It is a kindly thing, once having picked a pseudonym, to carry it with you if at all possible.

You would be surprised. (a) technologies move so quickly, and (b) some people pseud 2-3 times over in a single fandom. I know people who have re-pseuded for safety or privacy, but a couple of others who just strictly believed that they needed a different pseud for every subgenre they wrote in. I thought it was insane, but, what do I know?

I've been pretty lucky, that all my technology-moves have resulted only in one really unguessable pseud-variation (Nutty). Most of the rest, if you knew my old fic name, and I'm talking fic, you can probably make the connection. Anyway, this seems to be the case with the five-year gaps between acquaintances, that I keep striking up again suddenly on LJ!

Whew, I'll have had the same yahoo email for 8 years come this October. (I travelled under other names, mostly lurky ones, till then.)

That's what I meant by being kindly. If you aren't hastily going underground because your cover has been blown, it is nice to keep your old name -- that way everybody can gasp and squee because, OMG, cofax is writing Doctor Who!

I once spent a 3-month span in which I corresponded with a gen/het author named MCA and a slash author named Rye. Finally one of them confessed she was also the other, and had felt really badly about not saying so when we'd first met.

"They" were both active authors at the time, although neither of them a public conversationalist.

It just made me scratch my head, and we're still friends to this day (all consolidated under a completely different pseud, now), but my guess is that kind of thing used to be way more common than it is now.

Partly, I think, because the slashers and the gen readers and the het-OTP-ers didn't necessarily speak to each other at all, so cred from one pseud didn't carry over as much as it does now.

Also, at the time, the internet was young and probably half the people I knew (and yours truly to boot) had no idea we'd ever travel from one fandom to another. It amazes me, that I actually crated lasting bonds out of fandom. That was so not what I thought I was getting into, way back then!

I think of the transition from pseuds to real names as being the modern equivalent of going from "Ms. Smith" to "Dorothea". Or, for that matter, from "vous" to "tu".

all consolidated under a completely different pseud, now

Which I think is her... 4th? ::counts on fingers:: There's the first one, and then MCA, then Mesa, then Rye, then Viv...

had no idea we'd ever travel from one fandom to another

Indeed, not. One of the better writers in XF was LuvMulder, but the name always tweaked me. I wonder if she moved on to any other fandoms, and if so what did she do with her name.

I think of the transition from pseuds to real names as being the modern equivalent of going from "Ms. Smith" to "Dorothea".

True, although some people here still have trouble with my real name. Ahem. (Though Nutty isn't one of them; we knew each other under our real names before she even became a Buffista.)

Well, who among us calls shrift by her birth name?

You should be grateful I at least remember the euphonious version of your nom. I could be gritting out the one from LJ.

I am so, so glad that I chose a nom de fic that wasn't attached to any fandom. Then again, some of the people who know me only through my LJ account have gotten a bit confused because my fic name sounds as if it could be a real name.

I think of the transition from pseuds to real names as being the modern equivalent of going from "Ms. Smith" to "Dorothea". Or, for that matter, from "vous" to "tu".

I love this.

Please. shrift's name IS shrift.

DX whispered to me what her birth name was, and I was like, "What? No." He said, "Exactly!" Like we were passing notes in the seventh grade.

I've been mildly flummoxed by the fact that lots of folks have found my fic through my LJ (riani1) who have no idea that Two Ladies of Quality even exists. I'm not quite sure what to do about it, because I didn't intend for the LJ identity to become very well known, but--1st World Woes--I've picked up a fairly broad LJ readership. I don't know how to handle two identities.

A lot of people think that there are more than one of you, too.

Nutty's real name seems very unNutty to me. I can't wrap my head around it the way I can some others.

Then we have shrift.

Who is not her birthname.

Nope.

Do, umm, any of you think of yourself in third person with your writing name? Because I keep doing that.