Wednesday, July 9, 2008

In Hiding

My name isn't Mysti Holiday, and I write erotic romance.

Yes, it's true -- my legal name is NOT Mysti Holiday. The picture on my profile is not my leg. I'm a closet erotica author.

My mother doesn't know. My kidlet doesn't know. My family, my in-laws, my neighbors... they don't know either. Most of my friends (except for Kealie and Jenny Kat, of course)... they're in the dark, too.

I can't imagine coming out of the closet any time soon. I'll be the one at the book signing wearing a Zorro mask, or maybe even a Chewbacca costume.

Of course, my DH knows... he'd wonder about my questions ("...does the human body bend this way?") and my, um, behavior if he didn't. He happily supports me, but I imagine he'd be horrified if any of his friends knew. He'd be like Roger in "Lethal Weapon IV" when he had to tell Riggs that all that money... you remember, the money that came from his wife's bodice rippers...

I does make me wonder, though. How many erotica authors write under their legal name? How many proudly announce their occupation to their family, friends, neighbors and people they meet on the street? And, even more importantly, how many of those family, friends and neighbor's aren't shocked? Are even, perhaps... supportive?

How does one come out of the erotica closet?

3 comments:

Kealie Shay said...

I don't write under my real name, which you already know. Mainly because I don't know how my in-laws would take it. They're not mean in any way, but they ARE devout. So, I don't know that I'll be keeping it from a lot of people, as My mom seems to be pretty proud of it, my sister is downright giddy and my DH offers himself up selflessly... and even a bit selfishly... for research purposes.

I dunno... I feel for you though. I won't tell anyone at church unless I know that they wouldn't thik that I was blasphemous. Ah well... we do what we have to do to do what we love.

Lara Dien said...

I finally got around to reading last week's TT and body parts...

Hi, my name is Lara, and I write erotic romance. Sounds kinda like a support group meeting, hmm? ERWA ...

I don't write under my birth name, although I did steal my sister's middle name for part of it...partly it's because there are people in my life who'd be horrified if they knew I wrote "that" (people I know professionally) -- also because my name pops up in conjunction with my day job frequently (I'm in PR/marketing) and it's not fair to my employers...but also because, frankly, my real name, while not Gertrude Teitelbaum or something equally grandmotherly, isn't really the stuff great authors put on the covers of their books LOL

My mom, btw, bugged me for WEEKS before I had the release date for my first short, tried to buy it the day before it was released, downloaded it five minutes after I told her it was (finally) available, and promptly emailed her enthusiastic recommendation to the 8,000 or so people she's on various loops with. The LOML is probably my biggest fan--he was so enthusiastic (including in a "you're a really good writer, are you going to get published" way) that, well, I decided it was worth taking a crack at. My best friend keeps giving me story set ups and demands I let her read my rough drafts. Even people at work thinks it's cook, even if they'd never read it. So I've got a lot of support, which is nice.

Lara

Lara Dien said...

Sorry, apparently I can no longer spell (don't tell my editor) -- they, of course, think it's cool....