News - Page 9 of 10 - Valette Céline

Playing with text

When I wrote Fantastic L.A, I played a lot with the characters and all the objects used to solve the riddle. For example, crosswords. While thinking about them, I did some research and discovered the origin of the first crosswords. On the original document, definitions and a grid. In the center the word : fun (joy in French).

With the definitions of the original document that you will find at the end of my post, I wrote this short poem :

What we all should be ?

A daydream, a pigeon, a part of the ship

What artists learn to do ?

Opposed to less, exchanging the plurial of this

Link : article about Arthur Wynne.

Beta readers

Here is some news.

On December 30, I finish to write the first draft of my new fiction. It took me 1 year to make it. To begin, I chose an idea that I liked then I made historical researches of which I did not keep many elements. But, they contributed to nourish my inspiration to build an intrigue. When the first draft was finished, I asked some beta readers for their opinion. Which took me a week or two. It is important to give them enough time to read and to send their answers to the questions I asked. When this step was completed, I read the feedback carefully and took all constructive criticism into consideration. Which obviously required that I correct my first draft. Among the notes, some were too intrusive or didn’t go to the same direction than I wish for the book and I didn’t retained them. In a few days, I will send my book to several publishing companies. I would be lying to you if I told you that I do not feel a certain apprehension. But that’s a part of this project.

Happy new year

carte de voeux

Dear readers and professionnal partners,

I wish you all a Happy new year 2022.

Spies…

Last weekend I went to an exhibit and documentary movie about spies. What could be more exciting for an author than to go on search of disturbing historical facts?

The exhibition featured photographs of unusual objects that had belonged to secret agents and it was fascinating. Some of them were known from the people, others not. Not to be famous was certainly one of their quality at that time to preserve them.

The end of the exhibition ended with a set of 8 portraits of famous and incredible female spies.

The documentary film was titled “The Spies Who Came From Hollywood”. He recounted the important role played by a large number of artists during the Second World War.

References :

Exhibition: Secret Wars .

Documentary: the spies who came from Hollywood

To follow your modifications

At the moment, I am correcting the first draft of my new book. Of course, I could have sent it to an editor and waited for a feedback. But before doing it, I preferred to reread, adding some details, making improvements.

The reason why I’m talking to you about this project today, is because I realized that there is a function on libre office, the text processor. This one allows you to track your version changes. You can go back or go to the next changes. Keeping a list of all your changes is always interesting.

Having said that, in writing this article I though back to a sentence I heard on the radio recently. It was about the necessary function of forgetting. Don’t we tend to want to save and classify everything before we’ve even lived these moments ? why ?
From a historical point of view, it is obvious that retaining the testimony and any other document from the past is important. However, not accepting that it is impossible to keep everything intact seems problematic to me. There will certainly be traces of some of the events of our existence, but not of every moment, as an individual, I have not considered spending too much of my time listing them. It makes me feel like I’m not living fully.

Reading club

affiche de l'évènement

October 29, I have been to the reading club of the public library in the town where I live. This one proposed news about books and I was curious about it.

The number of participants was huge and a lot of women were in the audience.

The session was moderated by four civil servants working for the library. Each one presented their readings and commented.

The list was long with different kind of books biographies, thrillers, thrillers, science fiction etc.

This exchange with the public fascinated me. Each agent presented a book in a unique way and I realised how much a reading was subjective.

For my part, I have enjoyed meeting people and discovering other authors in that way.

Professional support

I’ve always thought it was essential in any profession to support each other. When I’m prospecting for a potential book festival, meeting other authors is not always about networking. It’s also about sharing experiences.

On Friday, September 24, I went to the festival of detective fiction and adventure in Port Barcarès to attend a conference on the theme: “to be attached to the daily facts or to draw its inspiration from the imaginary? The main guests of the conference were the authors Fabio Mitchelli and Fabrice Papillon. I found their intervention enriching and there was indeed something to think about. I also bought two books and discussed with their authors Christophe Corvaisier and Paul Beorn. We talked about our way of writing which is specific to each author and we encouraged each other.

My coming to this festival was also the occasion to close in my mind “duel in Albi” in which I made a very brief allusion to the boat where this festival was. Now, I feel free to devote myself mentally to my new book.

Looking it from a different perspective

Saturday 11th, I went to a book fair organized at the gardens of plants in Saint Cyprien. It was a lovely place. This time, I took on the role of a reader to visit several authors and authors. This experience was very enlightening professionally and I thank them. Some have explained to me what is important for them in their writing and what they think about organizing a fair. I have listened carefully to them, and I have presented myself and our exchanges have been interesting.
This immersion as a reader brought me another perspective on the profession of writing. Meeting other artists is also a way to be ready for your own meetings / conferences and create opportunities for collaborations.

Structuring a story

Structuring a story can be very important at some point of your writing. Among my favorite tools, the mind map is a useful program. On linux, “view your mind” is easy to use but there are many others including on different platforms.

How to prioritize your notes

Do you need to prioritize your notes? A linux software can help you.

Personally, I used it as a complement with Libre office. For real, at first sight, this software appears complex and closer to computer development than to writing. But it is much simpler than you think.

Here is a link to this tool.