So I read a blog the other day, and it hasn't left me yet. In fact, it just keeps irritating me more. An author was talking about other authors choosing cutsie pen names. Saying that she doesn't take their work seriously, because someone who picks a less than respectable moniker - by her standards - isn't someone who could produce good work. And even if they did produce good work, she wouldn't read it because of their pen name.
It irritates the heck out of me. Honest to goodness. It smacks of superiority and completely unnecessary us vs themness.
Who the heck is this woman to say that someone else's name is 'less than'? Who is she to call out someone else's creative choices? She has no idea how or why people came up with these names. From her post, I would believe that she doesn't even pick up the books to look at the copyright and determine if it's the author's given name or not.
Have you HEARD of some of the given names out there? Seriously. A little boy born in 2005 named "Adolf Hitler," a little girl in New Zealand named "Talula Does The Hula In Hawaii." I mean seriously people. And someone has the nerve to call out an author for going with an eye-catching name in such a tough business?
These are authors who have gone through the same trials as she did. They sat down in front of their computers and sweated out a story, they spent weeks creating a query letter, they faced rejection after rejection, they found an agent and then got to face more rejections from a publishing houses, they went through the laborious editing process at each stage of that... and this woman is pointing and laughing at their names? They deserve her respect. Who does she think she is?
I'm just kind of disgusted. It is really the epitome of judging by superficial standards. I can't help but imagine all sorts of character flaws about the woman who posted this. Flaws I won't post here because I'm sure she's not really as awful as I imagine her to be.
Ugh. I really can't find the words to express how bad a taste she left in my mouth. I've been spitting for days.
Currently reading: Love At First Bite (the first two stories only)
Just finished: Unleashed
Just finished: Lean Mean Thirteen
Just finished: The Switch
Just finished: Lover Eternal
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