I mentioned elsewhere that while I am charging through my last-ditch, balls-out* effort to get this damn novel done, I wasn't going to be posting here or on any of my other blogs.  Not posting here is a bit of a sidewinder bite on the ass; I could use the feedback and encouragement, but once I start down that slippery slope, I'm on here for an hour and a half reading posts and responding to posts and not getting any project writing done.

But I'm in a bit of a bind, so I'm asking for your help.

The first part of the story is set in my bizarre alterna-London.  The thing is, I don't want to flat-out call it London.  I'm not sure why; it's one of those writerly quirks you're just going to have to deal with.  I mean, it's not like it's a completely different city that just happens to be exactly like London (I'm looking at you, China Miéville), nor is it one of those tricksy little plot devices to fool you into thinking it's not London when it really is (I'm looking at you, people who think Kroywen fools us into thinking it's not New York you're writing about when it obviosuly is).

I want people to know it's London, but I also  want them to know it's not like the London they know.  "New London" is out; it's not new.  Don't even say "Nodnol".  That was done much better in Red Dwarf.  I like the name "Albion", but that refers to all of England and might get confusing.

So, as I'm chewing my way through Peter Ackroyd's London: A Biography, I am coming across some old-timey names for the Black City (as I have dubbed it; Ackroyd has a whole (albeit small) chapter devoted to the qualities and peculiarities of London's filth).  Here's a few I liked:

Lundones
Londinium
Caer Ludd
Kaerlundein
Cockaigne (a fictional utopia that London was jokingly named after in the early 1800s)
Llwn (or Lhwn) Town
Llyn Dain
Lundein/Lundyn

I'm thinking I'll put it to the popular vote.  Which one do you like?

*yes, I said "balls-out".  Now you know why writers are, by nature, solitary.