Writer's Block: Where Names Come From

[erastes]

[Error: unknown template qotd]There's no real mystery to "Erastes" - I simply wanted a penname which described what I wrote, and I thought Erastes would "do exactly what it said on the tin" - e.g. people would even know what it was, or might go and look it up.  Being the name for the top in a Greek relationship might give a clue.  Even though Greek men are called that even now, but I think it's in the same way that English girls are being called Clymidia or Chardonnay.

I do admit to choosing a gender neutral or a masculine name - and (probably mistakenly) putting my bio up as male for a while, but I always admitted I was female if anyone wrote to me saying "dear sir..."!  I really didn't think that it would be an issue - it isn't in ANY other genre, just about, so I (naively) thought it would be OK in m/m.  However I learned differently and now state that I'm female out front.

As to my real name - which I'm not prepared to give out - I was named after my godmother who was French, both in my first name and my second name which I tell no-one.

If I'd been a boy, I would have been Hayden Maxwell [surname] which would have been really cool.

Comments

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I was to be a Michael Christopher, like every other boy born that year.

My user name is valarltd, or properly punctuated, Valar, Ltd. It's from Tolkien. The Valar are the Tolkien equivalents of angels. Hence, Angel, Ltd.

I write under my real name, Angelia Sparrow.
I use Angel a lot, because it saves me the hassle of explaining that it's spelled with and pronounced without the I.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

You have a perfect name for an author!

[ggymeta.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

In fandom, I chose Gynocrat because... I'm an ego maniac and I like to think I'm in charge. As for gender, there's nothing covert about it--if you have to ask if someone named 'Gynocrat' is a man, then you might need more life training. ^_^'

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

[mongrelheart.livejournal.com]

I really didn't think that it would be an issue - it isn't in ANY other genre, just about, so I (naively) thought it would be OK in m/m.
Wow -- i didn't know that this was a no-no. (I'm new & relatively clueless when it comes to the m/m world.) Would a female writer who writes about male/male stuff under a male name be seen as being deceptive or wrongly appropriating an identity not hers, or are there other reasons invovled?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It's ok to use a male name, but not to actually declare yourself as a man. I can't see why, but so it is. I mean it was ok for Currer Bell, after all. So now I say "Erastes is the penname of a female author " and continue to talk about him as a male.

[dubaiyan.livejournal.com]

I didn't know either...How did you find out that it wasn't appropriate??

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Because of all the flak I got about it, and the numerous numerous discussions about it on this and that list - and here on my LJ - and on my Blog. Certain (only a small minority) people consider that women shouldn't be writing it ANYWAY, and to pretend to be a man is quite beyond the pale. I suppose I agree with the latter, but I never meant to misrepresent myself, and always fessed up if anyone came out and asked me, or addressed me as "sir" - but it was creating a fictional persona, in exactly the same way that Rupert Smith uses James Lear as a different person to him. Lear is in his seventies I believe, whilst Rupert is in his late thirties (forgive me Rupert if I got your age wrong) However - because both personae are gay men, that's ok!

It was torquere, really - they wanted a bio from me when they published my first short story and I said "do i have to say I'm a woman?" and they said "No, you can say you are anything" so I did. However, now of course, they've had a big problem with their author / owners writing and publishing their own books under many different pennames, so I realise now that perhaps I should have checked with someone else first, but what did I know, back then?

[ggymeta.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

There are kids named Chardonnay? Now I don't feel so bad about having a character named Charlemagne, and having his friends call him Charlie. LOL!

[feed-your-muse.livejournal.com]

I use feed your muse on LJ because it wouldn't let me use merry or merry_meet (which is what I use everywhere else). Merry, because of Meriadoc Brandybuck in LotR - always had a soft spot for him and I look a bit like a hobbit so it seemed to fit!
feed_your_muse because I have a lovely picture of a werewolf chowing down on gory bits and sometimes when I'm thinking my way out of a writing corner the image seems appropriate.

My real name - my dad wanted to call me something short that no-one could abbreviate. So people kept adding bits instead to make it 2-3 times as long!