Hi, my name is?

So the more I write the more it looks like this may actually be a future for me (I hope). I'm getting this whole blog thing down pretty well and have come to the conclusion that maybe I don't need to be a stripper to entertain an audience after all.

But one thing keeps bugging me: my name.

I've grown up with this unoriginal, impossible-to-pronounce/spell, boring name. It has only held me back I think. Don't get me wrong, I love my family and blah blah but the four letter arrangement after my first name just won't fly on a book cover or strewn across a magazine.

You may be saying, "How can anyone mispronounce such a simple looking name?" Oh my God, it's unbelievable how many people suddenly turn illiterate the second they glance over my name for the first time. No teacher, peer, friend, telemarketer etc. has ever been able to pronounce it right. For everyone's info, it's GOVE, with a long "O", not like love but like go + ve. I get called every variation of enunciation and accentuation. My favorite is when people add letters to make it even more difficult. Grove. Gore. Gomes. Grover. It never ends.

My point with all this ranting is that I just want a name that is unique but not so unusual and uninteresting. I know, people will always be stupid and mess up even the simplest name and maybe I should just be proud of who I am but, oh well. It's something I want to change. It's like plastic surgery to my body of writing. A little nip and tuck and I'll feel more confident.

So many celebrities have had the same work done:
Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon
Justin Willman "Kredible"
Jonah Hill Feldstein
Brooke Bussey-Hunt a.k.a. the more feisty Diablo Cody

What's in a name? No, not something we call a rose or whatever Romeo said. It's how people identify your talent and deserving work. Next to your face, and the work itself, a name is pretty important. Why should my work be recognized as that of Jessica Grove's?