The hardest part is always naming things

My project for this week is to finish laying the groundwork for my NaNo. It's a fantasy novel this time (my first) with two lead female characters (also a first). In my head it's an adventure story with some serious underlying themes, but when I try to describe the story it turns into a serious book that happens to have some adventuring. We'll see which way it actually turns out.

The universe draws on a lot of things: Gaiman, Mieville, D&D, Haven, Mage, pulp adventure in general, Planetary, the steampunk/futurist aesthetic as applied to fantasy, quantum theory, Wild Cards, Guy Gavriel Kay, Firefly, and other stuff I'm probably not even aware of. It's a thick enough mixture that I don't feel like I'm ripping anyone off, which is my first requisite for good fantasy. As other writers have remarked, the trick isn't to be wholly original--that's almost impossible--but to remix in a new and compelling way. I feel like I have a reasonable chance of that with this idea.

Now I just need to come up with the names of a dozen characters, a castle, at least three kingdoms/nations, two-to-four groups of people, and the story itself. Which will probably occupy a considerable number of hours in the next few days. Still, anything I can do now I won't have to screw around with when the starting gun goes off.

ETA: Chessica Salome Blonwyn Leocadia Delmaris. Yes, that's one name.