What's with the pen name?

A lot of people have asked how I came up with my pen name.

For me writing was a hobby, something I did when an idea struck me, but when I finished that first, and bad draft of “Behind the Vines” back in 2007, my muse woke up and started feeding my brain with so many ideas that we wrote another story. After we finished that one, a new idea was tickling at my brain, and that was when I started to explore the internet and different writing sites. I couldn’t stop writing or coming up with ideas, and I needed a place where I could talk about my passion, and I also discovered NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I love the NaNo challenge and it is when I get those pesky first drafts started.

So it came the time that my stories needed an author, so my Muse needed a name.

One morning, my son and I sat down with some tiles out of the Scrabble box and rearranged them into a name that was unique, but still me. Jill H. O’Bones. I seriously believed that only my friends, family, and those who read the samples I posted on writing.com and a few other sites, would ever see my stories. (Never did I imagine I would publish five books and have a sixth at the editors. (It was a dream, a distant and far-fetched delusion.))

Fast-forward to 2012; I found Createspace. I could get one or two copies of my stories as a book without spending a lot of money. I thought it would be something my son would get a kick out of, and he could one day show his kids and tell them that their Grandma wrote a book. I did it, without telling him, or anyone else, (including the husband) only a couple of friends who were helping with the editing knew.

When I handed him that book, the first copy of A Vow of Tears, the look on his face when he realized what it was, still to this day makes me laugh and tear up. But I sort of made the mistake and bought extra copies, just to have around the house and to let some other friends read. Then I had to get a few more copies for other friends, and for the local bookstore. It wasn’t too long after when everyone was asking for the second book. I felt it was a little too late to change my pen name as The Vows Trilogy was already out in the world.