Today's prompt:
If you couldn't use your own name, what would your pen name or pseudonym be?
Bank tellers, school admins and older ladies behind registers love my name. I know this because they often comment, "Oh, what a lovely name." I smile and say thank you secretly thinking, are you kidding?
It's not that I don't like my name, I do. My first name can be girly or masculine and I love that suppleness. My last name is foreign, but it has enough vowels in it so that most americans can pronounce it. I like my name so much that I kept it when I got married, not able to picture myself with my husband's wholly other (to me) last name.
But as a writer I have two problems with my name. The first is that I cannot imagine anyone buying a book with my name on it. When husband had my book printed on blurb.com as an xmas present, the only thing on the lovely cover he designed that looked wrong was my name. The second problem I have with my name is that it's my identity. I have a career that doesn't involve writing at all. And I don't expect to become a household name any time soon, which means that writing and working will happen at the same time. Would it be strange to have the two worlds collide?
Even building a presence online for me started with a pseudonym, magpie. And while I wouldn't publish with that name, I am comfortable being known in this little community with that moniker.
OK but that wasn't the prompt. So what would I choose as a pen name? Alex O'Donnell. And will I eventually do that? I don't know. Maybe.
Do you plan on using a pen name? If so, what is it?
