Meet Nyra Vex
The inspiration behind the character
One of the many things AyDee loved about being a pantser was writing a story based on an idea, a title, and the names of her characters.
Sometimes there was no title at all.
She’d started out writing YA, and one of the Corporate Hell jobs she’d had was medical data entry. She worked the graveyard shift, 4 pm-2 am Mon-Thurs, entering line after line of medical information from a HFCA sheet (IYKYK). It was a mindless job, but it was perfect for her for two reasons:
No phones (unlike her current Corp Hell job)
She was able to grow her character name list (because, well, opportunity…)
When she wrote her stories, her main characters were required to have unique names (secondary characters got the boring common names. Sometimes). It was one of the writing rules she’d come up with because she was so tired—still tired—of reading books with characters who had the plainest, most common names known to man.
I mean, she gets it. During sex, it’s much easier to shout, “Oh, fuck, Emily,” vs “Oh, fuck, Lavender.”
But that’s where nicknames come in, ya’ll!
So, you can imagine all the inspo that came across her desk when she was entering those claims. She really does miss that binder full of book info, since it included character names for both males and females. She thinks it got lost or thrown away during one of her many moves.
KaeJae clearly understood the assignment when coming up with the names for their characters. Even when they had to change things up.
When AyDee was going over KaeJae’s notes, she knew two things:
The FMC had to be a person of color and
Her name had to be changed.
Initially, KaeJae had her name as Elara Vex. AyDee had to ixnay that because it was the name of a character in an instalove novella she’d been writing.
So, she had Ramona came up with a list of six romantasy/paranormal/espionage-type names:
Elowen Blackmoor
Sera Vale
Mabryn “Mab” Skye
Thalia Crowhurst
Nyra Ashcombe
Isolde Fenwick
She still liked Vex as the last name and thought Nyra looked the least over-the-top-fantasy-like. Once chosen, they had to figure out how to pronounce it. It reminded AyDee of Lyra (pronounced Ly-rah) from The Golden Compass, and she thought Nyra should be pronounced the same way (Ny-rah). They tried pronouncing it like Near-ah, but it didn’t sound right.
Ny-rah stuck.
When AyDee was visualizing what Nyra would look like, she had two women in mind:
Jewel Pearson, aka Ms. Bohemian Soul
Jewel is a a tiny house dweller, designer, consultant, and advocate for tiny house living. AyDee has followed her on IG for a few years because at some point in her life, she’d like to live in a tiny house of her own. It helps to follow a female POC who’s been doing it for several years and helping other POCs do the same. Says AyDee
Her tiny house is absolutely GORGEOUS and Jewel herself is such a beautiful woman. I love her whole boho vibe: bald head (when I first started following her), big glasses, flowy clothes, the boho design of her house. I could picture Nyra emulating this vibe.
Christine Platt, Author | Waymaker
Christine is the author of The Afrominimalist’s Guide to Living with Less and Less is Liberation: Finding Freedom From a life of Overwhelm, the co-author of Rebecca, Not Becky, and has written several children’s books. AyDee has been a follower of her for years. Says AyDee:
“I have no idea how old Christine is, but she looks damn good for whatever age that is. I really love her zen vibe, her fashion style, and the way she wears her hair short like mine.
In the end, AyDee decided to model Nyra’s appearance after Christine. “She has this soothing way of talking and man, her sense of fashion is SO on point that I couldn’t help but think ‘Yeah, THIS is Nyra’.”
And so, Nyra Vex was born.
Midlife badass incoming on 5/12/26. Available for pre-orders now!
