Name as Mask

By Sharazade (Guest Blogger)

Last September (2011) I attended the Erotic Authors Association conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. To save money, I arranged to share a hotel room with another participant, whom I knew only as Nan Andrews (a pen name). Since she was arriving first, she put the room on her credit card; I was to pay her when I arrived; and she left a room key for me at reception in an envelope with my name on it.

So, upon arrival, I presented myself to the woman at reception and asked if she had an envelope for Sharazade. She did.

“Can I just see some photo ID?”

Ah. Well…

“I don’t have any photo ID.”

“Why not?”

“Because that isn’t my legal name.”

We stared at each other for a few moments, neither one of us quite sure what to do next. Then I had an inspiration.

“How about a business card? I have a business card with my name on it!” And I presented her with one.

I got my room key; but I’m not sure that would have worked anywhere other than Las Vegas.

***

That’s the mask I wear as an erotica writer: my pen name. I often hear people refer having a pen name and a real name. However, that distinction doesn’t feel correct to me. Sharazade is not my legal name; it’s not my passport name. But it’s certainly my real name.

Not everyone would agree. Recently I was approached (online) by an indie fiction writer who wanted some editing. We chatted a bit about rates, and then he asked if he could have my real name. “Sharazade,” I said, “will do, or just Shar.” No—he wanted my “real” name. Even if it was just a first name. Without that, he said, he would not do business with me.

Now, obviously I could have picked anything—I could have said I was Edith or Nancy or Esmeralda or Sarah, and he’d never have known any better. But I was a little put out at being told my name wasn’t real. I mean, I write with this name. I publish with it, and I am published under it. I edit and consult. I blog as Shar. I interact on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. I do public readings, and I attend conferences, and I give workshops. I’ve done a radio interview on NPR as Sharazade. How is the name not “real”? I declined the work opportunity, and wished him all the best in finding a suitable editor.

I’ve seen erotica authors on forums and lists imply—or outright state—that those who use pen names are hiding. I suppose you could see it that way. To me, it feels more like I’m shining the light on a different facet. It might sound more romantic to say that when I slip on the mask of Sharazade, finally my forbidden sensuous thoughts flow freely from my now-unfettered mind. But that’s not quite the case. It is more like, well, like holding a piece of paper in front of a light. Some of what’s below is now in shadow; some in light. But what’s in shadow is still there. It’s simply not the focus at the moment. In the same way, a physical mask might say, “Don’t look at my face right now—look at my body, or listen to my voice, or watch me move.” Not a lie; a different emphasis.

In many ways, my name division is a work division. Non-Sharazade works in non-fiction; Sharazade works in fiction. Non-Sharazade works in some pretty conservative sectors and countries; Sharazade is surrounded by open-minded and, for the most part, liberal readers and authors. Neither aspect of me is false. Neither one is a part I dislike. None of my roles are resented. They’re just different. A woman might be “Sweetheart” to her husband, “Mom” to her kids, “Melissa” to her friends, “Ms. Smith” to a client on the phone, and “Keith’s mom” to her son’s friends. None of those names are fake. They just show different aspects. Sharazade can assume that the people she’s talking to have an active interest in sex and in fiction. It’s a good bet they’re interested in bookstores and publishing. Many share my love of grammar and words. I don’t have to ask what their opinion of PayPal’s recent moves was. It’s a comfortable community, and I feel at home in it. I feel at home as Sharazade, just as in other circles, I feel at home being called something else.

What would happen, I’ve been asked, if I were outed? Well, not too terribly much. If it got spread all over the Internet, I could lose some job opportunities. I suppose in some of the more conservative countries I travel to, it could cause visa problems—assuming it got that widespread. It could cause some embarrassment to a few family members whom I’d rather not embarrass, though nobody would really freak out much. I have far fewer potential penalties than a lot of erotica writers.

Even if there were no penalties at all, though, I’d keep this mask. I like writing as Sharazade, she who was so sure of her story-telling abilities that she bet her life on them. And won.

(The reason I chose this pen name can be found here.)

Bio: A professional writer, editor, and consultant who divides her time among Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the U.S., Shar enjoys stories that are realistic enough that they might have happened and fanciful enough that they might not have. She values communication, adventure, exploration, passion, and love. Her first collection of stories, Transported: Erotic Travel Tales, is published by Fanny Press. Her stories also appear in anthologies with Cleis Press and Sizzler. Recently Shar started publishing her own works and those of others under the 1001 Nights Press imprint. Find her on the web at:

http://sharazade.fannypress.com (blog) and http://1001nightspress.com (publishing company).

Breath and Time

By Sharazade (Guest Blogger)

There are some branches of yoga philosophy that hold that each person is born with a certain number of breaths. When you have breathed the last pre-determined breath, you die. Therefore, lengthening your breaths, and slowing your rate of breathing, will also lengthen your life.

I’m not sure if I believe that on a literal level—and if I did, it would be a somewhat panic-inducing thought. Every time I jogged a mile and quickened my breathing, I’d be thinking, “Darn it! There goes a month at the end!”

But metaphorically, at least at some level, it does work for me. Some things in our lives are limited, and some certainly seem limited. For writers, two of the biggest are ideas and time.

It’s a question non-writers put to writers: “Where do you get your ideas?” We all know of writers who seemed to have only one book in them—Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights), Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind), Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird). Some authors write many books, but seemingly only one story (no, I’m not naming names!). Some authors who seem downright prolific still worry sometimes that they might have dried up or become repetitive.

When you write in one genre, such as erotica, there’s an increased risk. How many different ways are there to have sex? Fortunately, quite a few—but arguably not an infinite number (or at least, not an infinite number of credible ways).

Fortunately, though, sex—good sex—isn’t about acts, it’s about people. And if there aren’t an infinite number of people, there are at least a good many more than I’ve ever met. Even one person is so much more than one, because you’re constantly changing in reaction to circumstances and experiences. People who have been having more or less the same type of sex with the same person for many, many years (and I am one of these) will say it’s a “you can’t step in the same river twice” sort of thing. I don’t think you could have the same sex twice even if you tried.

Nor is language to describe a variety of people doing a variety of things for a variety of reasons limited. I’m not even opposed to using clichés in erotic writing, as I’ve written before, but those who are needn’t worry that English (or any other language) has been all used up. The classic “poor scholar’s test for plagiarism” is to put seven words of the suspected sentence between quotation marks and plop it into google. That’s also a nice testament to your own originality. It’s encouraging to put your own phrases into google and watch them not come up. Just as painters can still paint unique pictures of flowers, and songwriters new odes to love, so can we still put words together in fresh ways.

So that’s the good news. But there’s another way to see the breath metaphor—as time. We don’t know how many hours have been allotted to us, but we do know there’s a limit. There’s a lifetime limit, and shorter, more pressing limits: only so many weeks before a deadline, only so many days before the weekend, only so many hours before bedtime.

Few writers make a living solely off writing. Instead, writing competes with other, often more lucrative pursuits. My “other job” is editing; and if I have an assured $60 - $75 an hour to edit this, versus a potential $50 if I sell a fiction story… and the mortgage is due in X weeks… Most writers, though, are working a 40+ hour a week job, plus commuting time, and have friends, families, sports, hobbies, and other commitments, and around these they must fit their writing. It can seem circular, sometimes—in order to justify more time writing, the writing should pay; but the writing won’t pay until you can spend more time on it.

Even writing interferes with writing. There is the story crafting itself, but then the editing and revising, then the letters to agents and publishers and anthology editors. Once a story or book is sold comes the blogging and social networking and asking for reviews. Sometimes the “writing to support the writing” takes as much time as the writing.

Whenever I come across that yogic saying on each person having only a certain number of breaths for his/her lifetime, I’m reminded of an old episode of the television comedy “Get Smart.” It doesn’t matter how, trust me, but somehow Max and the Chief get locked inside an airtight room-sized bank vault. Somehow they know the room contains only enough oxygen for them to stay alive for an hour. Once this is established, Max begins vigorously exercising: jumping jacks and push-ups and the like. “Max! What are you doing?!” asks the scandalized Chief. “Hey. You use your air how you want to, and I’ll use mine how I want to,” Max replies.

Now, it would be selfish of us to use up other authors’ air, I mean, time (by pestering them with email or phone calls when they’re working, for example), but yes, we do get to choose how to spend our own hours. We can spend them writing, or revising, or thinking, or relaxing, or experiencing things to later write about, or eating & exercising & sleeping to stay healthy as we write. Everyone will choose a different way to spend those hours. The only mistake, I think, would be to lose sight of the fact that our time—our breath—is limited, and that our choice of how to spend it should be deliberate.

Bio: Sharazade is professional writer, editor, and consultant, with more than 15 books published under another name. She divides her time among Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the U.S. Not surprisingly, her stories tend to feature some aspect of travel--modes of transportation or exotic locales. She enjoys stories that are realistic enough that they might have happened and fanciful enough that they might not have. She values communication, adventure, exploration, passion, and love. Her first collection of erotica, Transported: Erotic Travel Tales, was published by Fanny Press. It is available from Amazon.com Smashwords and Barnes and Noble.

Find Shar at her blog on writing and reading at http://sharazade.fannypress.com.