Maybe it's because I am so insecure about writing, that deep down inside I'm terrified of ridicule. If I identify myself to all of my friends and family and "come out" as a writer, then I'll have to subject myself to all of their questions and scrutiny. You know, fun questions like:
(1) How can you call yourself a writer if you haven't you published anything yet?
(2) Why don't you have an agent yet?
(3) Do you really think you have a story that's worth reading?
(4) What's your book about? (and then you are forced to give the dreaded synopsis/pitch on the spot)
(5) Am I in your book?
(6) Do you think you can make any money writing?
(7) Have you tried, you know, "not" being a writer? (ha)
Maybe I don't come out as a writer because I don't want to deal with all the drama that naturally follows labeling yourself as such. It's annoying. Like when you finally do tell someone you are a writer and then they proceed to throw in their two cents about how you should change the plot/story and characters of your WIP. (Even though what they want you to write/add in are the exact plots and identical characters from popular TV shows and movies that have already been written about a dozen times over. For example, I actually had someone say this: you should make your main character a vampire who falls in love with this girl but she is human. Yeah, because that's never been done before. Ha.)
I don't have any concrete answers today. Maybe it's for all of the above reasons and more. I'm still not sure. But I am left wondering do/did any of you struggle with coming out of the writing closet too? Why or why not. Did any of you choose to use a pen name instead of your real name for any of the above reasons?
