Pen names (Day 209 KEDfaY)

When growing up and dreaming of being a writer, I always thought that I'd use a pen name. That I'd come up with something creative and use it instead of my real name. I'm not too fond of my name because of the constant misspellings and mispronunciations have left a bitter taste in my mouth. It wasn't until my freshman year of college that I actually had my name pronounced correctly. And it's not even that difficult. Leigh Montano. Simple enough, right? NOPE.

Lea. Lay. Laya. And once, apocryphally, Lee-i-gah. I was too young to remember this so I can't confirm but I can believe the stupidity of people.

Montana. Montonyo. Montonya. Nope. Not at all. Thanks for trying though.

Imagine this at every introduction, class roll, doctor's appointment of my entire life. I actually had the same professor for two semesters in a row who never, not a single day of class, pronounced my name correctly. He was also one of my favorite professors so you can imagine the blow to the self esteem when that happens to you.

You can see why I would want a pen name.

But now that I've actually had a handful of essays published and I'm hoping to get more (much more) writing work in the future, I think the time has past.

And I'm okay with it.

Sure I've had a frustrating time with my name my entire life but I'm at a point where I am happy with it and how unique it is.

I still hate introducing myself though. The new trend is for people to hear "Emily" when I say, "Hi, I'm Leigh."

In other news, I got my ribbing done for my vest and excitingly, got it done in fewer days than it took me last time so WHOO! Now onto the hard part of color work and paying attention and counting a lot.