of a thesaurus.

(Via Wordsmith.)

I’m not an action heroine, but I am in denial.

It has come to my attention that while I was writing the previous post, about my loathing of heights, I was wearing this T-shirt.

I got it after going whitewater rafting on the Zambezi River below Victoria Falls, one of the wildest things I’ve ever done. The Zambezi has, I think, the biggest rapids run commercially in the world. I was a novice, and to get to the rafting launch zone, I had to climb down a crumbling trail to the bottom of a gorge. The gorge is one thousand feet deep. The trail is rocky, slippery, narrow, steep, and has no guard rail. Halfway down, I clearly recall thinking: This isn’t Disneyland.

Yet I did it, and I don’t recall being scared. I can think of three reasons for my lack of fear.

(1) My sister had told me that rafting the Zambezi was the most fun I could possibly have, ever — and I was hellbound to experience it. (2) I never looked down, because my eyes were glued to the rafting guide ahead of me on the trail, who seemed to be carved from the same incredible stone as the walls of the gorge and had a negative percentage of body fat. (3) I’ve lost the memory of the trek, because the subsequent rafting proved so terrifying that I nearly lost my mind.

And damn, it was awesome.

Warning: if you’re afraid of heights, this video will make you squirm. I just watched it, and I’m still whimpering. (It’s six minutes long. And it’s stunning.)

People ask me where I get my ideas. Here’s where: from my fears. I think about what gives me the willies, and I write about it. This lets me face what scares me — safely. I pour it out on the page.

I inflict it on my readers.

Heights aren’t my thing. When I took my kids on the Swiss gondola ride at Disneyland, I wanted to duct tape them to the floor of the car. However, small spaces don’t bother me. So, in my new novel (Watch out! Shameless self promotion ahead!) The Dirty Secrets Club, I created a heroine who’s my opposite. Jo Beckett is claustrophobic. But she loves rock climbing. To her, heights are the place to find the widest open, most unconstrained spaces of all. In writing the book, I took everything I feel when looking down (agh… ohhh, God…) and gave it to Jo when she faces the prospect of getting in an elevator. And I tried to understand how she could thrill to the challenge and rush of getting above it all.

Of course, in a thriller, facing one’s fears should involve a visceral, life-threatening experience.

And no matter how much I try to cope with my hatred of heights by writing about it, no matter how well I eventually desensitize myself to the thought of dropping hundreds of feet into a ravine, I’m not walking El Camino del Rey. No way.

UPDATE: In the comments, Ken asks, “Where is that place?” It’s in southern Spain, and is used as the path to the rock climbing at El Chorro.

Mine is purple.

“You tend to spend a lot of time thinking of fictional people and places.” Such a surprise.

What color is your mind?

(Via Petrona.)

Reading that Karen Allen will return as Marion Ravenwood in the new Indiana Jones movie, I thought, “Please, please, please let the movie be great.” Marion is a terrific action movie heroine, and was from the get-go. As Allen explains:

“How can you go wrong when you meet a woman in a bar in Nepal and she’s drinking men under the table, yelling at large men in Nepalese and ordering them out of the bar, and when she first sets eyes on Indiana Jones, she socks him in the jaw?”

Here, in no particular order, are five of my favorite action heroines.

Marion Ravenwood. Just picture her shaking her head, dusting off her hands, and laughing with cynical disbelief as she saunters across her bar toward Harrison Ford. “Indiana Jones. Always knew someday you’d come walking back through my door.” How I love her.

Sarah Connor. Now that’s what I call a protective parent.

Trinity. Cool, collected, and can think her way out of danger as the bad guys close in. From The Matrix:

Neo: Can you fly that thing?
Trinity: Not yet.
Tank: Operator.
Trinity: Tank, I need a pilot program for a B-212 helicopter.

All that, and leather boots I’d kill for.

Lisa Fremont. Okay, Rear Window isn’t technically an action movie. But, my God, did anybody ever look more fabulous than Grace Kelly — climbing over balconies, fighting the murderer, wearing the latest couture from Paris?

Ripley. “Get away from her, you bitch.” Enough said.

IN THE COMMENTS: DJ Paterson notes, “I think even Seven of Nine would struggle to get the better of Joy, from My Name is Earl.”

Parents, if you ever feel the urge to push your kiddies into show biz, don’t. Take a look at this photo of the Olsen twins, and stop yourselves. Violently, if necessary.

(Via Ann Althouse, who calls the photo “something akin to ‘The Portrait of Dorian Gray’ — except the aging entity is not a painting — it’s a living woman!”)

Last night at the Gore Hotel in London, Sue Grafton received the Cartier Diamond Dagger, awarded by the Crime Writers’ Association for sustained excellence in crime writing. I’m a member of the CWA’s committee, and it was a huge kick to see my fellow Santa Barbaran pick up this award. BookTrade has the official press release, but here are a few photos from the event.

Ms. Grafton, speaking to the crowd:

Me with Ayo Onatade, who writes for Shots and Mystery Women, judges the CWA’s short story Dagger, manages the office of the high court at the House of Lords, and still finds time to attend literary events.

With David Headley of the wonderful Goldsboro Books.

With Sue Grafton, her charming husband Steven Humphrey, and my own charming husband, the Husband (also known as Paul Shreve, on the right).

Amazon has thoughtfully e-mailed me, recommending these products I might like to buy “based on items you purchased or told us you own.”

• The Simpsons Movie
• The Serial Killers: A Study in the Psychology of Violence
• Fancy Dress Handcuffs with Key (Metal)

How’d they know about The Simpsons?