My go to fictitious city for the past four years has been Lyre City. This has been the place where my (mostly sexy) stories happen. But the city itself has been just a backdrop. I've done some work fleshing out the locales of the place, but not much more.

Yesterday I decided to change the city's name. 'Lyre City' feels awkward to me. On top of that it has become a pet peeve of mine when places in fiction are named _______ City. Yes, there are cities in the real world that have 'city' in their name. But most do not. It just strikes me as lazy writing. So I changed it's name to Lyra.

This happens occasionally to me, in my writing. A character's name won't feel right, and I'll change it. And that changes the character in my mind. They come to life. That happened with Lyra, when I found her right name, she came to life in my mind.

I see her bridges, her skyscrapers. I see her flags hanging over the city strees; dark red ones with a golden lyre emblazened upon them. I can see the dirt and grime in less well kept areas. I can see the pidgeons fluttering about.

Lyra, as much as any furry in my writing, is a character. She has a name, a personality, a gender. She will be one of those characters that tells me how I to write her.