Writing Identities

I was just reading Nathan Bransford blog at http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2009/05/writing-as-identity.html about writing as an identity. Miss Jones also touched on a different aspect of writer identities on her blog today (Sunday May 10th). I do identify myself as being a writer. I also identify myself as being a wife, mother, daughter, niece, and customer service manager. But do I identify myself as being a swimmer? A bicycler? A scrapper? Not as much even though I like those activity. I really love cats, dogs, horses, and walking. Oh, and Star Trek! Okay, so I do identify myself as a Trekkie. (BTW the Star Trek movie is awesome.) Nathan Bransford is probably right. Writing is a very emotional thing. We put a lot of ourselves into our craft. A lot of the characters are comprised of parts of ourselves. Our thoughts and emotions shine through. It's also time consuming and now that I have a career in writing, I also spend a lot of time thinking about my current as well as my future projects. To touch on what Ms. Jones mentioned in her post, a lot of authors write in more than one genre and thus have more than one pseudonym. That includes me. And yes, I often slip and mention my other name and I don't even try to use a different email. I don't care if my readers or the writing community know who I really am. However, I don't want my day job employer or my church to know that I write erotic romance, especially not the M/M and M/M/F variety. I don't think my boss or my congregation at church will Google my name. If so, it's too late to hide anyway, from internet searches. I also use a pseudonym so that my readers won't be confused what type of book they're picking up when they choose one of my books. Ashley Ladd writes erotic romance. EH writes sweet romance. Additionally, my TWRP Sweetheart editor requested I do not put my erotic writing pseudonym on my sweetheart rose books. I'm a really obsessed writer. Thus I don't merely identify myself as a writer but as a romance writer. Furthermore, I identify myself as an erotic romance writer of M/F, M/M, M/M/F, and the occasional M/F/M. Within that framework, I write just about every subgenre except historical with contemporary being my speciality. Since I am also a Trekkie, I am also a futuristic space romance writer. I've blown up the planet Earth twice so far in my space stories. This theme has figured prominently in three of my stories (one is still in the query process but the other two are available for your reading pleasure - "Last Man on Earth" at TEB and "Eternal Damnation" at New Concepts Publishing). Before I was honored with a publishing contract, I was a writer. I'm sure I'll always be a writer. But since I am also several other things, I think I'm well rounded enough to happily survive and hopefully, not be boring. I want to wish all of the mothers and aunts a very Happy Mother's Day. I've had a wonderful Mother's Day. Although the hubby is off umpiring (as usual on the weekends) my kids treated me to the Star Trek movie and then they made over my garden leading up to our front door. They made breakfast for me and served me in bed. I couldn't ask for more. Well, except to be able to wish my mother a Happy Mother's day. Unfortunately, she passed away twenty years ago so I'm sending my love up to her in Heaven. You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)