Yes, that’s me. I took it last night, while waiting at the airport for my husband to arrive. I’d wandered the closest mall after work and, well, Grogu was at Build a Bear.

I don’t regret that decision.

Names are a funny thing. I chose, initially, to write under the name of KateMarie Collins because there was a well-established mystery author using Kate Collins. If I’m going to do anything with my books, I wanted to know I’d earned it and not accidentally ridden someone else’s coattails.

Over the last 5 or 6 months, though, I’ve started to wonder if the name I’d been using for writing was right for how my books really are. They’re not romances, even if there might be some of that scattered about. The focus is on the characters; how they grow, learn, and overcome what I throw in their path.

Death happens to some, along with other Bad Things (tm?). Bad things happen to nice people in real life. I know this FAR too well. The same should happen to the characters in my books.

But the name of KateMarie is, let’s be honest, soft. It sends images to my mind that don’t line up with how I write. What I write.

A lot of thought came into this. This weekend, one of my writing tasks will be to change the title page of the books my agent has to being written by K. M. Warfield.

Social media is slowly being changed over. At some point, provided I still think this is a positive step, I’ll change things here on my website. The 1 title I have up for sale will stay under KateMarie Collins for now. It’s not sold well, so I may just yank it completely.

Change is always an upheaval. We get comfortable in where we’re at, fear what we don’t know. Do I think hiding my gender by using initials will change the mind of editors or readers? I can’t say.

But I know that I have a path ahead of me that I need to walk. It’s going to be full of brambles and trees that were felled by a storm that came before me. Maybe this is only the first of a series of changes in my life.

It feels right.

When my life feels like chaos unleashed, that’s a good indication that I’m heading the way I need to. That’s where I’m at, too. There’s a lot going on that I won’t talk about publicly yet. Not until I’ve got my head and heart in sync again. Not until I know which of a dozen different forks on the path ahead of me is the one I need to take.

Until then, keep your seat belt on. Things are likely to get bumpy before the roller coaster stops.

BB/Chan Eil Eagal Orm