business of writing

To Pen Name or not to Pen Name

Welcome to my first blog entry. With this blog I’m going to be talking about the business of being a writer, mixed in with sharing in-progress fiction work.

When I first decided to publish fiction, I had a bit of a debate with myself. Should I use a pen name, or stick with my real name? I already write non-fiction using my real name, so part of my concern was around whether or not I should use that same name or come up with a pen name as a way to differentiate my fiction writing from my non-fiction writer. Initially I leaned toward using a pen name for that very reason, but the more I thought about it the more it bothered me.