Cailean Darkwater is dead by Cailean

I know that seems to be quite dramatic, but I guess it’s true.

I’m retiring my Cailean Darkwater persona. I think I’ve been using it before as a mask for myself and it’s become less and less necessary. I feel that my pseudonym is holding me back; I’m sure a fair few publishers have looked at the name and sneered and my work has been trashed before it’s even been read. I personally like the name, but I am more than a name, or a pseudonym.

I would love to write as a nameless individual, but it would be very hard to track what was going on and what I seek to achieve as a result. I suppose a name is a necessary evil.

Therefore, all my work here (and future work) will be released under my own name. Chances are, this little neglected corner will disappear, such is life, depending on how well received my work is under my actual name. Who knows?

It’s been a good run as Cailean Darkwater. I just now worry about fighting for copyright … with myself. Which at least will be amusing as well.

To all the people I’ve met here, I guess this is goodbye. Keep up with your art and I hope that you can express yourself as you need through your art and feel better within yourself and with the world itself. In some ways, I feel our art is a way we connect with that world, with other people – while its creation is often a totally internal process, the end result is amazingly external. It’s a way how we connect with others and change them, perhaps, in meaningful ways. To have them think or feel in new exciting fashions, to share our experiences, even when we write not from life but pure imagination.

Keep on changing the world a little with your work, in a good way.

Blessed be,

The Artist Formerly Known As Cailean Darkwater.