I’ll be gone for awhile, on the road this week in Massachusetts and NH.  Next weekend, I’ll be appearing at the Maine Literary Festival  (www.maineliteraryfestival.com)  and then I’ll be traveling to Germany and Switzerland, where I’ll be apearing in Zurich, Munich, Berlin, Hannover and Hamburg on book tour.  I trust everyone will behave themselves while I’m gone.

THE BONE GARDEN has managed to stay on the New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists for a fourth straight week, which led me to celebrate with a few glasses of sparkling Cava and a marathon session of making Chinese potstickers.  While rolling out the dough and stuffing the little dumplings, I got to thinking about how success can simply breed more anxiety — for me, anyway.  No longer is it just about writing a good book, which is all that should really matter.  But now it’s also about how high you get on the list, how long you can stay there, and is your publishing team happy with your book’s performance?  (And if they aren’t happy, what did I, the author, do wrong?)

The pressure has made me dread Wednesdays.

Wednesday evening is when the New York Times Bestseller list is released.  Around 5 PM, I’ll start to watch the phone, waiting for it to ring.  Hoping for good news, but always bracing myself to be disappointed.  Needless to say, very little writing gets done on Wednesdays since I tend to spend it doing mindless yet comforting tasks.  Ironing is very therapeutic.  I get a long of ironing done on Wednesdays.  (The rest of the year, forget it.  It’s wrinkled clothes for me.)  Then the phone rings and my agent or editor breaks the news with the long-awaited number.  If it’s in the top-15, it’s a hurray.  If not, it’s a long sigh and my cue to move on and start focusing on the next book. 

Because, in about a year from now, we get to do it all over again. 

 

Okay, so it seems I wasn’t the only one who was unfamiliar with his name.  But now I know who he is, and the more I learn about him, the nicer a guy he seems to be.  And the two lessons to be learned are:

1. I really should pay more attention to sports.

2. “Famous people” are only famous to those who’ve heard of their accomplishments.

I’d never heard of Steve Nash, and I’m certain he’s never heard of me.  The sports world is huge compared to the book world.  The vast majority of writers — even bestselling writers — can slip through airports and hotels in complete anonymity.  Maybe Stephen King or JK Rowling couldn’t do it, but the rest of us can comfortably live our lives as complete unknowns, which is actually a good thing.  (Except when you’re in a bookstore and you want people to know your name, darn it!)

But poor Steve Nash probably can’t walk through an airport or go out to a restaurant without someone wanting his autograph, or some photographer trying to catch him with spinach in his teeth. 

Now I too know who he is, so he’s really got to behave himself.

 And … oops, almost forgot to post this!  A photo of reader Linda McCabe with my book in Hotel Dieu, in one of my favorite cities, Paris!

I’m going to tell you a secret.  Well, it’s not really a secret because I’ve never tried to hide it, but one of my dear readers recently emailed me, expressing some hurt that I haven’t been completely honest with him about my real name.  And it got me thinking about how, yes, some readers (especially the wonderful ones who regularly post comments here) might feel miffed that I’ve not been completely open about who I am.  So now it’s time to tell you.

My real name isn’t Tess, but Terry.

I never really meant “Tess” as a secret identity.  I took on the name way back when my first romance novel, CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT, was about to be published.  Since “Terry” was considered a masculine spelling, my editor was concerned that readers might think the author was a man — and romance readers want books written by women.  My name caused some confusion in the hospitals too, because when I showed up on the wards, the nurses confessed they were expecting a “blonde Scandinavian guy” — Terry Gerritsen not sounding in the least bit Chinese or female.  So to make sure my readers knew I was female, I feminized my name to “Tess,” and went on to write nine romances under that name.

When I moved into thriller-writing, I wanted to bring my romance fans along for the ride.  Which meant keeping the name I’d established for myself.  So “Tess” has remained my nom de plume ever since.  It also turned out to be a handy way of knowing whether a communication was personal or professional.  If a phone call or letter came addressed to “Tess”, I’d know it was about business.  If it came addressed to “Terry,” it was personal.

I’ve had this double identity for twenty years now, and I’ve forgotten who knows me by which name.  So whenever I get emails, I never know how to sign off.  Tess or Terry?  To avoid confusion, my default is to sign it as Tess.  And now my acquaintances and neighbors are completely flummoxed about how to address me.  The truth is, I’ll answer to either name.  So if you know me as Terry, and I answer as Tess, believe me, I’m not trying to hide a thing.  I’m just confused.

(I’d make a lousy spy.)

This whole Tess/Terry thing got me thinking about writers’ pseudonyms in general, and why writers would want to adopt a fake name.  And I can think of plenty of reasons for a nom de plume.  It’s always a surprise to me when I’ve known a writer for years, and then suddenly discover she’s got another identity.  Often, we’ll just come right out and tell each other.  Other times, I learn it through a mutual friend or agent.  Either way, I can almost always understand immediately why she’d choose to change her name.  And here are some of the reasons:

Your real name is too long, too hard to spell, or too ethnic.  

Yes, these are valid reasons why a writer might want to change her name.  A long name means you’re forced to have it appear in smaller print on the book cover, when you want it to be as visible as possible. A hard-to-spell name means readers will have a difficult time looking you up on Amazon, or in a bookstore computer.  My own name, for instance, is a killer to spell.  It looks deceptively easy, but there are a lot of different ways to misspell Gerritsen.  (Gerritson.  Garretson.  Geritsen.  Gerriston.  Gerristen, etc.)  I won’t name names, but I know at least half a dozen writers who had to shorten their names or “anglicize” them for the American market.

The odd thing is, in foreign markets, you may also want to anglicize your name.  David Baldacci, for instance, was asked by his Italian publisher to change his name to something less Italian.  My Dutch publisher asked me to change my name to something less Dutch.  It seems that local writers, abroad at least, get no respect from their own countries.

You want to hide your gender

If you’re a man writing romance novels, you’ll probably want a woman’s name.  (And yes, there are male romance-writers.)  If you’re a woman trying to appeal across gender lines, you may want to adopt first initials only.  JK Rowling and PD James are prime examples.  Right now, I’m toying with the idea of writing a young adult series featuring the Mephisto Club, and I’m wondering if it should be written under the name “T.T. Gerritsen,” so that boys will pick it up. 

You hate your real name

One writer I know in the UK hates her real name so much that she didn’t want it on any book cover.  In fact, when I let slip the fact I knew her real name, she was quite annoyed — much to my surprise, as I think her real name is gorgeous.  

You want to protect your professional life

Let’s face it, novel writing is not always considered a “respectable” profession, and some writers who also maintain jobs in academic circles feel the need to write under fake names.  A doctor may want to keep his patients from knowing he’s writing gory medical thrillers.  A journalist may want to avoid ridicule for those racy romance novels she writes.  An award-winning writer friend of mine keeps her writing career secret because she doesn’t want her academic colleagues to know she’s exaggerating the goings-on of their profession a bit, for the sake of a good plot. 

You write in more than one genre 

A writer who writes both science fiction as well as traditional mysteries may well adopt different pen names for each genre.  Nora Roberts, for instance, took on the name J.D. Robb for her “In death” futuristic novels.  Readers don’t always cross genres, and you don’t want to confuse or disappoint them by writing such different books under the same name.

You want to hide a prior poor sales record

This may be the one of the most commor reasons for an author to suddenly switch names.  If your books have a bad track record, the bookstore chains know it.  In their computers, your name is forever linked to poor sales, and no matter how great your next book is, the stores are not going to order it in large quantities based on your earlier sales.  Sometimes, the only way to escape the curse of a bad-selling book is to change your name and start off fresh (on bookstore computers, anyway.)  If you later become incredibly successful with your new name, your old books may be re-released with your new author name on them.

Those are just a few reasons I can think of.  I’m sure there are others. 

Now, a few links of interest:

A recent interview by Wordsmith’s Books, plus my blogpost on their website.

And today’s review in the Maine Sunday Telegram of THE BONE GARDEN, in which critic John Robinson focuses on the true and bloody medical history behind the book.