When I sat down at the keyboard and started writing paranormal romance and mystery stories, my name was Kay Lawson, but something wasn’t working. Words weren’t coming, sentences weren’t sentencing, and paragraphs weren’t even paragraphing. At first, I hoped these problems were the result of a little rust on the old writing muscles—just a bit of literary atrophy. After a month or two of tapping out total and unadulterated tripe, I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered if––and it was a big ‘if’—if maybe I had no talent.
Now, I’ve always had an alter ego. She was my imaginary friend when I was a kid and the reason my parents considered sending me in for therapy. But I hadn’t heard from her in years. The more I looked at myself in the mirror and pondered my persistent lack of genius, the more I realized that she was peaking back at me—and she was pissed.
Her name is Sorchia DuBois. She’s always been there, lurking around the edges, causing trouble when she could, trying to wake me up with crazy dreams and sudden cravings. I don’t know why I didn’t notice for so long. It seems she’s been really, really bored.
So who is Sorchia DuBois? She’s my counterpart, my doppelganger, my muse, and possibly my higher self. She’s the same age as I am which is mmumbelty-seven. She’s much more adventurous—a bit thinner—and she ain’t a’skeert of nuthin. She dances and she laughs. She says what she thinks and if it turns out she’s wrong––Oh, well, nobody’s perfect. She is a little bit psychic but she keeps it to herself. I drink alone, but Sorchia loves to have a drink with friends. She prefers a good Islay Scotch, proving you can’t get away from breeding. I’m ¾ Scottish no matter what name I use.
Before we went into business together, I googled both of us because you can’t be too careful. I found about six-cajillion other Kay Lawsons of varying ages, genders, nationalities, sexual preferences, and temperaments. Sorchia DuBois, on the other hand, is the only one of her kind—at least as far as Google is concerned.
So Sorchia and I started writing. We don’t always agree but what we turn out is a wee bit magical. She flips my ear when I get too wordy and I tame down her sex scenes to something shy of triple-x. Together we are wise and witty and more than a little weird. She knows how to cuss in every language on Earth as well as tlhIngan Hol. For non-Star Trekaholics, tlhIngan Hol is the official Klingon language (yes, I know they called in Klingonese in the “Trouble With Tribbles” episode, but with the motion picture versions came the official and more complex language actually first envisioned by James Doohan . . . but I digress).
To end, I have a question for you. What do you think of pen names? Are they distracting, affected, silly? If you write, do you use a pen name? If so, why did you choose to do that? If not, why not?
Learn more about Sorchia at SorchiaDuBois.com.
