I think everyone here uses a pen name so I thought I’d explore that a bit this week. How do you pick a pen name? What does your pen name say about your writing?
Candy would make you flirty/sexy/cheerleader-ish.
Lola would make you naughty/wicked/fun.
Jane would make you sweet/closet kinky.
The point would be to find a good mix between your real personality and the type of writing you publish. You want to be able to pull off the name when people meet you in person. The hope would always be to get all famous like Nora Roberts and do book tours and signings. So…have to be able to live up to the hype of your pen name.
For me…I stuck with my real first name just in case I DID meet people in real life and “Jordan” is a nod to the master of fantasy, Robert Jordan. I started out only writing fantasy paranormal romance. As you can see, I’ve expanded my horizons.
How did you or will you pick your pen name? What do they tell you about your favorite authors?
September 25th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Mine wasn’t very complicated. My first name (so I’d know when someone was speaking to me in a chat or something) and my middle name. But “Lee” wasn’t available as a last name so I added a “land” and came up with Jennifer Leeland.
Simple. LOL
September 25th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
Dayna is my real first name. My sister’s named me after a character in a book, ironically enough. Hart is a contraction of my real last name.
My pen name, the one that isn’t directly ‘me’…is Drew Sara Mitchell. Drew is an old nickname, one I’m still sometimes called in real life by friends I’ve made online. Sara ties into the same mythology that gave my son his middle name. And Mitchell is a nod to my husband, Michael…but seeing as “Drew” is gender-ambiguous, I didn’t want a ‘masculine’ last name.
heh. Long enough story for you?
if I’d been giving a nod to the authors I love…I’d be Kay Keatley Sleator. (Guy Gavriel Kay, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, and William Sleator getting their nods in there.)
September 25th, 2006 at 9:55 pm
Dayna my mom named me after a soap opera character and took teh spelling from my brother’s name! LOL NO matter how you spell it I hate Amie but I chose to use it for print because it’s mine =) Stuart is my brother’s middle name–the cycle continues LOL
September 25th, 2006 at 10:25 pm
This is my normal plain old name. Though in every day life I don’t use the hypen. (Holt-Whitlock) However, if I did write under a different name *wink wink* I’d probably pick something with meaning but that also sounded sexy. Ya know IF I had one
September 25th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
I hate to say it, but my pen name just came to me one day. However, Lyric is a version of my cousin’s name, Lyrica.
September 27th, 2006 at 7:01 am
My pen name — Elisabeth Drake — is actually a name that came to me several years ago when I was considering targeting HQ. It struck me as very elegant and romance-writerly.
In a way, it fits me, too. My middle name is actually Elizabeth, but I prefer the S to the Z. That should come across as no surprise to anyone who’s actually seen my posts and noticed the British spellings, LOL. “Drake” … well, dragons. I’m originally a fantasy writer, after all.
Though, that will make the short story / potential novella I have where the hero/villain’s (haven’t decided which he is yet) name is Drake… interesting. LOL.