Good morning fellow kids!
The big theme this week is about names. Your name, the book’s name, your characters names, we will cover it all.
But how can we make naming things into a writing prompt? Well, you leave that to me.
My job is to connect the prompts and lessons, your job is to write them out and learn the lesson.
So let’s just start with the most obvious, the author.
Should you use a pen name? Drop to initials? Use the name of your best friend’s dog from second grade? Maybe you can find an online quiz that leads you to using the street you grew up on and the color of your favorite shirt?
Let’s get out our pen and paper and follow along with today’s writing prompt.
March 29
Write your real, full name at the top of the page. Then write your name again 25 different times, 25 different ways.
Finding the right name for your author byline is important. Some people use their real name and never look back. This is fine and if you are comfortable with it, great!
Others have a long and varied list of why they want to use a pen name. Maybe your real name is 189 characters long and hard to pronounce. Perhaps you want something other than the 3rd most common name in the world. Others share a name with an already famous author and want to stand out and be different.
Still others choose to use a pen name when writing in another genre, and this is one of the most common reasons. If you are a seasoned author of children’s books, you may not want your author name associated with the Friday night erotica that you write and publish, also.
Whatever the reason, coming up with a pen name can be fun, it can be exciting and it can also be the most difficult thing you do as a writer.
Today’s writing prompt helps you free your mind up and let your creativity flourish. Coming up with 3 or 4 names is easy and you may not find the right one. Coming up with 25 names for yourself is more of a challenge.
By the time you have struggled to get to 25, you may have found the perfect pen name. If not, keep going! Your ideal author is in there somewhere.
When you have finished, post your list in the comment section below, along with your choice. Let’s see if everyone else agrees.
Already have a pen name? Tell us how you came up with it and why you decided to have one!
