Help me name my new baby


    It's a MacBook!

    But I haven't named it yet, and my mind is so full of other things that I can't seem to think of a cool name for my speedy new computer. And this thing is fast! Hooked up to my broadband, it's the fastest machine I've had. Not that it will make me write any faster, but hey...

    So here's today's contest. Help me think of a name for my new computer. The winner gets a signed copy of Unlawful Contact plus samples of "Marc" and "Sophie." (The perfume is probably as close as any of us will get to sniffing the real man, so might as well go for it, right?)

    To help you help me, here's a brief history of my computers and their names.

    The first computer I owned on my own was a Mac Centris 610. It's name was R2D2. I wrote Sweet Release on R2D2, and I loved it. Remember, it took me seven years to write my first book, so I was with that computer almost as long as I was married. However, the Internet came along and made it obsolete. It was still functioning perfectly when I had to let it go and got...

    An iMac, which I named Enterprise. Enterprise still works, but it's so outdated that I use it only in absolute emergencies. It can't read the files from my other computers, but it can, in a pinch, connect to the Internet. I wrote Carnal Gift and started Ride the Fire on Enterprise.

    Then I got my iBook, which I loved! I finished Ride the Fire on the iBook, which, because it was portable and could go wherever I went, I very cleverly named Strider, in honor of The Lord of the Rings Films and Viggo Mortensen, who is extremely sexy and, best of all, part Danish. (Dejlige Danmark!)

    But my iBook died in the line of duty, after helping me produce Ride the Fire, Extreme Exposure, Surrender, Hard Evidence, Unlawful Contact and most of Untamed. It deserves a decent burial, so I'm recycling it through Apple.

    Now I have this sweet little MacBook. It's smaller than the iBook but much speedier. I haven't even come up with a name that interests me, but the name is important because I spend more time with this machine — I spend more time touching it — than I do any living human being.

    My sons have already run with the Star Trek theme, so Star Trek-related names — I'm a hardcore Trekkie deep down, though I've never worn a costume, thanks very much — are probably out. And George Lucas ruined Star Wars for me with the second trilogy.

    Next post: Music that is Marc to me
    Coming soon: A preview of Untamed

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