Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

At this point we're all tired of me flailing about with my novel, so let me revisit another ginormous pile of angst and indecision. Last year I was forced to FINALLY select a non-erotica pen name because I had sold something. Naturally as has happened with almost every non-erotica story I have ever sold, the damn thing went under before it even published so other than creating (and since abandoning) a twitter account in her name, I never did a thing with that pen name.

So why am I back to this again. While Eliana D. Evans had a nice alliterative thing going on, I wasn't sure it fit. I thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad to go by D.M. Evans (and keep the author's page very separate from my facebook page). These books, should they ever come, might be the closest thing to a child I'm likely to have, sad as that is. Of course, it would be MUCH easier to figure out my secret identity if I did that.

I'm not ashamed of what I write. This wouldn't be stuff I'd be afraid students would find. I don't think my parents would have a problem if I had gay characters or African American etc (some of my cousins definitely would but screw them). There are some jobs that this would be a problem for, ditto if i have non-Christian characters, but those are universities I wouldn't want to work with.

However, I still remember the bad old days. It wasn't that long ago (oh god it IS, 1996 is nearly TWENTY years ago. HOW?) that you literally couldn't have a gay lead, at least in fantasy, mystery or YA. I still remember the uproar several years earlier when Mercedes Lackey made one of her leads gay. In the 90s there were articles basically warning you that you couldn't write erotica or LGBT stories and go on to do anything else. It was offensive then and more offensive now.

I do believe that it's gotten better in that respect. Take This book from Cassandra Clare for instance. Yes, I'm loathed to use Clare for anything given her history but this makes my point. While I'm of the mind this is pure fan service on her part, it is going to be a YA gay romance by a major YA urban fantasy author. Oh there will be people boycotting it and everything by her. There's been rumblings about that with Rick Riordan who has a character that 'might' be gay.

ETA - A better example (finally found where I put the damn reference) would be David Levithan's Two Boys Kissing told Greek Chorus style by gay men lost to AIDS. This is plain LGBT contemporary fiction. I think it is a very good thing that this is doing so well. I found it in the best of the year category in the Columbus Dispatch. I have yet to read it but I think it's an important and well deserved step forward that there is something out there where the gay character isn't a minor one in the background.

There will always be someone to protest something. Those people make me want to do it more than they want me not to do. I think I can do this without causing undo stress in my other professional life. So maybe I should go with my initials rather than another fake name.

Thoughts? I still kinda like Concetta too but no one else did. Sigh. It's the name I would have picked if I had named myself.

ETA - I also know that having non-Christian characters could cause problems for me in some jobs. Hell, it could cause problems for me at my current job. I just don't care about that either (but you should have seen the commotion when our president turned out to be *gasp* Jewish). I know I can't chronically worry about these things but on the other hand, I do have to consider the day job. And it SUCKS that I, or anyone, should have to worry about this crap in the 21st century.

Yearly Word count -

and all editing was put on hold because of the book launch

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with Concetta D. Evans?

[sp23.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that's a good name, too.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I think Mom hated it (I'm trying to figure out why. Concetta is a great grandma but I'm not sure why she's disliked. I know little about her)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

points to my answer to [Bad username or site: sp 23 @ livejournal.com]

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, now I remember. I think you should ask her. Which I think I said before.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah i will. I need to talk to them about this eventually.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

*nod nod*

I have the feeling if I just used Mom's maiden name in some way, I'd be completely golden; but I have the feeling I could just use my real name for pretty much anything. Then again, considering another author I kind of follow uses a pen name, I can see the advantages to that, too.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

There are advantages to a pen name no doubt.

You know I'm not sure I know your mom's maiden name. I wouldn't want my mother's

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Okay now I remember it. Also I like it (and am going to screen it if I can since it's an open post)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Thanks; I didn't think about that.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Yeah I didn't when I brought it up.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Ah, well. No harm, no foul, most likely.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

true.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

Man, the Riordan kerfuffle really chaps my ass, as I mentioned in that post I made. My opinion about gay leading characters is that little by little, as people like you push the envelope, they will become more and more mainstream. I remember when I went to a movie and heard the word 'fuck' for the first time (I think it was in The Eyes of Laura Mars). I was totally shocked. Now I'm grateful when I go to a movie and don't hear 'fuck' every other word. It's become mainstream. And as the viewpoint changes in this country - little by little, to be sure - gay characters will become more accepted. Not by everyone, of course, but you're never going to get everyone to like what you do

. Now, if only Hollywood would *stop* casting such blindingly white casts for their shows, *that* would be a shock.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I will speak up for creeping normalization. I can remember when interracial friendship wouldn't have been acceptable, and now interracial romance is very mainstream. What sp23 says is really true!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

There is that. Also kudos to Cheerios for ignoring the huge backlash of prejudice on the interracial family and doing another commercial for the superbowl (this is yet another thing I can't believe is STILL a thing)

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, mainstream over some people's howling ignorant prejudice. So glad Cheerios went the right way. Someday there will be a commercial like what happened today: my grandaughter can say her parents' names clearly: "Dada" and "Papa"!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that be nice?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yes, that post is what I was thinking about.

And you make a very good point as well. Not worrying about it, pushing forward is a good thing.

Though I'd like to go to the movies and not hear fuck constantly too.

You know, that struck me as I was catching up on Sleepy Hollow that it is NOT all Caucasian. In fact most of the characters are not.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

It's hard to know how your profession and institutions feel about it, especially since you're in the sciences. I used a pen name for erotica, but used my professional name for other writing--but I teach English. And I'm retired and teach only part-time. So I think you're the only person who knows your realities well enough to decide.

Sorry to be no help at all!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Well, you're not wrong. I'm the one who has to feel my way through this and figure out what's right for me.

[geeky-ramblings.livejournal.com]

I have to say that the Last Herald Mage is my favorite series, we really need more main stream LGBT fantasy/sci-fi books. It's sad when I go to the book store (which is sadly only Barnes & Nobles) and there is no LGBT section of books.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

B&N definitely censors LGBT. I noticed that when Borders was still around and it was one of the deciding factors for me shopping there and not B&N unless there was no choice. While I don't particularly like most Yaoi manga I want them to be available for those who do. You couldn't get them from B&N.

And this is why I now shop books a million.

[geeky-ramblings.livejournal.com]

They got rid of most of the book stores here on Long Island so I might have to check the only non-B&N here in Huntington to see they have one.

I miss Borders. I had to get the Last Herald Mage series online at Amazon because none of the stores here had it.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Well it's 80 miles to a book store for me. B&N is in Columbus and books a million is in Huntington. I like that Books a million matches Amazon's prices on line and I hate dealing with Amazon so that's a plus.

I miss Borders a lot but they did themselves in (No lie, WTF did they think would happen when they let Amazon do their online presence for them??)

[geeky-ramblings.livejournal.com]

True, they did but Borders was awesome, they had so many more books.

One of the stores that are gone that I miss the most.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

They did and they had a far superior members perks. Ah, well, it sucks.

And I swear the media doesn't help. I think they do as much to drive a store under as anything. They love reporting on a struggling franchise

[geeky-ramblings.livejournal.com]

True, it was weird because our Borders was always so busy. So we didn't realize it's death until we saw a going out of business sign.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

ours always was.

In the last two weeks I've seen the OMG malls are all going the way of teh doodoo as is Olive Garden yet last time I was there earlier in the month, it took a half hour just to get out of the damn parking lot there were so many people and I had to park in the boonies to get go pick up my Olive Garden order

[sholio]

I've always just done most things under my real name. I'm actually finding the process of using a pen name for romance/erotica annoyingly complicated by comparison. (Do you put your real name or pen name on correspondence, manuscripts, etc? I've been highly inconsistent on that, because just when I think it's supposed to be one way, I find out that it's supposed to be the other way ...)

But I'm also in a field where it really doesn't matter. I've generally been out of the closet as a writer in my real life, so to speak. I shop my self-published books around to local bookstores and stuff like that. I might consider using a slight variation on my RL name if I do YA -- my first initials instead of my first name, something like that -- for branding purposes, but I don't expect to do anything different from that unless I have to for some nefarious publishing purpose (I've heard stories of people who were required to take pen name by their publisher because their sales under their real name had been so dismal ...).

Anyway, for me I guess the simplicity of using my real name for mainstream stuff outweighs any benefits from using a pen name. But I'm also in a position where I can't really imagine having professional or social consequences for publishing novels, and I know not everyone has that privilege.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

And I've always wanted that separation between me and what I've published (I just put both names on for submission purposes since they need my real name to pay me).

It gets even more complicated. Some gay publishers will NOT let you use the name you use for het publication (I haven't run across this but many on the DSP author's list have for instance). I DO NOT want to try to do more than 2 pen names (or one pen one real) because could you imagine trying to do the social media for all that? I can't.

I do worry about it because any time you deal with teaching (or medicine) things get weird. Now that we have an LGBT club at school, I have less fear there. I'd be more worried about my pagan stuff.