What's In A Name?,

A while ago, possibly when we were on our honeymoon but I'm not sure because timelines are not my strong suit, my husband asked me, if I were to publish another book, would I use the same name or would I publish it under my 'real' name?

Firstly, I know the question might sound odd, but I also know it came from curiosity, not any sort of bad or possessive place, because my husband isn't built like that.

Secondly, I love that he thinks I can and would publish another book. It's been a long time since the first and honestly, I'm not sure I possess the same thick skin which got eighteen year old me through both the editing and publishing process of Fairies, let alone the idea of online comments and reviews. (Yes, my little novel has reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and they're not all even by people I know. I try not to think about it too much because it kind of freaks me out at times.) Before you even get to that, you have to finish a novel, of course, and ever since the loss of NaNoWriMo, and the loss before it of a book I no longer remember the name of, I'm not sure I could do it anymore. Even before I was a mum with little time on my hands.

But let's say the sequel to Fairies eventually came together in a way that I was happy with, or a few other ideas which have been kicking around in my head for way too long. One of them comes together, and I get it finished, and I manage to edit it and someone else reads it, (no S, not you, you know what you did) and it meets the bar of Does Not Completely Suck (it's not as low of a bar as the name makes it sound), what name am I putting on the cover?

Well, if it was the sequel to Fairies it would kind of be weird to put a different name on it, right? But then again, I think it would be weird to put another name on anything I've written, because even though my name has changed, my marital status has changed, and a lot of things have changed since I became a writer or the last time I wrote or anything like that, I as a writer have not fundamentally changed, and whilst it's not that different than my name was prior to marriage, effectively my name was kind of a pen name, but only because it wasn't my legal name. Even if I published something using my new surname, it still wouldn't be published under my legal name, and honestly, I wouldn't publish anything under my legal name because I'm sure it would just make more people call me Charlotte, and that just makes me annoyed.

As an aside, partly because we didn't know what the process was at the time when looking at changing my name post marriage, my husband asked me whether it was worth changing my name from Charlotte to Charlie legally when I was changing my surname, and weirdly it was something I was against. Well, not exactly against... If it weren't that it would mean I needed to get a deed poll done instead of just using my marriage certificate to get my name changed, I'm not sure if I might have done it. But you do have to go through that extra step and honestly, it seems like too much effort. But also, my parents chose my name, for whatever reasons they had for choosing it, and whilst I hate people using it, because I specifically don't ask them to, I don't hate that it's my name. It's not like there's some massive trauma attached to it or that it's mortally offensive to me to have to use it when I have to use my legal name, but it's not what I prefer to be called. (Which is why I get mortally offended when I tell people my name is Charlie or say they can call me Charlie and they choose to call me Charlotte. To me, it's rude. If I ask you to call me Charlie and you choose to call me anything other than Charlie, it is rude.) I'm also n to sure that changing my name legally would prevent the people who still call me Charlotte from calling me Charlotte and I'm sure there are a few of them that would think I was just being petulant.

When it comes to pen names, people choose them for all sorted of reasons, whether to honour someone - like Sophie Kinsella using her middle name and then her mother's maiden name (at least I presume it was to honour her mother) - or to show shifts in writing, again like Sophie Kinsella (yeah, I kind of love her, and I was devastated when I found out she died), or to covertly showcase a set of beliefs (if you believe that's where a particular name came from) or for someone who is somewhat typecast into a role to explore a different type of writing or story without the reputation or expectations of their own identity. Thankfully we're past the point of women like the Bronte sisters and Mary Ann Evans who NEEDED to use a male pseudonym to be published, but I never chose Charlie because it is a classically male name. Honestly, it was just through sheer frustration of people not seeming to be able to pronounce the t's in Charlotte or Lotti. (And no, I have not spelt that wrong. I was always either Lotti or L.otti rather than Lottie.)

But if we believe Shakespeare, none of it really matters at all anyway, does it? 

As I was finishing writing this I had the feeling that I had written something similar before, and having checked I realised it's strange how many times it comes up, but it also made me look at the blog from a reader's perspective for the first time in arguably too long and realise that my bio or whatever it's called is way out of date, because it's still very NaNo-centric and I definitely feel like that's something which needs to go...

I've Outdone Myself This Week,

In terms of writing? Of course not.

In terms of a lot of things? Absolutely not.

In terms of ignoring the blog? Nah, this has been amateur hour.

In terms of pure, unadulterated idiocy? Check.

Of course, if I had checked it, this wouldn't have happened...

This week, after sitting and watching from the front window as day after day the post person didn't bring me my driving license back, it finally arrived! And it still had my old name on it, and my old signature, because... I hadn't signed the declaration which I believe is where they then take your signature from to replace it, since obviously a new name means a new signature. I'd even had a thought about it one night last week as I was falling asleep, because there have been very few occasions where I've had to sign anything with my new name and I knew that the DVLA form was not one of them. Thankfully it has gone back to them in the post and hopefully it won't be too long before a new one is dispatched with my new name and I can feel like I'm finally making progress with it.

It's weird because so many people ask me what my name is and my default is still to use my maiden name and although I'm sure a lot of it is habit, I think some of it is the fact that I've not been able to change it in a lot of places yet, so as far as most people and organisations are concerned, my maiden name is still my name, but it is really frustrating!

It feels like such a long and drawn out process, and there are times when I get frustrated that this is a process I have to go through but my husband doesn't! But then again, it's not really a process I would wish onto anyone else because it's long and dull and boring, which I can only imagine is the reason I have rushed it at times and then clearly got it wrong.

So yes, I am an idiot, it would appear. An idiot who doesn't even know their own name. 

His First Day,

I was originally going to title this The Empty Pram, but thankfully it occurred to me that that might scare a few people into thinking something awful had happened and it's not that. This blog doesn't need a trigger warning or anything, past the usual it's  my own personal account of parenting and I realise that some people may not want to read that for their own reasons. And I get that.

Last week my son went for his taster session at nursery where I stayed with him and I think I knew it was going to be a bit difficult, but not quite how difficult I would find it. My son's a happy kid and he's really smiley and sociable. I love it, most of the time, but it does make it hard when it feels as though he doesn't miss me. Before he was born people would tell me how they love boys because little boys are affectionate and warm and they love their mums. My son is affectionate and he is warm, but the times where he just wants his mum... I'm less convinced of that one and sometimes it makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. Or doing everything wrong. He goes to nursery or to baby classes and he gets into playing with the other children or playing with the toys and he's off and away until he needs a nappy change, a bottle or until he falls and bumps his head. I know I should be really grateful for that, because it's a level of independence not all children his age have and it frees me up to do other things, but it comes with it's own difficulties.

Today was his first visit to nursery where I dropped him off, told them how his day has been going and then walked out. Thankfully it wasn't at the same time as drop off with the other parents so it's not like I had to experience other children crying as they were detached from their parent and my son not even noticing me leave, but it was still hard, and because of how close the nursery is to home I refuse to drive, even though there was a spot of rain, so I walked him there in his pram... which meant I had to push the pram home again without him in it, and that was the part that made me the most sad. In the past just under a year I've pushed him around in three different prams - don't judge me, it's a whole thing - (actually, it's four prams, but one of them was a borrow whilst at my mother in law's house because he needed a sleep and God knows he won't sleep anywhere but his pram or his cot and even the pram is questionable these day) and they all have their pitfalls and their good points, but nothing has felt emotionally harder than pushing the pram back to our house empty because when we're out with the pram, I talk to him. I point things out to him, I tell him what we're going to do, I ask him what he fancies from the shop if we're in the fruit and veggies aisle or the baby aisle, and it's not like I expect him to talk back to me yet, or tell me what he wants, but he smiles at me and giggles or plays and it's like an affirmation that I'm doing something right, because otherwise he couldn't be so happy, could he?

The route to his nursery and back is the same route we take walking the dog or going to the park, or going to the local shop or the hairdresser or a myriad of other places we go to in the pram. It's the same route we walk when we go and get the cars from the garage (because even though it's a long walk, it beats moving car seats around and I know walking is good for me and fresh air is good for him. On the way back I wanted to be chattering away to him about what we had to do - dropping off parcels, possibly going to the park for a go on the slide (nope, too wet, another day) or bemoan the fact that I still can't put my hands on the rain cover for the pram and how I should have brought one of the others to keep him dry, but my little buddy wasn't there for me to chat to, and when he comes home, he can't tell me about all the toys he's played with or the other children he's played with or anything, because he's not up to words yet, just the sweetest babbling that I know is him trying to form words and maybe trying to talk to me, or just tell me to please give him five minutes of peace because all I do is chatter to him or play him music. 

Inevitably, nursery isn't a choice for us, as it's not for most people. Whilst both sets of our parents want to help out with looking after him and we both want to look at staggering our hours so he's spending less time in nursery than some children have to - partly because when we're working from home the only commute is getting him to nursery and back - there are still a lot of hours where we're working to be covered and it's not like we can choose to just give up our jobs for the next few years so we can be at home with him. Would we want to? Absolutely, but that doesn't make it possible, so I guess I just need to thank my lucky stars that he is such a happy and social kid, that he does well with the nursery practitioners and other children and that he's having a good time even when I'm not with him, even if it means I know I'm not there for moments like his first steps or his first words.