The Pen Name (or Why I Want Everyone to Read What I Write Without Knowing I Wrote It)

Forgive me, reader, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last confession...er, post.

Oops, wrong blog!

Over the last couple of days, there has been some discussion on one of the loops I subscribe about writing romance novels and how it can be a little difficult when you're a churchgoing mommy with kiddies in the house to really let it all hang out, so to speak.

(Aside: The phone just rang. I answered and waited a few seconds. Almost hung up on the wrong number theory. Then a deep, commanding male and obviously recorded voice came on the line. "We are serving other customers at the moment. Please wait and one of our representatives will be with you shortly." Um, hello, you called me and you have no live human available to talk with me? You want me to wait for you? Click. What is up with that?)

Now, I mentioned that as a Unitarian Universalist, the churchgoing part is probably not a problem. I suspect if I stood up and told the entire congregation I write soft-core porn (this is what my mother calls romance novels) on the side, they'd probably all stand up, applaud, and tell me which covenant group I can join to celebrate my inner pornographer. (My seventeen-year-old nephew recently announced in a sermon that when he told members of the church he is a "flaming bisexual," everyone said, "Congratulations. And, by the way, we have a support group for that on Tuesday nights.")

I did, however, confess a certain discomfort with the idea of people who know me "in real life" reading what I write. Especially not my husband, mother, sister, etc. (My kids don't count, as they're still much too young to be interested in reading adult novels, the romance aspect aside.) Everyone assumed, perhaps fairly, that it's because my stories include sex that I'm shy about this, but that's not it. Because it would feel just as weird to me if I were writing a book in another genre, up to and including anything but the blandest of children's books.

You see, as I already said in an earlier post, I have these people in my head. And it's a little embarrassing and even puzzling to me. Because these people do and say things I would never dream of doing or saying and yet, they must be me in some fundamental sense, mustn't they? So I wonder, if my most intimate family and friends knew what was going on in my head--people who think they know and understand me--how would that knowledge change how they think of me? Would it change their opinions of my character and personality? Would they give me sidelong glances, wondering if I might engage in extramarital affairs because one of my heroines does or whether I'm into S&M because one of my villains is?

Now, I don't have this problem when it comes to sharing my work with my critique partners or even my Internet friends (I used to be quite a newsgroup junkie, though the book has recently overcome that particular obsession). In fact, I'm eager to share my writing with other people--as long as I've never met them face to face! Of course, I assume the day will come when I will actually meet all of my CPs face to face, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to stand up to that pressure. Because they're writers, too, so they understand! But do non-writers understand? I'm not sure they do. Even if they are your closest, most intimate friends with whom you can normally share your deepest feelings and secrets.

Of course, perhaps I'm not giving my family and friends enough credit. Or maybe I'm just stinking insecure. On some level, I suppose I'm afraid that the people I love and respect most in the world won't like what I write and that might crush me. (Okay, I did not mean to get that heavy here. I promise to lighten up in a minute!)

But at the same time, I've become very aware of the way in which author=book and book=author in the minds of most readers. Hell, there's even an entire branch of literary criticism based on the idea that you can understand an author's story by picking apart the author's life. So I don't think it's entirely irrational to think that what one writes might have subtle (and not-so-subtle) effects on one's relationships.

(Damn, I hit publish too soon. I'm not done yet!)

The real reason I decided I should have a pen name, however, has almost nothing to do with my deep aversion to the idea of people I know reading what I write and knowing I'm the person who wrote it. It might be a reason, I'll admit, but only a teeny-tiny one. Avoiding stalkers might be another sliver of the reason, especially since I am putting myself out there in the Internet world and have a family to protect.

Here's the main reason: my real surnames (both my married and maiden ones) are unpronounceable. It's that simple. I don't want to spend my entire writing career (assuming I ever actually have one, LOL) correcting people's butchered pronunciations of my name. Not to mention their butchered spellings of same. I do that enough in the grocery store, at school, at church, at work, when the phone rings (unless the person on the other end is a recording--see, I knew I'd circle back around to that phone call eventually; I never write anything without a purpose!). So I chose a pen name that I think looks and sounds nice, is easy to pronounce, and should be a heck of a lot more marketable than MyRealFirstName EitherOfMyRealUnpronounceableLastNames.

The fact that it might also mean someone I know buys my book, reads it, enjoys it (or doesn't, for that matter) and never knows I actually wrote it is merely a bonus.