Falling Back Onto the Earth and Landing Face Forward

Reader's Digest version of what I've been up to the last six months since I wasn't writing - even the best laid plans of mice and men go awry, so new job, too many classes and not enough time for anything fun.  Oh, and we survived the Mayan Apocalypse, so yay!

Anyway, I'm back and trying to get into the swing of writing again.  Fanfic is on hold because I want to finish a horror-esque historical paranormal story (born out of too many historical romance novels and episodes of Merlin) I've had eating away at my imagination for a while.  The problem is that I can't start the actual writing because I don't have the main character's name.  There are a couple of things that can really mess up a story's start - not knowing where to begin, not having motivation, and not having your lead character's name.  So far none of the names on my former naming lists or any of the names I've been trying to accumulate since.  I've tried "dummy" names, but I don't like how they sound.  Silly as it seems, "dummy" names throw me off when I'm building a character.  I hope this gets resolved soon so I can get real writing done.

Also, is LJ giving anyone else a hard time?