Big (private) unveiling

Alright, I won't keep you guys waiting much longer.
A few days ago, remember I told you I had big changes coming up? And I left you with this picture :

The big news (well, for me anyway but it might not mean much to you since you've probably imagined all kinds of scenarios in your head ^_^) is that, from now, my English career will be made under a new identity: Valerie L. Ravenscroft.

Yup! Changing my name and taking on a pen name! Why? A few reasons but mainly to separate my English and my French careers and to have a more English-familiar name (I've never liked Larouche much and it sounds even worse in English! LOL)

Now, why "Ravenscroft"?

Simple:  I wanted something that could relate me to my favorite author of all time: Edgar Allan Poe. Of course, I couldn't, in all consciousness, call myself "Poe" (I would never be able to live up to that name!) so I figured I'd opt for his most famous poem: The Raven (besides, they were no real good names with my favorite poem of his -- Dream-Land -- I checked :P). 

I hear you: then why not simply call myself Valerie L. Raven?

1) Too obvious;

2) It just so happens that Ravenscroft is (was?) a township in the Cheshire county, England which brings up one of my favorite characters of all time: the Cheshire Cat ^_^

So, there you have it, "two birds with one stone" sort of thing. There really isn't much more to it :P
Plus, it sounds nice in my opinion ^_^

Now, I tell you guys all this as some kinda sneak preview. I will not unveil Valerie Ravenscroft to the "world" for another couple of months (waiting to have some novels under my belt). The outlining for the my first one is coming along well. I've got most of the main characters defined and some scenes noted down.

Click on the picture for a bigger/better sneak peek ^_^

And I'll be going indie all the way through Smashwords! I think it's a good idea... Plus a lot less stressful than having to write query letters, finding an agent, a publisher, etc. AND I get to keep creative control over my book ^_^

I want to say "things are going well" but today, I find it difficult. I still feel guilty about Nellie IV (feels like I'm cheating on her with another novel) and I've got a lot coming up on my plate so I probably will lack the time to finish a proper outline... 

Also, I fear something's missing in my story. Something important...

The element that will give this text the right ambiance, my color... That surreal-realistic-nightmare feel I wanna have as my trademark... 

And so far, I can't find it. :(

I'll probably spend the day looking into it (maybe even the whole month of October!) Hopefully I can get it before NaNo starts because that first novel is meant for it.

Oh well! As they say "We'll cross the bridge once we reach the river."

Until then, you can troll around in my new "home" if you want ^_^

www.valerieravenscroft.com

Happy visiting!

Radio Silence

I have been quiet for quite some time now. I am so sorry about that... And I cannot say much about what I've been up to. Not yet, anyway, but I promise that, before the year is out, you will know what exactly this is all about! I've been working hard on my career lately and there are some changes on the horizon. Big, scary changes but hey, scary can be good sometimes, right? :)

So, uhm, seeing as I cannot fully disclose what I've been up to this past month, I won't have much to say in this post aside that I'm still writing Nellie but I've dialed down the pressure: it'll be done when it'll be done. Period. Right now, I'm at... 68%!

So far, so good. I can still write good scenes in it (I think) but my heart is elsewhere... I must also be careful because I do not wish to break the flow of the previous novels which were written at the beginning of my career (years ago) and now, I believe my writing has evolved a bit (I hope so anyway). More notably these past few weeks as I engaged in the reading of many helpful books about that!

To you writers out there, if you want to read books about "how to write", here are the ones I bought: 

Got the workbook as well:
I love to answer questions!
^_^

So yeah, I went through some big changes lately. I've even begun to plan (and enjoyed it!!!) Yup, you've read right: me, the Pantser, the one who said "planning is the death of the story", now cannot hop into a new story anymore without planning it first! It's like suddenly, my eyes got open. I threw all my stubborn, pigheaded prejudices out the window and I looked at my career with fresh eyes.
I cleaned my slate.
I went back to ground zero and I tackled questions like "Why do I write?", "Who do I write for?", "What does my typical reader look like?", "What do I want people to say about my novels?", "What genres do I wanna write in? What ambiance? Which subjects and themes?" Etc.
And I got answers for ALL of them!
Why and how did I do all that?
I simply accepted that writing was my JOB, not just a hobby: I wanna make a living out of it. And just like any job, it requires hard work.
So I rolled up my sleeves and I got down to it!

The whole series is a life-saver!

So if you wanna be a writer too, I urge you to tackle these questions first as well. I promise, everything gets MUCH clearer after and the stories just follow. :)
Let me know how it turns out for you!

A sneak preview of things to come. ^_^
Will tell you more about it in my next post, I promise!