Roo
Psuedonyms. I want one. I'll never, and never should, have enough children to quell my addiction to naming. Already, I have five names created for five children who've not been conceived... I have two pets and a dozen name ideas for future pets. Why not publish under another name? That way, I can be the sole sacrificial victim and my husband can be spared a life of endless progeny and pets. One would think that, being a writer, naming characters for the rest of my life would satisfy me, but strangely it's not enough. I want to work under different names like foxes and tanuki shapeshift in Japanese myths. That's the kind of trickster I am, I guess. If that's what I want to do, however, I must face the dilemma of building a body of work. I can't betray the trust of my readers by playing some sort of phantom-of-the-opera game with them. If they like my stories then I can't in good conscience make them work that hard to find another of my books to read. (That's bad business; it would drive a publisher crazy.) If I stick to one psuedonym, that's a moot point. The problem is, I don't trust myself to stick to just one. Knowing me, I could publish every work under a different alias. That's my delimma. For now, at least I know that I want to reserve my name for my friends and let my spirit play under a guise. Your humble author, Roo Franks