I’m going come straight out and admit I haven’t been furious enough to write one of these in a dog’s age. Why, you obviously ask, given the world spiralling into an Idiocracy shaped dystopia with enough meat to gorge even hot dog muncher Joey Chestnut? Two words: Rage fatigue. Plus, all the good stuff has been extensively detonated by better monsters than me. Case in point, pick up a copy of Enshittification by Cory Doctorow. Boom! That man knows his professional fulmination.
And I’ve already bashed the literal shit out of all significant low hanging fruit. Social Media? Meh. The Pandemic? Old news. AI? It’s hard to believe I raged against AI three goddamn years ago, a veritable eternity in Anthropic usage tokens, when it was new and somewhat intriguing. Unlike now, where it’s ubiquitous and devouring the world faster than Logi in a Jötunheimr eating contest. I could follow that up. I really could. But meh, who the hell wants to read that? I certainly don’t.
Then again, as Lola is quick to point out, I am petty in ways that defy sanity.
So, it’s time to fight lesser crusades. Not saying I’m ready to scrape the bottom of the barrel and go after people who wear mismatched socks or rock porn staches or leave wads of curly hair stuck to the shower wall. I could. I should. But not today. Instead, I’ve found a juicy morsel wriggling around in my noggin, consuming valuable neurons, that requires a random detonation.
Pen Names are for cowards.
There, I said it. Not taking it back either. Look, I know there are some instances where an author needs to keep their identity hidden or requires an alias. For instance, if you fear for your life. Or know your livelihood could be comprised. Or you were a woman and couldn’t get anything published in man’s literary universe (which was the norm until amazingly recent times). Or, most importantly, your name is Chuck Tingle. He’s probably a hideous freak under that pink sack he wears on his head in public, but personally I really want to know and stalk the genius behind such classics as Pounded In The Butt By My Book “Pounded In The Butt By My Own Butt” or I Have No Butt And I Must Pound. So much pounding. I bet he’s a riot at parties.
I personally know LOTS of authors with pen names, nom-de-plumes, or pseudonyms (yes, I know these are synonyms, consider the thrice repetition my version of rocking a porn stache). Fine, maybe if you’re writing twenty romance books a month and carpet bombing your fans you can make a possible case for it. Or, if you’re a genre hack and want to use a first initial instead of your first name when you write trauma and grief strewn literary award bait. But damn, that’s all so cowardly.
Stand behind your work and take responsibility for it. Doesn’t matter if it’s god-awful or goddamn amazing. You wrote it. Be proud that you did. Let others be proud you did. But Noggy, I don’t want my mom to know I write spicy romantasy – she’s Old Colony Mennonite and will drive her buggy over to whip my britches. Coward! Take it and be happy you had some drivel published.
Besides, given how hard it is to build an audience these days, why the hell would you want to promote yourself beyond a single banner? I can’t imagine having to maintain multiple Facebook, IG, X, TikTok personas. One is bad enough. And don’t get me started about writing partners who pick a ‘joint’ name. James S. A. Corey? Please. You’re saving cover space having two names? You think it’s clever? You can’t decide whose name should go first. Or receive prime billing? It just means your fans need to jump through hoops, probably using AI, to find out who the hell you are and want to read deeper into your backlist. Which goes for anyone who writes under multiple names. You don’t want people to read ALL your books? You’re probably just insulting their intelligence.
And mine.
Boom! You’re welcome.
