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Coming This Fall. The story of Transformation Project continues in Book #6.

Lela Markham Books

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Do you write under a pseudonym? If so, why? If not, would you ever consider it?

When Michael and my Sir Chocolate books were first accepted for publication by TSL Publications, I considered using my maiden name instead of my married name. I had published a number of non-fiction books and articles as Robbie Cheadle and thought it might be better to separate my work writing and my private writing by publishing as Roberta Eaton.

When I broached this idea with my husband, he wasn’t keen on my publishing under my maiden name. He preferred that I use Robbie Cheadle and so I did. I then proceeded to publish Silly Willy goes to Cape Town, While the Bombs Fell, co-authored with my mother, Elsie Patricia Eaton, and my poetry book, Open a new door, co-authored with South African poet, Kim Blades under that name.

When I started…

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Magical World Web

June 29, 2020

Do you write under a pseudonym? If so, why? If not, would you ever consider it?

I don’t write under a pseudonym, but I don’t write under my legal name, either. I use my initials as a nickname, and write under that. Some may consider that a pseudonym, but I don’t. I’m not hiding who I am. I just decided that of all the times in my life people have called me something, or refused to call me something, that for once I was going to take control of who I was. So I chose Aem, which is a nick of Amy anyway, and owned it.

At this point, I wouldn’t ever consider using a pseudonym. But you know how that goes. I’ve said many things in life before I fully understood what I was talking about, and had to eat my words later, even if it…

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Source: It’s All in the Name

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Article

Keeping Real Life Separate

Do you write under a pseudonym? If so, why? If not, would you ever consider it?

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Don’t ask me what my real name is because I’m not telling. Even if you guess, I won’t verify.

When I decided to publish my first novel, my husband asked me what that might mean for our lives…was it possible I might become famous? Well, there was a remote possibility. There still is as the books become more popular with every new one I publish.

Brad’s related to someone else who is famous, the National Air Traffic Operations Manager who ordered all the planes on the ground on 911. Ben tells us the byproduct of being famous is people wander up your driveway while you’re having a family barbecue either wanting your autograph or accusing you of being part of a worldwide conspiracy to start wars in foreign lands. He doesn’t recommend becoming famous.

But I wanted to share my books with the world. As time went along, I realized that a pen name means I can write on subjects that my employer might not want to be associated with. In today’s hyperpartisan climate, I can be honest about what I think and not worry that my house might become the subject of a riot. It’s not that I am ashamed of anything I write or say, but I don’t want to be poor Ben, trying to explain that I am not who my uninvited visitors believe me to be and they need to get off my lawn now. Some slight cloaking of my identity means that at least if someone does make it that far, they will probably be at least somewhat reasonably intelligent since they would have to do actual research to find out my real name.

Thus, a pen name

It’s a time-honored tradition among writers to use a pseudonym. There was a time when being a writer was scandalous if you were in certain social classes and many women wrote under men’s names back in the days before we were liberated from notions of what women couldn’t write about. These days, I suspect writers use nom de plumes to hide in plain sight, so they don’t have to worry about fans showing up at their teaching job. There’s also a marketing aspect to it. There are authors who use several, changing their names depending on the genre they write in.

My real name is hard to spell and though it’s actually easy to pronounce, the spelling doesn’t hint at that. So going with a pen name cleared up that problem. I chose something that is easy to pronounce “Lela Markham” (Lay-luh Mark-um). The first name comes from a foreign-born student at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks who could not for the life of her say my real name correctly. What came out was something like Lela, which became a joke with a few of my friends. So when I contemplated my pen name, something based on my name but not really seemed like a good choice.

My grandmother’s cousin was Edwin Markham, the poet whose poem is inscribed around the base of Lincoln’s statue at the Lincoln Memorial. It seemed a good way to honor the literary tradition in my grandmother’s family.

Of course, I’m not anonymous

You could probably figure how who I am by what I’ve told people of my home town and even just the facts I’ve divulged in this article, but giving myself that layer of protection hopefully will mean fans reach out to me by email, not tour buses driving by my house. And the cranks, well, at least they will likely be somewhat intelligent.

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I hate feelin’ like this
I’m so tired of tryin’ to fight this
I’m asleep and all I dream of is waking to youTell me that you will listen
Your touch is what I’m missin’
And the more I hide I realize I’m slowly losin’ youComatose
I’ll never wake up without an overdose of youI don’t wanna live
I don’t wanna breathe
‘less I feel you next to me
You take the pain I feel
(Wakin’ up to you never felt so real)
I don’t wanna sleep
I don’t wanna dream
Cause my dreams don’t comfort me
The way you make me feel
(Wakin’ up to you never felt so real)I hate livin’ without you
Dead wrong to ever doubt you
But my demons lay in waitin’
Tempting me away
Oh how I adore you
Oh how I thirst for you
Oh how I need youComatose
I’ll never wake up without an overdose of youI don’t wanna live
I don’t wanna breathe
‘less I feel you next to meYou take the pain I feel
(Wakin’ up to you never felt so real)
I don’t wanna sleep
I don’t wanna dream
Cause my dreams don’t comfort me
The way you make me feel
(Wakin’ up to you never felt so real)Breathing life
Waking up
My eyes
Open upComatose
I’ll never wake without an overdose of youI don’t wanna live
I don’t wanna breathe
‘less I feel you next to me
You take the pain I feel
(Wakin’ up to you never felt so real)
I don’t wanna sleep
I don’t wanna dream
Cause my dreams don’t comfort me
The way you make me feel
(Wakin’ up to you never felt so real)Oh how I adore you
Wakin’ up to you never felt so real
Oh how I thirst for you
Wakin’ up to you never felt so real
Oh how I adore youOh
The way you make me feel
Wakin’ up to you never felt so realSource: LyricFindSongwriters: John Cooper / Brian HowesComatose lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

Visits from Friends

June 22, 2020

What are your favorite kind of characters to create? To read?

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I don’t really create characters. They come to me and want to tell me their stories. I don’t sit back and say “I’m going to create a character who is a depressed mercenary struggling with PTSD whose loving family want to rescue him, but he’s trapped in an endless loop of despair.” That’s Shane from Transformation Project – a “good guy” character with some dark places in his deep most parts.

Neither did I sit back and say “I’m going to create a character who is a rich teenager with a drinking problem who can’t seem to make good choices even when he wants to.” That’s Peter from Red Kryptonite Curve – a sympathetic flawed character who is still young enough to have hope, but you can predict will have a difficult time as he goes forward.

I tried to create the character of Gregyn from Daermad Cycle as a minion of Talidd, who was meant to be an evil mage. Gregyn wasn’t originally going to be the flawed character he is now. He was only supposed to exist for a couple of scenes, giving Talidd a report on Galornyn. Then he took on a life of his own and became a nuanced “bad guy” character who is still rewriting his own story.

Most of my characters come to me and want to tell their story and I comply. Such flawed characters are fun to write because they won’t always do what’s expected. Such flawed characters can be exhausting to write because they’re often depressed. Shane hallucinates his nemesis, for heaven’s sake. And yet I enjoy these characters more than good-guy characters who are all light and joy. It’s because they’re unpredictable, even to me their ersatz creator. Typically my flawed characters are not irredeemable. I don’t like writing the dark heart of evil, though those characters do exist in my books. I don’t want to spend a lot of time in the heads of my bad guys. I’d rather work with these complicated, contradictory characters who occupy a good-guy/bad-guy middle ground. They’re not anti-heroes, but they’re not pure either.

I also like reading about such characters. When I was in 5th grade, I picked up Madeleine L’Engle’s The Young Unicorns. I mark that as my first “adult” book. It was a YA, but it was a good leap from what I had been reading before (the next year, I would read Summer of 42 with my mother, so I grew up fast). The character of Dave in TYU was such a flawed, but redeemable character. Eventually, he would need to make a choice about who he would be and he did.

Now I wonder what my fellow bloghoppers are saying on this subject.