Writing Under a Pen Name Gives Me a Nuke Option

It’s me, Zulie. Or is it?

Image created by author in Canva. Original image is of author, Zulie Rane

I’ve known I’d be Zulie Rane since I was about ten years old and decided I’d be a fiction writer. It’s not my real name, but one I came up with on the back of a napkin one afternoon. Back then, I liked Zulie because I thought it sounded jazzier than my real name. I never expected I’d become a full-time content creator. Today, I’m thrilled that I started writing and creating content under a pen name for two reasons.

First, writing under a pen name made sense when I started posting online— I wanted to tell real stories about my life, but I also wanted to create content that was separate from my real life. Zulie Rane was a safety blanket that allowed me to bare everything while retaining some anonymity. Posting stuff online about your life requires a lot of vulnerability — it sounds weird writing this but being someone else made it easier to be myself.

But second, beyond just a safety blanket for vulnerability and honesty, my pen name gives me another critical aspect of protection: a nuclear option.

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