What's in a name?

First off, all pre-ordered signed books have been signed, packaged, and will be shipped tomorrow. Any books ordered after today will have a 3-5 business day turnaround (longer in the case of a convention weekend, like Origins this weekend). And now onto the point of this post - or rather, the purpose of my ramblings: As I was sitting here, munching on a brick of fudge (don't judge me), and revising the outline for The Hunter (then I went on to write the first 10 pages, wooo!), I received a text from a friend. "Spendlove??? Really??? How did you come up with THAT for your pen name?" "LOL, well, believe it or not, it's the name I signed for 21 years of my life." "Whaaaaaaaat?! Too funny!" So there you have it - my pen name is not a silly made up name (it's silly, but not made up), or just a fanciful name I came up with for the purposes of publishing. It is, in fact, my maiden name. It just so happens that I have a memorable, fun, whimsical maiden name - sometimes you just get lucky and life helps you out. :) Which brings up the question, what exactly is my current last name? Well, does it matter? Not really, no. I mean, it's not a big secret or anything, but part of the reason I decided to publish under a pen name is that I wanted to keep my two professional lives (writer me & U.S. Marine me) separate - well, as separate as possible in this day and age, because let's face it, THE INTERNET KNOWS EVERYTHING! Again, it's no secret that I'm in the Marine Corps, or what my legal last name is - and at conventions, and meeting people, I'm more than happy to talk about these things, but for my author "identity" (especially online) I wanted to create a specific image, because let's face it, that's a lot of what a pen name is for (much like a stage name for a musician): A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen [...]

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