In the interest of full disclosure, I'm letting the world know that my next novel will be written under a pseudonym -- either J. K. Bowlings or Erasmus Breach, I haven't picked the name yet, but it's best to speak the truth now because in this news-in-a-nanosecond/Wiki leaks age, someone will find out.  Surely, we all know this.    

It's possible that Nordstrom's would find out first -- prior to this AM, I'd not thought of Nordstrom's as a key info source, but according to the NY Times front page article, Attention, Shoppers: Store is Tracking Your Cell, it appears that Nordstrom's cares so much about who walks into their stores that they were gathering cell phone data on everyone.  

I discussed this pseudonym issue with my daughter who said, "Mom, it would kill you for people not to know you wrote a book." She's right, I suppose, but there's something quite lovely about cloaking one's literary self in a cape and writing, writing as if it were your first ever book.  But growing up Lutheran as I did, I think the guilt would kill me, and the advance would not be as big, and as Abraham LIncoln said, "No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."  And if I was in the presence of someone who had read the pseudonymous novel and was unfairly critiquing it -- I would have to Say Something. Silence would not be an option.   

It's too bad that you just can't slap a pen name on a novel without having to build up the ruse. I thought of spelling my name backwards as a fun party joke, and Naoj Reuab does sound like a fascinating character, but here I am.  Joan.  Writing away.  I feel so much better coming clean. 

**Here's the link to the Times piece.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/bus...