Tuesday, January 08, 2008


It's about time the blog reflected a major change in my writer's identity -- to use my real name instead of a pseudonym. I guess when one is this close to being published, one begins to reconsider things like that.

Using a pseudonym is a good idea if one wants to cloak ones identity, not embarrass ones relatives or, if the title starts to compete with the likes of Harry Potter, go places without being recognised. I suppose in such a case, it would only be a matter of time before people discovered who the author really was anyway.

I'll also probably need to restructure the page to be more of an author's page. Perhaps I'll eventually need a new website. I've already changed the blurb. The facitious sounding one you see up there now may be only temporary, until I think better of it, or find a better one. The older one was descriptive of my intent for doing a blog, but it's probably better to let blog surfers judge by the content.

One positive reason for using my own name is just to give the Charters name a bit more notoriety. I don't know of any Charters (with that spelling) who have distinguished themselves. Some, using alternate spellings of the name, such as Chartres, and Charteris, have written books and such, but it's about time the name Charters got a little airing out. I think it's a Huguenot name, originally spelled Chartres, the same as the cathedral town in France, where they came from. There are possible connections with the Bourbon dynasty as well, but I don't think any of us have any claim to the French throne, or anything of that sort. Anyway, that's a bit far back, and you certainly wouldn't know it looking at the motley crew we are today. So far, though, I haven't been able to trace my direct genealogy farther than my great-grandfather, Samuel Charters, of Artnigros, who was a lock-keeper on the river Bann.

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