OK, so, at the moment my plan is to use a pseudonym for writing, but I'm going to go over what are my main reasons for this and what the draw-backs might be.
Part of the appeal for me is that I'd only have to tell people it was me if I wanted to and possibly not tell anyone at all, but to me this could also give the impression that I am not proud of what I've written and don't want to own up to it.
Another big pull of a pen-name is the idea of having a secret identity. I'm sure at some point in our lives we've all fantasised about leading a double life and having to keep the secret. I know the main attraction for me in this would be people's reactions, if and when they found out the truth: reactions are some of my favourite things to imagine and write. However - as most TV shows and movies
portray - keeping up the secret isn't the easiest thing in the world and can lead to trouble.
And finally I may have to adopt a pen-name out of necessity. Unfortunately I am not one of those people blessed with an unusual or memorable name and - much as I do like my name - I don't think it would be a good idea to go ahead and write under it if I want to stick in people's minds.
And so I came to the conclusion that I would use a pen-name.
The next step came in choosing said pen-name:
Surname change
Some writers may simply choose to change their surname
Possibility 1: Other family names.
This option did not work for me. Again I have been rather unlucky in the naming scheme of things and ended up with all my relatives having either very common surnames or ones that would be fairly obvious to anyone who knows me or ones that I simply would not choose freely.
I found this fairly frustrating, as what are the chances of having your main surname choices being Johnson, Smith and Brown?!
Possibility 2: Unrelated surname.
I found this the more effective and appealing option as gives you all the world of choice. Some difficulties may arise in picking one name out of the millions possible or in making a choice between several that you like (for me a very common problem), but other than that I found little wrong with this.
One method I used of selecting a surname was to take the same first letter as my own and then choose from there; it allows you to keep a bit of your own name in there but still leave you with plenty of choice.
I fneither of these yields a name that you want you can always be original and create a brand new one.
First name change
Some people may choose to go the whole hog and change the first name as well, or just change the first name while keeping you own surname.
Possibility 1: Middle name
As with surnames this was not a great choice for me as my middle name is not one I would normally pick for myself, nice name as it is. However this may work for some peopl.
Possibility 2: Family name
Use the name of someone else in the family, be it parents, grandparents etc. It keeps it a little more personal than a completely made up one.
Possibility 3: Unrelated name
As with surnames: pick one that you like. I went for this option but, again, went for one with a matching initial to my own.
Again: if in doubt, make something up.
So that's how I came up with my pen-name (which I will not put here). I also spent about an hour messing around with anagrams of my own name but these never really worked well with my names, it may do for others though.
Yikes! That was a long post!
Hope it helped some of you
Bye
W-O
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