Valerie has never been content to live the way anyone else wants her to. Which is why, when her peers were obsessing over Britney, Christina, BSB and NSYNC, she was looking to the past, to her parents' record collection. The Monkees were her boy band of choice.

Her failure to fit in resulted in having few friends beyond the notebook she always seemed to have at her disposal.

Until she was a teenager, music and writing were two separate facets of her life. Music was more of an obligation than a chore, as she was forced into piano and trumpet lessons, and despite the fact that she didn't believe it, someone thought she had a passably decent voice and thus thrust her into singing at church.

Valerie relentlessly begged for a guitar at the age of 13, which was purchased under the agreement that she would teach herself how to play. So she did, looking up tabs for her favorite songs and learning how to play them by ear.

At the age of 15, everything changed. Music now was a passion, and transitioning from horribl