A number of years ago I abruptly changed my novel writing style and my publishers decided to change my name.

At last . . . the chance to re-invent myself. I never liked 'Morag Prunty' as a name anyway.

Ironically, it sounded made up. And sort of 'daft'.

Echos of bully-boys laughing in the school bus "Towrag! Towrag!" I chose 'Kate Kerrigan'. It sounded warm, sophisticated and intelligent . . .

much more like the real 'me'. The first couple of interviews were awkward. People would ask me a question putting 'Kate?' at the end of the sentence and I would look at them blankly . . . or giggle stupidly. When 'Kate' got nominated for Romantic Novel of the Year in London I was thrilled. At the same time I felt as if it were happening to a posh friend . . . and I, Morag, was going along as her uninvited guest. The short-list announcement breakfast was Kate's first 'big outing' and I made a special effort. No jeans and T-shirt as per . . . I picked out a long skirt and blouse, putting my hair up in a French pleat.

"How do I look?" I asked my sister as I was leaving her house; "Do I look like a 'writer'?"

"You should do, " she said, "because you're dressed as Virginia Wolfe, " snorting derisively at her own joke. Sisters are truly artifice sensors . . . the slightest whiff of pretension and they're on top of it.

At the event I wasn't allowed to be Morag . . . I was Kate. Recipes for a Perfect Marriage was Kate Kerrigan's first book (but in reality my fifth) and I felt vaguely awkward about the deception. But at the end of the day, nobody cared whether I was Morag or Kate . . . it was all about marketing and perception. My proud editor took me around the room and introduced me to people I had met before and they didn't notice or care that I was a different person. I remembered what my mother had always told me when I was feeling fussy or self-conscious, "Nobody cares because they are too busy worrying about themselves, " and realized, not for the first time, nor I'm sure the last, that she is right. Very few people have the ability to thoroughly engage another human being if there is more than one or two of them around.

Now instead of saying "that's an unusual name, " new people ask . . . "Is it Morag or Kate?"

Morag, I say, conscious that this is the same boring Scottish birth conversation in a different guise. Always was and always will be Morag, daft and all as it is. Perhaps there is something in a name after all.