A DEAD LINE

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

dead•line (noun)
     1. time limit
         the time by which something must be done or completed.
     2. line marked in prison
         Formerly, a line in a prison or prison camp marking beyond which prisoners were forbidden to go on pain of death.

– Encarta Dictionary: English (North America)

I love words, so it makes sense I adore dictionaries, too. I have no idea how many I own or even where they all are at the moment. Several are near my computer, but I also tend to carry them to wherever reading looks inviting.

For a story simmering in the back of my mind, I created a character that required a name not radically uncommon, but not crazy weird either. I liked the idea of “Rain” as a name (long before I knew who Rainn Wilson was and before people started naming their children Apple, Phinnaeus and Audio Science—but long after I’d heard of cute little babies being strapped with monikers like Moon Unit and Dweezel.) Those were too unusual for my character.

I gravitated toward the letter “R” and began with Ra (the sun god) and worked my way to Ryukyuan, which I already knew the definition was a native or inhabitant of the Ryukyu Islands since we’d lived on Okinawa during my husband’s military tour. In fact, while there, we attended the wedding of our friends, Paul and Ryukyu. Unfortunately, my character was not another Ryukyu and I did not find a suitable name in the dictionary that day. What I did find was a delightful excursion reading all the “R’s” in that particular dictionary.

I know. I’m hopelessly nerdy about words. (I admit I’m nowhere near the same category as JLW concerning vocabulary knowledge, but that doesn’t keep me from loving words any less.)

But, I didn’t have an indefinite time to find just the right name. I was on a deadline.

For me, the word deadline creates an imagination trip that kept undulating like a snake on a never-ending desert. No place to go but forward and though it looks like a hot and gritty trail, there’s no turning back. I found the images fascinating.

I pictured a line drawn by a saber in the sand at the Alamo or one where a Foreign Legion taken prisoner finds no escape or a line the literally dead cross into the hereafter.

For most of us, a deadline is simply a circle on the calendar when another writing assignment is due. From the moment we start school, we find ourselves surrounded by deadlines. For those of us who write for a living (or sheer enjoyment) a deadline is a stopping point we must reach to satisfy an editor.

I rather like the idea of a deadline for such things. It pushes me to work harder and faster than if there is no mention of a cut-off time at all.

What I don’t like is a dead line that when printed onto the paper, does not breathe.

My character finally emerged on the page as Harmony. Not completely unknown, yet not common enough to know more than one or at the most two, unless your realm has more hippie-era parents. I know, I know. Kind of nerdy in a too-sweet way, but Harmony fit her so well that when she spoke, it was easy to forget she was completely fictional and I hadn’t known her from somewhere long ago.

And I made the deadline.