IWSG: The Pen Name Game

1st Wednesday of the month is Insecure Writers Support Group. Wherein I post about the difficulties and joys of writing.

This might be shocking to my sixteen some-odd readers, but Mencara isn't my real name.Don't worry, I've put some smelling salts next to your chair. Thaaaat's it. Breathe deeply.

My name is actually Christina. After my grandmother died, I took her middle name (Mencara) as my pen name because I've always loved it. Matter of fact, when I got married and changed my name, I almost made my middle name Mencara but I chickened out at the last minute. If I had, I wouldn't be worrying about my pen name now.

In the last few months I've noticed what an enormous pain in the ass it is to have a pen name. I spend a lot of time on Facebook and I tried figuring out how to create a profile for Mencara. What a complete waste of time. You really can't do it, unless you buck FB rules and risk the possibility of being booted by creating a fake profile. You can create a page for your persona but you can't use it to join writer groups like Insecure Writers Support Group. Can't be done.

So I tried using Twitter because it would be much easier to use a pen name there, but frankly, I cannot figure out how to read Twitter conversations. They make no sense to me. Shut up, you damnable whippersnappers. I'm not old. Twitter is just... too young.

Then I began reading about all the nightmares that come along with using pen names. The difficulties getting paid and getting contracts from out of the country, etc. Now that my novel is finally getting somewhere, I'm thinking seriously about my name and my online presence. Based on info from writer blogs and publishers, I'm going to have to use some variation of my real name. It's a bummer but there you have it.

I have several writer friends who are all blessed with interesting, bam-pow names. This is not my reality. I write romantic comedy but I don't have a romantic comedy name. Think about how fitting names like Jenny Crusie and Jane Heller fit the genre of romantic comedy. But I'm Christina Mitchell. It's a name for historical romance writer. A stuffy one. I should write about masked balls and refer to man whores as "rakes". And I should develop a rather keen love of bustles. I mean, everyone likes a good bustle. But I'm not sure I can love them. Ya know?


My first and middle name are nice together. I wondered if they would work. So I Googled the combo and discovered an award winning romance writer, from my state no less, has that name already. I am filled with haterade. I'm not gonna curse her out because one day she might read this. But rest assured when I discovered her name, I lobbed some choice words at my computer screen. I'm sure she's a very nice lady, blah blah blah.

So, I let go of my pen name. I changed my blog address. I changed my header, my sidebar etc. My Google+ profile has been updated and I'm just hoping that I don't lose the few readers I have.

Oh and since it's IWSG, I suppose I should tell you that my book is coming along nicely, though I'm struggling a little with my current chapter. It refuses to be funny or interesting, no matter what I do. I rewrote it, I avoided it, I watched a marathon of Supernatural episodes followed by a marathon of Adventure Time... nothing helped.

Now I'm gonna try chocolate.

The Mythical Organized Writer

This is not what my office looks like.

I'm not one of those writers who has everything neat and tidy. But I long to be a be one of the few, the fabled... the Organized Writer. A writer who is never buried under piles of paper bits and dozens of half empty notebooks. Someone whose computer files are sorted and organized for easy access. A Wonder Woman of organizational prowess who has her stories cataloged and organized so manuscripts can be easily picked up and edited on the go.

But I am not that writer. I'm more of a, I'd work on my manuscript but I can never seem to find it, it's around here somewhere, kind of writer. The week before last, I lost the jump drive with all of my novel edits on it. That weren't backed up anywhere because sometimes I'm an idiot. I was in tears and I searched for about three days. Luckily my husband located it buried in the debris of scrap-book stuff and receipts that litter my home office.

When he handed it to me, I was disgusted with myself and my inability to be organized. I vowed to work on becoming an Organized Writer. I began doing Internet searches to get some helpful advice. I needed an organizational muse, someone who could give me concrete advice on how to get out from under the paper piles, sticky notes and disheartening file cabinet.

Twenty different websites later, and I still haven't' found any useful advice. Oh there are websites that will all give you the same general ideas, written different ways but it's never helpful (sort of like Cosmo articles about sex).  Most of them say something like, If you aren't going to use it right away, toss it or file it. Well sure, but then I end up with bloated file cabinets and no room for things like receipts and bills and the instruction manual for my toaster oven. Does no one think of the toaster oven?

Throwing scraps of thoughts or ideas away is out of the question. Those are little bits of my genius just waiting for the right moment to be useful! The scrap I'm holding right now says, peanut butter diva sings the blues. I have no idea where that came from or what I might do with it but it's intriguing don't you think?  I don't want to throw it away yet, in case I eat a PB & J with some Ruffles and inspiration strikes me.

I've tried the filing thing and organized baskets and file sorters too. I even tried using a cork board for a while. It was great. But  then my notes began to devour it. All you could see were tiny peeks of the wood frame trying to escape. It was so full of paper that the angry cork began spitting the pushpins out and onto the floor (and into our delicate foot meat). My clutter hating husband took it down because the chaos was giving him palpitations.

So in my mad Googling, I had hoped to find someone who could tell me in detail, not just in vague generalities, how to organize my writing on the computer and on paper. So far I've found almost nothing. Most of the advice isn't practical or truly useful. It's like the paper inside of fortune cookies. You know when you break open that stale cookie and the paper says, You are a very nice person and you are like, well sure I am but that's not a fortune, it's a statement. The advice for disorganized writers isn't really advice. It's a list of commonly known strategies for being organized with no further instructions as to how to implement them. If I knew how to file papers in an organized manner, I wouldn't be looking it up online you douche-canoes! I'm completely useless at this and I need you to walk me through it as though I don't speak English.

The Organized Writer in it's natural habitat.

So I have come to believe that there is no such human as an Organized Writer. This creature appears to be as fictitious as a unicorn.

Oh I know you'll say, Nu-uh Mencara Christina, cuz my friend's sister's cousin is a writer and is totes organized! Well after I sock you for saying "totes" un-ironically, I will tell you, Your friend's sister's cousin was ALWAYS organized.

Here is the key. I think the reason that the organizational advice is vague is because organized people don't know how to explain what they do to unorganized schlub writers like myself. It's instinctual and intuitive. Either you are a person who always kept things tidy or, like me, you will always be struggling to stay ahead of your papers. You can't explain something that is simply inherent to your personality. I imagine to an organized person, it seems so basic, Just throw it away or file it neatly. But that sentence is so foreign to me, it might as well be written in Klingon. How the hell do I let go of the need to keep every stupid thing and how do I organize my files so they'll be neat? The advice seems to reply, You just do it. I throw my arms in the air and shout, How? Where do I buy the unicorn magic necessary to figure this out?

So perhaps my unicorn simile was inaccurate but I'm a writer and I like it so I didn't edit it out. It's not that there are no organized writers out there, it's that there aren't any previously sloppy writers who became organized. The myth is that with some vague generalities, you will shift from a person drowning in papers to a happy, organized person. And I call shenanigans on that.

Now that I think about it, I read a great book once about home organization. I can't recall the name of it and that's a shame, but I do remember one piece of advice. The writer said there was no point in buying bunches of boxes or baskets or pieces of furniture in order to force yourself to be organized. It just doesn't work. The writer suggested instead that you work around yourself. If you always leave your papers in this area, make that the paper area. It's that simple. If you always leave your shoes by the front door, arrange the area to accommodate what you are likely to do. Because it's unlikely you'll actually shift from what you're doing to match some arbitrary system.

So I guess I had the unicorn magic in me all along. My shit is in Mencara Christina order and I just didn't know it.

Also I've been staring at the scrap of paper that said, peanut butter diva sings the blues, and now I'm more interested in eating a PB &J than in organizing my office. Mmm, PB & J with Ruffles on the sandwich. Salty. Sweet. Perfect.


So screw organization, how do you like your peanut butter and jelly sandwich prepared? Leave me a comment and let me know.