Pseudonyms: To Be or Not to Be Yourself

Many famous authors have written under names other than their given ones, among them Mark Twain (born Samuel Clemens), Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), George Sand (Amandine Dupin), George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), and Voltaire (Francoise-Marie Arouet). Ellery Queen is actually the pen name of two cousins: Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee. Even William Shakespeare is believed by many to have been a nom de plume, perhaps for Edward de Vere, the 17^th Earl of Oxford.

There are lots of reasons for choosing to appear as someone else in print. In earlier times, female writers such as Sand and Eliot used men’s names because of the prejudice against women. The Bronte sisters––Anne, Charlotte, and Emily––posed as the brothers Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell respectively. Anne Rice, on the other hand, was originally given her father’s name, Howard Allen O’Brian, and decided when she started school to call herself by a female name.

Others opted for pseudonyms because their birth names were unwieldy, such as Joseph Conrad (né Jozef Teodor Nalecz Konrad Korzeniowski), or because they wanted something catchier, such as Mickey Spillane (Frank Morrison).

Many authors––especially genre writers––use pseudonyms, either to add color or to conceal their true identities. Because publishers of literary fiction tend to look down their intellectual noses at romance books, writers who pen romance novels frequently do so under names other than their real ones. Authors who write various types of books may write fiction under one name and nonfiction under another, to prevent confusion. Writers of erotica often use fictitious names to avoid static from employers, family members, etc.

It’s perfectly legal to call yourself whatever you wish, so long as you don’t do it for purposes of fraud. Publishers will respect your right to remain anonymous (although if you get rich and famous, information sleuths might figure out who’s really behind that notable non de plume). And yes, you can copyright your book under your pseudonym. However, if you ever try to make a claim against someone for copyright infringement, you might have difficulty proving your ownership. If you seriously want to protect your identity, don’t include your real name on records you file with the U.S. Copyright Office as that information will be available on the Internet. 

Confessions of an E-Book Convert

I never thought I'd become an advocate of e-books. Call me old-school, but I love holding a physical book in my hands, flipping through the paper pages, highlighting pertinent passages and making notations in the margins. My favorite books are so bedraggled from use they're held together with rubber bands. Bookstores--especially funky ones with lots of odd, rare, or esoteric books--draw me like taverns draw alcoholics. When I go to someone's home for the first time, I always peruse the books on his/her shelves. (Maybe you can't tell a book by its cover, but you can tell a lot about people from their books.)

However, I’ve moved four times in three years. Each time I move, I schlep dozens of heavy boxes packed with books from one locale to another, promising myself I'll downsize my personal library soon. Yet parting with my books is like parting with old friends. How can I resolve this dilemma?

Enter e-books. Admittedly, wireless reading devices such as Kindle lack the tactile experience of physical books. But they're lighter and thinner than a typical paperback, and hold about 200 books! Talk about traveling light... (Now the money I might have paid a chiropractor can be spent for more books.) Not only can I read and store books on one of these handy hand-held units, I can even buy books with it--and download them instantly. Immediate gratification.

But the "green" factor is what hooked me. Before I became a full-time writer, I worked in the publishing industry for many years. Let me share a dirty little secret with you: the environmental impact of conventional publishing is phenomenal! Trees--lots of them--get cut down to make paper. The paper-making process pollutes water and fouls the air. (Ever stood downwind of a paper mill? It smells like an outhouse.) Toxic printing inks and dyes seep into the ground.

Then there's the little-known (outside the publishing world) matter called "returns." Ever see those flashy promotional displays in bookstores, featuring stacks and stacks of a new book? Many of those books will never be sold. The bookstore orders them, then return them for a full refund--even after they've been sitting around the store for a year and are so dog-eared the publisher has to trash them. Often stores just rip off the covers and send them back. The books end up in landfills.

So when Ravenous Romance's CEO Holly Schmidt invited me to edit The Green Love Anthology, I jumped at the chance. Here was an opportunity to combine three of my passions: literature, the environment, and sex. The anthology includes twelve tantalizing tales that blend ecology with erotica--each one hot enough to take the chill off a cold winter's night (you can turn down the thermostat and save oil). I even got to write a story of my own for the anthology: "Midnight at the 11^th Hour Cowboy Bar." Going green has never been so much fun! (Anybody know how to get a copy to Al Gore? It might warm him up a bit.) 

Anthologies: The Literary Equivalent of a Wine Tasting

I love anthologies. For me, they’re the literary equivalent of a wine tasting. I get to sample lots of different authors’ work to see what pleases my palate. I don’t have to make a major commitment to a particular author—I can try a little bit at a time, exploring myriad styles, themes, moods, characters, etc. If a story piques my interest, I can delve deeper into the author’s repertoire. If I don’t connect with a particular story or writer, I can move on to the next one. If variety is the spice of life, anthologies offer cinnamon, sage, paprika, tarragon, cumin, and more.

Over the years, many of my stories have been selected for publication in anthologies of various genres—mystery, romance, erotica, sports, supernatural, and literary. Some stories have even been translated into foreign languages, which got to be really amusing at times—try explaining baseball to Germans!

I’ve also been privileged to edit a number of anthologies. Recently I had fun editing a collection of erotic romance stories with environmental themes. I loved working with so many talented authors whose unique perspectives blended the unlike combination of sex and ecology––who knew so many intriguing possibilities existed?

Prior to that, I was a partner in the New England publishing company Level Best Books which each fall brings out an annual anthology of crime stories (some have won national awards). Working collaboratively with other authors and editors to create a cohesive, diverse, and enticing collection of stories is both a challenge and a pleasure. It’s like being part of an extended family of like-minded individuals who share a common goal. And the end result is a smorgasbord of literary delights––something for everyone.

All You Need Is Love

Recently, I was invited to contribute to BookWenches’ guest blog about what underlies and drives all of my work. I decided my motivating theme is love.

The ancient Greek playwright Sophocles wrote, “One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.”

Admittedly, love is a pretty broad subject, and one that authors wiser and more gifted than I have addressed ad infinitum since the advent of the written word. Yet despite all that’s been said by poets and philosophers, mystics and musicians, in many ways love remains a complete mystery.

Perhaps that’s why I feel compelled to write about love in romance novels, suspense stories and mysteries, and even in nonfiction books (including a WIP titled Love Is the Answer to Every Question). Maybe that’s also why year after year romance novels outsell other literary forms.

Especially during these uncertain times, romance novels give us hope. The guy gets the girl and everyone lives happily ever after. But I think their appeal is more than that. Romances––even jalapeño-hot erotic ones––espouse old-fashioned values including loyalty, honor, courage, compassion, and perseverance in the face of challenges. Like the eighteenth-century French fairytale “Beauty and the Beast,” romance novels are about the transformative power of love and its ability to make us better people.

There’s some Beauty and some Beast in all of us, and in every relationship. Each close encounter provides an opportunity to love, not just the other person but ourselves as well. It could even be said that we unconsciously seek relationships so that we might transform our “beasts.” According to C. G. Jung, “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”

I’m not talking about infatuation––that dizzying rush of euphoria that takes your breath away and makes your heart pound like a jackhammer. Infatuation isn’t about the other person, it’s about you––the projected image of yourself that you see mirrored in your partner. Infatuation is love in drag. And I don’t mean passion either. The word passion originally meant “to suffer.” From Camelot to Casablanca, storytellers have portrayed love as pleasure mixed with suffering. Literary fiction, contemporary dramas, and poetry often depict the all-too-familiar suffering that taints our real-life relationships.

In our jaded, self-absorbed, thrill-seeking society we put more emphasis on falling in love than on staying in love. As a result, nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. Romance novels, however, show us what’s possible if we make a commitment to love and realize that, as Marianne Williamson writes in A Return to Love, “to experience love in ourselves and others is the meaning of life.” Of course, infatuation and passion enliven the pages of “bodice-rippers” of every ilk––historical, paranormal, erotic, etc. But in the end, love prevails.

In The Phenomenon of Man, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin stated that “Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.” The Sufi poets tell us that divine love reveals itself to us through human love, and human love lights the path to divine love. Here’s one of my favorite poems, from the 14^th-century Sufi master Hafiz:

Even

After

All this time

The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe

Me.”

Look

What happens

With a love like that,

It lights the

Whole

Sky.

That’s why I keep writing about love, keep believing in it, and daily make it the centerpiece of my life. I think John Lennon was right when he sang, “All you need is love.”

(The picture above is the Love card from my deck of original "Dream Divination" cards, copyright 2009 by Skye Alexander.)

Where Do Characters Come From?

A few years ago, I was doing a live radio call-in show when a listener phoned in and insisted I’d used him as a character in my book. I told him I was flattered that he saw himself in one of my characters, but all my characters are fictitious. I dare say that’s true for most novelists and short story writers.

Of course, characters can be inspired by flesh-and-blood people. But they’re rarely carbon copies. Often they’re amalgams. A character might combine the traits of several people––your sister’s hair, your boss’s feisty temper, your best friend’s interest in archery. It’s not uncommon to give a character a few of your own attributes as well––or to endow him/her with qualities you wish you had. You can make your character taller, prettier, smarter, braver, richer––whatever you please––then send him/her out into the world to do all the things you’d like to do. How cool is that? We writers get to play God/dess.

Some characters seem to emerge “out of the blue.” Even the writer doesn’t know where they came from. They may turn up at your desk fully formed and demand a role in your story, or slip in the door quietly and begin sharing bits and pieces of themselves until you’re hooked. Characters have minds of their own and they can be quite insistent. They keep you awake nights talking. They distract you when you’re supposed to be busy doing your day job. If you let them, they’ll take over your book and try to run the show.

Writers have lots of imaginary friends. We never go anywhere without a few of them tagging along. Being a writer gives you license not only to talk to yourself, but to your characters as well. My characters like to ride in the car with me. When I started writing my first mystery novel Hidden Agenda, I didn’t know whodunit until I was halfway through the book. One day I was driving down the highway when the villain slid into the seat beside me and said, “We’ve all gotten together (meaning the characters in my book) and decided it’s time you knew. I’m here to tell you I did it.” Well, then I had to go back and rewrite the first half of the book.

Most readers I know say they must care about the characters in order to enjoy the book. Most writers I know believe that characters drive a book––if you really know and trust them, they’ll guide your story and when you get stuck they’ll bail you out. The problem for writers is, once you’ve finished the book, what do you do with the characters who’ve been an integral part of your daily life for months or maybe years? After all you’ve been through together, how can you just say “nice knowing you” and send them packing? For many of us, letting go is hard, maybe impossible. We don’t want to sever our ties, say goodbye to dear friends when the curtain falls. The answer? Write a sequel!

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About...

One of my publishers (Adams Media) has just launched a terrific new content-rich website to rival About.com and other information sites. It features excerpts from books on subjects ranging from cooking to finance to tarot––including many from my books. I invite you to take a look––just click the link Everything New Age. Enjoy!

Thanks to My Writer Friends

Today I'd like to thank my fellow writer friends for giving me space to speak out on the blog Un:Bound, and for sharing so many witty and wise comments. Special thanks to host extraordinaire Dana Fredsti (see Zhadi's Den). If you follow the links to their sites, you won't be disappointed.