So way back when I was writing Love Sucks (a million years ago, I think), I was looking for a name for my love/lust/inhibition drainers. If it had just been love, I probably would have been find with “love drainer” or something, but for some reason “drainer” or “sucker” didn’t really appeal to me as an all-encompassing title for these demons. This was before vampires were impossible to sell, but “vampire” didn’t quite seem to fit.
I turned to my writing buddies and asked for suggestions. One had been taking Latin, and together we came up with “Haustor” or “someone who drains.”
Today I was working on a report that summarized major threats to different species. Imagine my surprise when I came across the word, “Haustoria.” Obviously, I couldn’t let that go without looking it up. It turns out that the haustoria (haustorium = singular) are the part of a parasitic plant or fungus that draws nutrients from the plant.
Of course, it makes perfect sense that Haustores and haustoria have similar names and do basically the same thing–drain food from a host with a touch. They were both named with the same Latin root (“to drain”). But it was cool to have my work and writing worlds collide with the chance encounter with a word I basically consider to be mine.
Do you ever have your writing world intersect with the real world in a weird way like this?
Lots of love,
Sage
Sage, Like the Spice 
I wondered about that word, but didn’t take the time to look it up. I’m lazy. Now I know how appropriate it is to your character, but also that I want to avoid them if at all possible. Even the plant specie. Which reminds me that I had a tick stuck in my scalp yesterday, which I discovered while driving down the highway. I hate those blood sucking monsters, since they don’t just do it with a touch.
Yeah, ticks are pretty icky. I’ve been lucky to avoid tick bites, as far as I know, but my cats got fleas every summer when I was growing up, and fleas LOVE my blood.
When I did an internship in Delaware one summer, they had nasty ticks there, but thanks to tricks I was taught (like tucking my pants into my socks), I managed never to get one stuck to my body, thank goodness. It was bad enough when they were stuck to my clothing.
That is quite a coincidence! Personally I haven’t had something quite like that but I recently discovered that there was a fellow writer on Absolute Write that goes to the same university as me! That was quite a wied real and virtual life intersection!
That’s pretty cool! I went to a convention about a month ago and met an AWer by coincidence there. She was a panelist, and I recognized the name of her book when she said it.