Last week I posted about pen names and made the decision that I definitely wanted one. I’ve got one now. I’d like to introduce you to:

JESSICA REDLAND

It’s probably going to take me a while to get used to this new persona but I’ve been saying the name all day and I definitely feel comfortable with it.

So why Jessica Redland?

Well, I wanted the name to mean something to me and the most pivotal moment in my writing journey so far was the moment that I got the idea for my debut novel, Searching for Steven. I’d liked the idea of writing but I’d always maintained I had no ideas for a novel. Then something happened in my personal life and it prompted that classic writing question “What if …” The concept for Searching for Steven was born. At the time, I was living and working in Reading, Berkshire and I lived on a road called Redlands Road. I liked the idea of using Redlands or perhaps dropping the ‘s’ as my surname.

As for Jessica, it’s more about loving the name than any link to writing:
1. It’s a name I’ve always loved ever since I first came across it in a really old book my mum gave me called “Jessica’s First Prayer”. No idea what happened to that book but the name has stuck with me
2. It was on my baby name list for my daughter but the hubby vetoed it because 70s-sitcom ‘Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em’ saw Frank Spencer and his wife Betty have a daughter called Jessica. Frank Spencer (played brilliantly by Michael Crawford) used to say “Jessica” in a really cringe-worthy voice (befitting with the character). He couldn’t agree to naming our daughter that as he knew he’d do a Frank Spencer impression each time he said it!
3. It’s ageless. There are old and young with the name
4. It’s the same initial as my own name (Julie) and therefore not too far removed

So there we are. Jessica is born.

It would, of course, have been far easier to do this from Day One because I already have so much set up in my own name. This evening, I’ve made a start. I’ve set up an email address, changed this blog (although I haven’t quite sussed how to change the bar on the right – perhaps a task for tomorrow) and announced the name to The Write Romantics. I have my Twitter to change and a new Facebook page to set up. The only slight downside is that I think I’ll have to lose the history on my FB page because I want to keep it completely separate from my personal one and I can’t do that by just changing the name on my existing writer page because it’s still linked. 

But perhaps that’s not an 11pm job. Perhaps tomorrow!

I hope you like the new theme of the page to go with the launch of my new writing persona.

Thanks for following 🙂

Jessica xxx