To pen name or not to
pen name – that is the question.
Okay, enough of the adapted- Shakespearean quotations.
My name is VERY common – and too
far down the alphabet list so this year I entered New Voices with a pseudonym, Rosy Gilmore. Rosy to fit in with my twitter name @yrosered, Gilmore
because I want to live in Stars Hollow (DON'T JUDGE ME).
I
love social media and am pretty active already Tweeting, Facebooking
and blogging. Only that is all under my real name; if I am going to have a
pen name then do I need to start building up that online presence now?
But, on the other hand, social media is
pretty time consuming, having a dual identity will mean double the
time. More blogging, tweeting equals less time to write. There isn't
much point having a great internet identity if I don't actually
produce anything.
Also if I ever do
achieve my dream and get a contract with M&B the editors will
have their own views about pen names – if they don't like Rosy
Gilmore all that extra tweeting will be wasted!
On the other hand
mixing personal and professional personas can get tricky. A couple of
Harlequin authors were tweeting about the forthcoming presidential
election – or rather their intentions not to tweet about it because
their viewpoint was bound to conflict with half their readerships' political leanings. Wise words and very good advice, only I
take my politics very seriously indeed, my Twitter timeline a bizarre mixture of political types and romance writers plus anyone else that interests and amuses me. I don't want to alienate or upset any potential readers but neither do I want to stop tweeting about things that inspire me, about the things that make me ME..
The truth is all this
is a long way away, I need to have some interest in my writing first
– then I'll worry about what name I am going to use!
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