Day 16

[adonnchaid]

As I was wandering around the internets this morning, checking out what the world was up to, I ran across this column about choosing a pen name. And since pen names, or pseuds, is/are something we all consider when writing, I thought it was appropriate. Also, I was a little surprised when the author of the writing book I was reading last week recommended using pen names, if only to keep one layer of separation between writer and crazed fan. I'd only ever considered if being "outed" as either a fanfic writer or a m/m writer would matter in "real life", not that there might be stalkers out there.

Comments

[kayim]

I've been thinking a lot about pen names recently, as I'm working on my full length original novel at the moment. A friend of mine that writes fanfic has started writing under her real name for original stuff and under a completely different "real sounding" name for her m/m original works.

I considered submitting short stories under a pen name, but I decided that I want people to know it's me. I can't imagine publishing anything I'm ashamed of, or want to "hide"...

[adonnchaid]

That was kind of my thought, that I wanted people to know it was me, m/m or whatever. Okay, not the fanfiction, since I do a little work for an actor, so I feel the need for a pseud there, but if I wandered into original m/m, it wouldn't matter to my "real life" if people knew it was me. What struck my in the writing book was that the author felt there was a real risk of crazed fans or stalkers, and I'm still pondering that concept...

[solosundance]

Heh, I had to laugh at the first point, about *not* choosing something that sounds like a porn-star name... doh! Trouble is, JoJo is actually my name (or one of those I go by) - and is also by sad chance the name of an episode and very nasty character from my first fandom. When I started using it I was quite amused by that, and never imagined I'd still be writing under it x years later :D