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 |  A place to talk about myself, my writing, and any upcoming projects. |
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Hello! I'm not really sure who is ever going to read this because I don't actually know anyone on this site and I highly doubt this is the sort of thing anyone would be interested in reading anyway. I'm writing it for two reasons. The first is for myself, so I have a place to sort of keep track of my progress on various projects and everything. The second reason is because I just got my upgraded membership today, and I want to try and make the most of it, which means finally getting around to using all of the features. On the off-chance that someone is actually reading this though, I'm going to do a little introduction here where I talk about myself and my writing and the sorts of things you can expect to read if you check this out. My name is Cat Voleur, I'm currently 21 years old, and I'm a professional writer. I got my first writing job a few months before I graduated high school. After that I spent about a month taking writing commissions while I looked for steadier work, and I was eventually employed as a ghost writer, where I spent about 3 years. I've quit ghost-writing very recently (and am consequently broke) to pursue my own dreams and perhaps establish a small following. I really enjoyed ghost writing because it gave me the freedom to travel and sort of choose my own schedule, but now I'm looking for something that I can take credit for. It's pretty sad to have steady writing work for 3+ years and wake up one day and realize all of the pieces in your portfolio are things you wrote as an angst-filled teenager. I'm going to take some time, edit some of my old pieces, write some new things, and try to see if anyone is interested in reading the things that I write under my own name. My commission and portfolio sites are, as of this moment, down for some maintenance work, but hopefully I'll be getting it back up soon with links to some of my work on this site. I also have a couple theme blogs run through tumblr and am currently the head writer of Toxic Bubblegum which is a zine published monthly put out by myself and my very talented friend, Alan Johnson. As for what I'd like to do in the future - I guess it just depends on what sort of opportunities I run into. I'm a big believer in just seizing the moment and going with the flow. The one thing I am sure of is that I'd like a career in writing. I sort of lucked into my first job, but now that I have a taste of being a writer I can't imagine being anything else. Ideally I would like to eventually have something published under my own name and become an author, but I'm willing to see where life takes me. I prefer writing in the horror genre, because that's where my real passion is. I look up to a lot of horror writers and if I could do anything, that would be it. I have the most experience writing in romance because that, unfortunately, is where the money is and that's what a lot of my paying gigs have been up to this point. I've been told that my strength is in fantasy. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's what most people tell me. I first got my account here a few years ago, around the time I started writing professionally, and I haven't done a lot since then other than upload a piece here and there. That's something I'm going to try really hard to get better about. I'd like to upload more stuff, get more active in the community, maybe see about meeting some fellow writers. Today is a very exciting day for me because I just purchased my upgraded membership. It was on sale or I might not have done it because I am, as I previously stated, broke. I've really wanted a membership here for awhile and I'm so glad that I finally did it because so far it really has been motivating me to get some stuff done. The first thing I plan on doing is uploading the most recent draft of Silence of the Lamps, which was the first thing I ever put up on the site, and it's undergone a lot of editing since then. After that I'm going to work on getting some more rough drafts up on here, and then maybe attempt to socialize, which is hard for me because even online I get really nervous reaching out to people. Anyway, if anyone read this, I'm sorry I babbled so long and thank you for your interest! Feel free to message me at any time if you want to chat or would like to have me read something or collaborate or anything. I don't bite, I promise. -Cat |
| Hey guys! I am running out of time to get all my stuff done and it's been really stressful. Meeting submission guidelines, publishing a zine, preparing for an epic GoT battle and setting up my portfolio has been trying... it's a lot of things to juggle and I'll be the first to admit I'm not doing the best job. That is not to say however that I'm not making any sort of progress at all. I have some stuff written that I'm working on uploading. My portfolio site is probably about half linked up and I'm ready for a break. I'm going to go get some reviews done before uploading and hopefully polishing up a couple pieces of my own. I'm also going to do the final touches for my House Stark template. If anyone wants to chat or anything, I imagine I'll be up working on stuff for awhile. All the best, -Cat |
| Sorry I haven't been on as much. Things have been sort of weird lately, and I've been trying to finish up a lot of stuff. I still have a little bit of site work to get done (two more big updates to finish, my zine is getting put out a little late this month, and I've got some reviews/events to finish up before I can commit full time to the GoT event, which I fully intend to do. (and this is all around trying to finish my courses and stuff, bleh.) Alright, so I have a couple things I'm going to try and get done on here today. I have a couple reviews started I'd like to finish and after that I'd like to test out my House Stark template...so if there's anyone out there who is willing to get an experimental review from me, please comment or email me. In the meantime, I'm going to go try to get a little bit of site work done. Thanks you guys for your patience during all my inactivity. It will get better at the end of the week when I'm out of school, and even better at the end of next week when my site is finished! -Cat |
| Hey guys! I've got some neat stuff to talk to you about, First thing, I graduated from "Invalid Item"  today, which is awesome. It was great and I learned a ton about giving awesome reviews from some very awesome people.The next thing (and in fact, the main thing) is that I'm getting to participate in this year's awesome "King's Landing updating " This means that until it's over I'm going to be very, very Game of Thrones oriented, and my other activity on here will probably slow down considerably. (So I'm sorry for that.) Along with that there have been some changes to my account and such, and there will be more yet to come. My signature will be changing (both my default sig and my review sig) my username has changes and my bio just got a lot nerdier. I also plan on getting a new profile picture taken for the duration of the event. For those of you who really like Game of Thrones, I hope you enjoy the changes. For those of you who would like me to shut up about Game of Thrones.... well, at least it's only going to be temporary. ALSO I've coded a Stark-themed template that is one Stark signature away from being completed. (I actually have templates for all the houses - because this was something I had started working on before I even got invited to participate in this event. I'm just a nerd who likes Game of Thrones and coding things....so that's what happened.) It's pretty adorable if I do say so myself (though I'm not sure I'll actually be using it for the event - I'm still learning the rules.) Also....is it bad that I've started writing a lot of self-insert style fanfiction about Game of Thrones in an alternate Westeros timeline? To be completely honest I write self-insert fanfiction literally all the time for nearly every fandom I've ever been in because it's one of the few things I enjoy doing that doesn't stress me out even a little.... I just never type it up and it sticks mostly in my journals (okay, yes, I have a set of notebooks specifically for this purpose because I've been doing this as a creepy and narcissistic hobby over half my life.... don't judge me.) But I mean... I've been writing a lot of it lately. One last thing, I might or might not be uploading a ton of work here soon. I've been working really hard on revamping my official portfolio site and one of my goals with it is to make everything interconnected. If I stick to the current layout I'm working with (which I think I will) it's going to link back to here a lot. My portfolio here will be connected closely to my portfolio site and each sample I have up there will link to all the other sites I have the piece in question hosted on, which means I'll have to get better about hosting some of my stuff. That means there will be a ton of stuff finally coming to my portfolio that I've been meaning to put up here for awhile now. I said might or might not... but it's something I definitely plan on doing, it just depends on whether or not I can find the time around all the site coding, reviews, and obsessively writing Game of Thrones fanfiction. If I do get around to doing that, it's probably going to involve a lot of book items. I know it's not ideal to upload a ton of partially finished books all at once, but that might very well be what happens because in terms of presentation for that site AND foundation to continue projects, that's the best solution I've come up with. Anyway, that's what's going on with me right now and the sort of thing you can expect to see if you follow my portfolio and or site activity. Thank you guys for reading and remember..... Winter is coming. |
| Hey everybody, Sorry that I vanished after my last very emotional entry. I've dealt with some stuff and am feeling better. It was just a low point, and I have a lot of them, but I'm getting better at bouncing back. As for why I wasn't back yesterday when I said I would be - I'm going to level with you guys, I was binge-watching Game of Thrones. Sunday was going to be my day to relax, but it turns out I ended up having to work on a last minute project which took pretty much all day, but I still figured I deserved a day to relax. I invited my friend over and he hadn't seen any of this season's episodes so we just curled up on the couch with some popcorn and kitties and got him caught up. It was heartbreaking (as that show tends to be) but it was a really nice change of pace. I still have a ton of work to get done today.
^^ This item is being featured in this month's issue of the zine because the theme is deities. Since It takes up six zine pages (which is my limit) Alan has given me his bonus page (which he didn't think he'd have time to finish anyway) and I think I'm going to attempt an art piece. I also still have to finish formatting it for the smaller pages so it looks a little neater in the print edition. When zine stuff is finished I have to try and get my site finished. I set myself up with a professional portfolio site and a site about my writing to host a work blog (which everyone thought would be a good self-promotion project) but it's getting promoted at the end of the month and I'm not even close to being done. Then I've got anthology submissions to work on. Before any of that I'm going to try and get caught up on some of my messages and maybe do a couple reviews. It's good to be back  And of course, I'll be on checking messages and stuff in between everything else.Thanks you guys for reading and for your patience and understanding at my little breakdown. I have a lot of those, but aside from ranting I'm doing a little better with handling them. -Cat |
| I have a long history of self-sabotage but I'm doing it in record time today. One really, really small step forward and countless steps back. Took me less than hour this time around to go from optimistic to wanting to give up entirely. The decline is usually a bit more gradual...so that's a fun thing for me to deal with. I really, really want to stand up and say that it's not going to affect me because I'm stronger than I used to be and I refuse to be defeated by a mood swing, but there's that voice inside my head telling me I can't make is a writer because I can't even write a 65 word description of myself without screwing up - and it's really just not in my nature to ignore things that sound that much like common sense. The bio sucked. Within like 10 minutes I had a ton of emails letting me know that it sucked, and I'm not surprised because...it did. I just scrapped the draft entirely.I can blame it on not enjoying nonfiction or that it's weird to right about myself in the third person or that I'm a verbose person and 65 is not enough words, but the truth is I don't really like thinking about my life objectively or in any sort of overall sense because it's sort of depressing. I write these blogs and they help me sort through things that are happening right now, but looking at any big picture stuff or dealing with any past stuff just makes me want to shut down, and it's been like that for a long time. I don't know why it still bothers me so much that I've messed up. The mature adult thing to do would be to get over it and I think I have but it's because I've gotten really, really good at lying to myself most of the time. Everybody makes mistakes, right? That's a thing people say. I guess...just because my mistakes were cliché and colossal doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to move past them. It feels like I can't though, right now it really feels that. It sucks that I haven't grown up or accomplished anything in the last 3 years, but none of the ways I want to handle it are things that would make it any better. This has been really melodramatic, which makes sense because so am I. I'm going to have some wine, and then I'm going to go to bed. Tomorrow I'm taking a day off. I haven't done anything for myself in awhile. I don't know what I'll do honestly, probably stream Netflix or HBO for longer than is healthy and eat a lot of instant soup. On Monday I will try again. I really, really don't want to. I want to put my bartending classes to use and get a job where I get to ignore my depression and anxiety and pretend like I'm not full of regret - but on Monday I'm going to try again to write this stupid bio because deep down I do want to be a writer and I'm not going to let 65 words stop me. I'll try again, and I'll power through it - and even if the bio sucks I still got my first acceptance letter for a piece. So at least my zombie fiction is better than my nonfiction or my ability to handle things. I also imagine I'll spend a lot of time apologizing to people who I responded to tonight. I got a whole bunch of notes straight away and I was trying to keep up with too many conversations on my phone over a late dinner (and my first meal of the day, again, I'm a great adult) while on the verge of calling it quits. I feel like I probably snapped at a lot of people who genuinely are just trying to help me...and I'm usually a bit better about not doing that. I feel bad about that because I don't like being mean or snapping or having weird internet breakdowns...but dealing with it tonight will probably only make things worse. Apologies can probably wait until Monday as well. If you're reading this (and or if I've sent you a message in the last 30-40 minutes) I'm sorry. I'm a mess tonight, and all the time, but especially tonight. I keep not dealing with stuff and it finally just got to me in a dumb way and I'm sorry if I was rude or melodramatic or ranty or all of the above. |
| I'm so mad today. Apparently an AT&T Cricket Satellite is malfunctioning so now I don't have phone service. They told me at the Cricket store that it was going to be taken care of in a Maximum of two hours....yesterday. I can't get into my primary email because I ever since someone tried to hack my account last month I use Google's Two Step Verification and I can't receive text messages. To avoid this exact situation I set up a back-up phone number which belongs to my father....who also uses Cricket and has no service. I have a secondary email account that I used for submissions so it's not like I'm locked out of completely everything, I can still get my manuscripts sent in...but I'm trying to get the new portfolio site linked up and I can't finish doing that without my Google account. It's.... I'm just so frustrated by this. I'm in a long distance relationship...I sort of need my phone. Like I wasn't having enough problems with that in the first place. Plus it's slowing my work down and I can't get in contact with my study partner for German...this is just not how I wanted to start my weekend. Anyway, thanks for listening to me rant, guys. Hope your weekend is going better than mine. -Cat |
| Hey guys, I'm not having the best day. My family is being really weird about stuff and I got bad news today and it's just being kind of stressful. I'm hoping getting some work done to distract myself is going to make me feel a little bit better (plus, you know. It's productive.) Today my agenda includes the following: Site Building:  Personal Site: I used to have a commission site that I never finished because I started working full time before it was done. One of the things I'm going to do today is get it stripped down finally. Since I don't do custom commissions full time I really don't need to have it up anymore so I'm going to take the site space and design a new site for myself where people can follow my work. I don't think anyone will want to really, but it will be good practice designing sites (so all that time learning how to do it won't be wasted.) I can also set up a thing to divide in progress projects that I'm working on with things that are on hiatus and I can set up a proper blog for myself. Portfolio Site: I don't care how long it takes, I'm going to get the portfolio site formatted today. I might not get all my samples up but it's driving me crazy not having it done and I'm going to just keep working on it until it looks better - and then all I'll have to do is upload the samples as I choose them. Zine Site: Depending on how long everything else takes, I might finally get some work done on the site for my zine, assuming I'm not totally burnt out on computer stuff after I finish the other two.Note Taking: I went through a giant brainstorming session the other day for ways to promote the zine and now I have to get all of that information over to my co-creator so we can decide where to go. Linking up Social Media: I'm still on the fence about the facebook thing, but I got my Twitter running, I'm using Google + (not regularly but...sort of) and I've got more blogs than any one person needs over a variety of platforms. Once I get my new writing site up and going I'll have one site where I can dump all that stuff. Just gotta get it set up. Reformatting: I've procrastinated about as long as I can on getting my next submission, you know, submitted. I've got one final round of editing to do and then I need to get it in proper manuscript format and sent off. Getting Artwork Done: Checking in with Artists: Since all my coding and stuff is getting done - it's about time to write to my artist friends and see where some of my custom artwork stands for things like signatures and graphics. Getting Art Done: My bonus pages for zine subscribers this month are both art pages - not to mention I have some cover images I'd like to finally get put up here. And, yes. That's about it. It's actually a lot of stuff, I know, but it's going to feel a lot better once it all gets done. So, that's what I'm up to today. If anyone needs me for anything I'll be working - but feel free to shoot me an email or something. I'll let everyone know how it goes. Thanks for reading as always. -Cat |
| Hey everybody! I'm back (more or less.) The burns healed up quicker than I could have hoped for and I'm sort of back to normal. I have one finger that's still pretty gross, but overall the damage is really not as bad as I thought and I'm more or less back to my regular activity on here. Anyway, I've got bunch of stuff to get caught up on so I'm going to cut this short, but I wanted to let everyone know that I'm okay and I will be responding to stuff again. Thanks to all the people who sent me their best wishes and concerns - I'll be getting back to messaging you shortly! Hope everyone is doing well and thanks for reading. -Cat |
| Hey guys, I am going to be less active for like, the next week-ish due to yet another dumb injury I inflicted upon myself. I'm starting to think I am cursed or something. I have always been accident prone but these last few weeks have been even worse than usual. I've accidentally stabbed myself, twisted my ankle, inhaled that bug bomb and now I've gone and burned my hands up. Something freaky is going on... Anyway, the damage isn't so bad, but I have to keep ointment on them and the band-aids have made my typing even slower than usual. I'll still be on reading stuff and checking messages, but probably not posting stuff or blogging and any responses I send will be really slow, All the best you guys! -Cat |
| I'm back. In an attempt to keep up my string of productivity, I figured it was finally time to get my social media stuff out of the way. I decided to start with Twitter because it's the one thing I've decided 100% I'm going to get better about using regularly. After about an hour of trying to remember my information I decided to click the "forgot password" link and just reset it. It told me I didn't have an account even though I was sure I did, so I just got a new one. After going and re-following everyone on my new account I decided to go ahead and set up my Google + account and start using it properly because I have a lot of writer friends on there. Then I decided to link my yahoo mail to my google mail and get all my notifications sent to my phone. While I was getting that all hooked up I was reading through my yahoo mail and, turns out, that was the email I set up my twitter information to all along, not my gmail. So now everything is a giant mess. Figures, right? Now I just need to figure out what other accounts I'm going to be using (if any) and set them up. My next big decision needs to be whether or not to scrap my Facebook page or start using it and I really just.... I hate it, but I think it might help. Opinions anyone? Am I going to need a Facebook page to self promote somewhere down the line or can I continue avoiding it and still establish a strong online presence? Has anyone every actually found Facebook to be helpful? Also, are there are good writing communities or any other big social media sites that would potentially be good for me to promote my work through? Do any of you guys have experience with the promotion thing? What does everyone thing? As always your input is appreciated, and thanks for reading. -Cat |
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That said, it's all about the journey Cat. So you get rejection letters. You could be like me - I never get them. Of course, I never submit anything but ... 
If you want to be published, keep trying and you will get there. Don't you dare give up!
