Hey, Miss J!

Since the prior post was about nicknames, I suppose it would make sense to explain where my penname came from. I had a prior one, so I’ll talk about what happened to it…

I was trying to distance myself from my prior pen name… which I didn’t write the best things under. At all.

I used to write a lot of smut, and I was very good at it. I was extremely detailed as well… but not to the extent I am now. I wrote a lot of dialogue in stories that was ladened with violence and vulgar language. As a matter of fact, my novel, which is unfortunately tied to my actual name… that one is listed as 18+, and since it already has an ISBN number, I can’t unpublish it.

I went on a campaign at one point… to clear away as much as I could reach that was tied to that old pen name.

I asked a friend of mine for help, because I wanted to resume writing, but I couldn’t think of a good enough name for myself.

She suggested the name “Juliette,” which made me think of Romeo & Juliet, and I will admit that I giggled. But… it works. The last name “Lyst” was suggested by the same friend. She loves the LYST brand.

Are things tied to this name as well? Well… it all depends on how you look at it. When I google my penname, I find my fanfic along with my social media pages.

Years ago, I had both a LiveJournal and a DeadJournal… and I have to admit… Both of them were very depressing. I was fluttering about and almost drowning… trying to figure out who and what I was.

I wasn’t interested in much aside from music and writing. However, I did not want to use my singing voice for college scholarships. I didn’t like to sing or perform or anything on stage back then, even though I did so for classes and class credits.

I’m still not the best of friends with being on stage, but I’ve gotten a lot better at hiding it.

But those old blogs… my old writings… all the fruit of a very, very sad mind. That’s a nicer way to say it.

All the grit I used to write… the raw material for it is still there. Where I choose to use my writing abilities on the other hand… Yeah, we’re gonna keep on that new leaf track.

New leaf.

The old me had a lot of incomplete stories, fully fleshed out biographical profiles for different characters and a somewhat coherent idea as to what direction the story would be going in.

Now? I have miniature biographies for characters—to further flesh out how they look in my mind. I don’t describe clothing in detail nearly as much as I did back then. Nor do I go too far into describing physical features.

I am very good at being “subtle” about what might be occurring in a story. However, for NtC, I am posting no hints or anything on my blog or on the fanfiction pages. The only person that won’t be surprised soon… is me.

~Juliette Lyst

Sometimes I wish Juliette was my actual name instead of the one I have. It’s funny… because my name is unique in its own way. And there are several ways to pronounce it, but only two of them that I respond to.  

Autocorrect Suggestion: “Unique in its own way” instead could be “unique.”

Darling, where’s the fun in that?