Lucy Jayne Wright

One of my mentors once told me “Only cowards use pen names.” So, where does that leave me?

It took me a long time to decide to use a pen name. I wanted to use my real name–or I tried to want to–but every time I pictured a book with my name on it, face out on the shelves of Vroman’s or Barnes and Noble (vain, I know), I kept thinking about who would see it. Would someone from highschool walk past and think “Oh hey, it’s that girl who used to talk to herself. Man, she wasn’t right. This should be a laugh.” What about girls I dated back in my shitbag years? “That’s the bitch who broke up with me over the phone! I’ve gotta tell Twitter about this.”

Again, vain, I know. Thinking about it logically, I’d be shocked if they even remembered me, but those fears aren’t really about them. They’re about me, and how I see myself, and all the clinical ways I’m anxious and paranoid and depressed. Those fears kept me up at night. They had me huddled in a ball on the couch, hyperventilating.

All this to say, yes, it does sound cowardly.

But I think if I were truly a coward, I’d give in to the fears. I’d let myself fade into the background of the world. My neighbors would see me walk the dog sometimes, my day-job coworkers would wonder why I don’t talk much; that’s all. Instead, being Lucy Jayne Wright gives me enough space to sit at the kitchen table before everyone else’s alarms go off and write.