Pen names

I am currently tossing up whether or not to use a pen name. On the one hand, it would be good to have a separate writing identity for social networking, publicity and such. On the other hand, I want to see my name on my work. I want my kids to see their surname on my stories, and be able to be proud of that.  The solution I'm considering at the moment is to use  "Mary Jones" on the historical romance stories and any contemporary stories, and to add in my birth name for the SF works - which is my first love and the area I am most strongly working in now.
So I would write SF under the name "Mary Brock Jones". There is also plenty of precedent for such names in the SF community - eg Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Vonda E McIntyre, Ian M. Banks to name a bare few. SF writers seem to revel in having a trilogy of names. So will see how it goes.
To start with, I have entered an SF short film script in a competition under Mary Brock Jones as a Pen name. Here's hoping it is a lucky choice.
As for my year's plan, my RWNZ Clendon entry is finished and nearly printed out ready for posting off.
So I'm still on track - sort of. One tick down, two more big ones to go for the year. So one pat on the back.

Plans and good intentions

This year, I have a plan. That's quite an accomplishment for me, and follows on from my pre-New Year resolution. And so far, I am sort of keeping to it. Fingers crossed, anyway.
Part 1 of plan - finish the Gorge Creek book by end of March. Sort of on track. Half edited, half to go.

Slightly amended by discovering the Page International competition, which included a category for short scripts that seemed to suit the short film I wrote for the Massey screenwriting paper I completed last year. It was a good reason to make me pull it out again, review the lecturer's comments, add the scenes I'd thought of since, and make myself meet a deadline. So that is done. Except that two days after submitting my entry, I finally figured out how to work the crucial scene near the end to get the effect I wanted. You can enter more than once, but you have to pay and I'm not sure enough of the credibility of this competition to pay twice. But my required outcome was achieved. I now have a script that does what I wanted it to.

Part 2 - pull together my long, short story (~10,000 words) "Off to the Works" and find somewhere to submit it to. I currently have two versions, so have to marry them together.

Part 3 - climate change novel. That keeps gestating in the back of my brain. Lots of research needed first, but I should be able to get on to it by May. Current plan anyway, though the Massey paper I'm doing at present might push that date out a bit.

Part 4 - continuous with all the above. Submit, submit, submit. Get published.

All good intentions, all fully malleable. But there is something very self-gratifying about feeling organised. A halo rubbing, smug kind of personal point scoring. Who knows, I may even stick to the plan. Or not. I have also learnt not to beat myself up about such things.

Writing groups

I have been thinking about the writing groups I belong to. Do they help? Why do I need them? What do they need from me?
The two groups I am most actively involved with are the Auckland branches of RWNZ and SpecFic NZ.
RWNZ is a well established organisation of romance writers, and one which has been the lucky recipient of much wondeful work by vigorous volunteers for over 20 years now. From small beginnings, it is now probably the most effective organisation promoting writing as a profession in NZ. Confined to romance writing, its ranks include a significant percentage of (primarily) women who work full or part time as  authors. They actually earn a living by writing fiction! Their conferences are professionally run, and filled with technical and commercial workshops aimed squarely at helping members to write and then sell their work. I have learned so much from them, though often feel inadequate compared to those who have actually sold. Who have had the magic Call. And even though my own work is now starting to move away from pure romance, I fully intend to keep attending their meetings and conferences. So much of what I have learned through them applies to any commercial fiction. By which I mean fiction that sells. For ultimately the final judge of your work is - will someone pay cold hard cash to read what you have to say? That is the rigor that drives the art, and without which the art is so much less.
My other organisation is SpecFic NZ  - for writers of scifi, fantasy, horror etc. And along with another Auckland writer, I have recently taken on the role of organiser of local face to face meetings. I'm still not too sure how to do that. Not being a naturally sociable person, how to entice and make meetings attractive and meaningful for the other Specfic writers in this, the most diverse of NZ cities? But is it important? My only answer so far is, yes, it is to me. This is a strange, isolated passion we writers of genre fiction share. Making up stories in the privacy of our heads and rooms, then thrusting them out to the glare of public scrutiny. Very scary, very marvellous. And very much needing support and reinforcement from others similarly afflicted. Specfic is a new organisation,barely a couple of years old. Yet already it has a vibrant and active web page  and over 100 members. Who knew there were so many of us? Plus it has become my major source of hints, news and other helpful info concerning spec fic writing, either through the web page, blogs of members or the chat at meetings.
Are these groups important? Yes. Do they help my writing. Depends - on the day, my mood, and how much I am prepared to put into them. Am I going to keep up my involvment. You bet.