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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 |
| Yesterday I ran a promotional event for my horror blog that was very emotionally exhausting and, in the end, completely pointless. I thought it was going to be a much bigger deal than it was. For the 10th anniversary of Saw 2 being released to DVD I posted text updates about my annual Saw Marathon - and I got a huge response (which was surprising because that is such an obscure event to celebrate, right? I mean, if it wasn't a weird accidental tradition in my household, I know I wouldn't be celebrating it.) Anyway, after that went over so well I thought it would be a really great promotion for my blog to let my followers vote on my next marathon - which led to yesterday's fiasco. I got a lot of suggestions and a lot of people seemed excited to follow my updates, voting brought in a lot of new faces and it was great. Unfortunately the movie series selected was Wrong Turn, which meant I spent my entire Saturday Night watching 6 pretty terrible horror movies (half of which, I'm not proud about this, I had already seen on their release day.) It was sort of fun, I had a lot of snacks and got cuddles from my cats, but it was a long night and literally no one cared. I don't know what happened to the followers that were so excited to subject me to the ordeal that is 6 Wrong Turn movies played back to back (with only one small intermission that I had to take while my Apple TV cooled off) but no one cared that I was doing it. Literally, it got no notes. It probably would have been a bigger hit if I had run it through Twitter or something - which is one of the reasons I keep saying I need to get my social media things under control. Oh well. Now I know. I didn't get any of my replies written until nearly noon yesterday after watching all those and no sleep, and the same goes for what little writing I was able to finish, the reading I did, and of course my school work. Then I had to be up to attend the Game of Thrones screening party my friend threw, which turned a 1 hour show into a 6 hour event. What that all boils down to is that I'm physically and emotionally exhausted at this point. It was a very long weekend. Now that I'm at home and out of my Westeros dress, I realize that I didn't really take any personal time all weekend. There was the event tonight, but, I went sort of out of obligation - so I'm not sure it counts. It was fun, but honestly I would have rather watched the premiere in comfortable clothes at home. I'm unemployed and my flexible school schedule means that a weekend isn't really any different from the rest of the week to me, but I usually try to put Friday and Saturday aside for myself. I work on projects I know no one else is interested in, I binge-watch Netflix, I waste time on Steam, and that just didn't happen this week. A lot of what I did was a dead end, but it was still tiring and I'm going to say it has warranted some me-time throughout the week. Tonight I'm going to spend on here wrapping up the things I wanted to do and didn't get to finish earlier in the weekend. Then I'm going to finish a little more schoolwork, and then I'm calling it quits for a few days to give myself a break. I'll still probably be on here to answer messages, but I'm not going to be reading/reviewing as much for a bit. Not sure what I'll do with all that time yet, but I'm excited. Even though a majority of the weekend work was a bust, but there are a couple things worth mentioning: The first is that I entered 2 of my portfolio pieces into the 2016 Anthology. It was something I talked about in my entry yesterday, and I got a comment and a couple private messages that were all really supportive. Thank you, to everyone who encouraged me to enter. It is really scary, but the anxiety that I'm experiencing isn't as bad as it was the last time I tried something like this, so maybe I'm getting past it. I think it was a good step, even if I don't get accepted. The other thing is that my blog was mentioned in the April 2016 Blogging Bliss Newsletter: http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2080149-April-2016-Blogging-Bliss-... It was really only mentioned because this is a new blog and there's a section to welcome newbies, but it still made me feel good. It's always nice to be noticed. I also have a really great rating on this blog even though I babble, so thank you to everyone for the ratings, reviews, readings and general encouragement. You guys are great. I'm going to go wrap up some work and get to relaxing. Sometime soon I'd like to do an entry outlining some of the Writing.com specific things I'd like to try, but that can wait for another time. As always, thank you guys for reading! -Cat |
| So, I'm debating entering a piece or two for consideration into the 2016 WDC Anthology: http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1935520-2016-WDC--Anthology-Inform... On the one hand, I pretty much know that I'm not going to make it in. It's really competitive, and there are so many amazing writers on here.They're pretty much looking for the best, and I know I'm not there yet. It's 10,000 gp per entry, which seems like a lot considering that I don't really expect to have anything accepted. Last year they only accepted 40% of entries were accepted. On the other hand, it's not like I have a lot to lose. I mean, there are the gp, but with all the reviews I've been doing I can earn those back. Besides, the submission fee goes to two pretty great groups on here, and there was a good chance I was just going to donate them anyway. I don't feel to bad about the loss of those. If I did submit, I could maybe get my friends and family off my back for a little bit about how I never submit anything for publication. The last time I submitted my work anywhere was about 9 months ago, and it was rejected. Plus, hey, even when I don't get accepted, it will give me a chance to deal with my fear of rejection, which is undoubtedly one of the many things holding me back from being published - and something I know I need to start dealing with. It just makes me so nervous. I really, really hate rejection. Probably the only thing that I hate more than rejection is the sick I feeling that comes along with the anticipation building up to the rejection, like after I've submitted something. I guess now is as good a time as any to start learning how to cope with it. I also only have three pieces on here that would really qualify - and one of them I didn't like very much. That makes it a little stressful. I want to just not submit and worry about getting some more pieces up here, but I feel like that's just me evading things, and that's not really going to get me anywhere. Any thoughts or opinions? Or any ideas on less terrifying ways for me to tackle my professional obstacles? Comments appreciated. -Cat |
| I just get so fed up with people sometimes. I've been having a rough night (I don't exactly have Writer's Block but I have....something) and I thought it might be nice to just come do some reviews on here. It's not exactly getting my work done, but it's something creative and productive and I thought it would make me feel better. I stumbled across this thing that was just incredibly sexist, and it made me mad. Just last week I had to go on this huge rampage about people being sexist because a female friend of mine on steam invited me to a group dedicated to slut-shaming female gamers and it was just.... I couldn't believe it. I (sadly) was more than willing to believe that a group like this existed in what's supposed to be a relatively neutral and gamer-friendly environment, but the fact that something like this would be supported by a female gamer was just absolutely beyond my comprehension. And there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to just move on. I denied the request and I unfriended her, and I tried to let it go. It sucks, but it's not like I have the ability to suddenly just end sexism - and I know it's really bad in the gaming community. That's ultimately the issue that made me give up MMOs. The sad thing is by walking away and standing my ground - I felt like I was proving people right. I felt useless. I calmed myself down, knowing that the only thing I could have done was report the group and that would have lead to nothing other than getting attention brought on my account (and hate from a bunch of sexist jerks who think I'm being overly sensitive because I'm a woman - thus proving in their minds women shouldn't be on Steam.) There was nothing I could have done (and sadly, it's not the most horrific Steam group I've been invited to.) Putting it in perspective, I walked away without starting anything. Then this shit that I read today brought it all back up again. I could almost, almost let it go except for that the thing had nearly a 5 star rating. And it wasn't even written well. Even if I agreed with what he was saying about women needing to cater to their men (which...I'm getting so tired of reading about this, to be honest) it shouldn't have had more than a couple star rating in the first place. He misused words, the sentences were confused, there was no conclusion or point to the piece and it was really just bad. When you combine that with how horribly offensive it was it was just.... This isn't a call-out blog, and I don't want to start anything. It's been so long since I've gotten into any crazy internet fights, and that's mostly been because I've learned to let things go. But it gets so hard sometimes, and it's something I didn't expect to be confronted with here. I guess I should have known because no matter where you go there are people who are sexist, and people who just have different fundamental beliefs than I do, but I get so tired of keeping my mouth shut. I almost miss the days when I was getting in fights with people online all day because I don't really like being quiet about these sorts of issues. |
| I was going to get some work done on my romance samples tonight after getting some very encouraging responses about how to get ideas and what direction to go in, but I guess I'm not really feeling romantic tonight. There's a spider crawling around my ceiling. I wouldn't describe myself as arachnophobic. I used to be the girl who had to move any spiders we found at slumber parties, in fact. That being said, I also don't really enjoy being inside with them. I prefer my spiders to be outside. I don't like them crawling around in a confined space that I'm in. The obvious solution would be to move the spider, but unfortunately, I'm short. Since he's on the ceiling, I can't reach him. I could climb up on some furniture I guess but he's moving around pretty quick. He's pretty fast. And pretty large. The irony in the situation is that I can't move from the living area to my bedroom, because it's being bug bombed. My parents suggested that I bug bomb early because last year I found out I'm severely allergic to, get this, spider bites. It's not like it will kill me if I did get bit, but the bite would turn a nasty color for inches all the way around, it would itch like hell, I'd have to take medicine for it, and it goes anything like last time I'll scratch it open in my sleep and it will leave another nasty scar that people don't believe me about how I got - because of all the things to be allergic to. Spiders and dogs. Life is weird. It's also sometimes mildly unpleasant and full of spiders. Maybe I should try working on horror stuff for a bit. I'm in that perfect zone where my nerves are frayed and I expect something to start crawling up on me at any moment. -Cat |
| At the end of my last entry I said I was thinking about coming back here and outlining some of my projects to see if I could get any feedback or opinions on what I should be working on next in terms of personal projects. Something came up however, and I got distracted, so now I'm going to talk about that instead and ask everyone's advice on a similar dilemma. (As for the blog outlining upcoming projects, I'll get back around to it eventually, I'm sure.) I pulled an all-nighter doing homework, and my plan was just to sign onto my theme blogs, check my messages, and head straight to bed (now here I am, two hours later, still up.) When I signed in to check the messages for my writing/work blog, I had gotten an anonymous prompt. I thought for sure I was too tired to respond to it, but one of the requirements was that it be under 500 words, so I decided to give it a go since it wouldn't take very long. It took me about 20-30 minutes to write a response, I gave it a quick edit to catch the biggest typing errors (I really wish I were better at typing) and uploaded it. On a whim, I went ahead and uploaded it to some other places as well (including here, the item is called "Revisited" if you want to check it out.) The piece itself isn't anything amazing and it's not like I'm very proud of it (although I am sort of proud of how concise it is - for me anyway) but it did get me thinking about romance writing and samples and stuff, and that's why I'm here; to vent about romance writing and stuff. I touched on this briefly in my last entry, but for context I'm going to elaborate a bit: I'm a ghost-writer. I finished my contract recently, but for the last 3 years I've basically written young adult romance novels and let someone else take the credit for them. Like with any job, there were ups and downs. Sometimes it sucks not getting credit for things, but at least it was steady work, I had great hours, and I got good money. Since it's still going to be awhile before I have anything published (under my own name) or am making serious money writing things for myself - I'm probably going to have to get another ghost-writing job. I don't mind doing that, but writing that little piece today has got me a little bit panicked about how I'm going to go about getting another ghost-writing position. Even though I have a lot of experience in the field, I can't really prove it because I signed non-disclosure agreements for my last position, and I didn't retain the rights to any of the work that I did during that time. I didn't think that would be a big deal, but it occurs to me now that the most current romance sample that I have (that I can use) is from over 3 years ago. Romance is basically my least favorite genre to write in. It's not that I mind writing it exactly, it's just nothing I ever choose to write for myself. It is however, where all the money is for a ghost-writer. I still have some time to pull some romance samples together for my portfolio before I desperately need to start applying anywhere, but the seriousness of this situation just hit me. Romance is probably the only genre I really need to have a wide selection of pieces for and I literally only have two pieces - the first commission I ever did (which is now 3+ years old) and the drabble piece I wrote this morning (which isn't up to my normal portfolio piece standard.) Getting horror or fantasy samples is easy, I just need to pick my favorites out of the personal things I've written, type them up and slap them on the site, but I don't have that for romance and it's really freaking me out. I don't know where I'm going to come up with enough romance ideas to get this done. So far, these are the solutions I've come up with: -Offer a deal on romantic commissions. If I get on tumblr and offer 50% OC shipping pieces on the sole condition I be allowed to host that work on my portfolio site, I'd probably get a lot of offers. That would mean learning to work with a lot of new characters that don't belong to me though, and that can take a lot of time I don't feel like I have at the moment. I also don't have my commission site up at the moment because, well, I took it down to update my samples. -Find romantic prompts. I sort of tried this already, but maybe I could get enough really good pieces just from doing a variety of prompt responses. The issue is of course, sifting through countless prompts to get enough good ideas. If anyone can recommend any prompts, I'll gladly take a look. -Rework my old stories. I'm not what you would call a romantic anymore, but there was a summer in middle school that I spent inside writing love stories about various Mary-Sue incarnations of myself falling in love with various handsome guitarists. As painful as reading old stories can be, I feel like there's probably at least one idea in that whole mess that had a solid enough plot I could salvage it. Of course, optimistically I could get 2 or 3 short stories from that at best, which would be enough if they were really good - but I'm worried that they might all be too similar (considering they would all have similar themes because that's just what I was into.) -Browse writing contests. I'm too nervous and insecure to enter my writing into a lot of contests, but there are a lot on here, and I've seen more than one genre-specific one. I could maybe take a peak through and try my hand at a couple of entries, see if that amounts to anything. So far, these are my ideas. They're not great, but it's the best I've come up with thus far. If anyone has any opinions, suggestions or even vague sort of ideas to send my way, it would be much appreciated. If you have prompts or contests you could refer me to, that would also probably be good. Thanks for reading, and thank you guys in advance for any help or support. I can't believe it took me this long to start panicking about this. In the meantime, I'm going to go try to squeeze in a couple hours of sleep. When I return I will be getting back to finish answering my emails, responding to comments, and thanking everyone for reading, rating, and commenting. You guys really are the best, Cat |
| Yesterday's reviewing went better than I would have thought possible. I didn't meet a ton of people or anything, but the people who responded to my reviews all seemed to have gotten a little something out of what I said, and no one got mad at me. It was probably kind of silly to think people were going to be mad at me, but I guess I've just been on tumblr so long that I assume everyone is angry at me all the time no matter what I do. This particular blog entry is less about my writing and anecdotes and more about organizing my evening, so if anyone is reading this - I guess you don't have to. My projects and plans are just such a mess, and sometimes the best organizational tool for me when things get this messy is to talk through it until I have a solid plan, usually in the form of an obnoxiously long To-Do list that I know deep down is never going to be finished. I could do all this ranting and sorting in my private journal, but today I'm going to do it here so that I don't get a notice from the site reminding me that I haven't updated my blog all day. As I mentioned feel free to skim, skip or ignore this entry. I have a lot of projects that I'm working on - and having recently quit my last job I'm starting to feel the pressure of finding employment again (also, I'm out of money.) I had a ton of things I wanted to do before I went back to work and since it's about time for me to start filling out applications, I need to get some headway on all of these projects before it's too late, and right now I should probably be deciding what's most important and what needs done first. The things that I think are the biggest priority are my portfolio page and my social media, but I do have a lot of projects to get moving on aside from that. Every time I make up my mind to start working on one thing, someone will bring up one of my other projects, making it feel most important and then I feel like I'm drowning in unfinished things. The portfolio page really should get done first - even though getting it up to the standard I want it is a huge mess right now. I really do feel like it's the most important. I've been saying for 3 years I was going to finish the new formatting and get a wider collection of more recent samples, and so far it just hasn't happened. A lot of that was because I was ghost-writing professionally and it was time consuming and I don't own the rights to any of that work, but now that I have a little time off it's time to finally get that done before I stop having the time to do it. Finishing the portfolio page means typing up a lot of my original work that's just sitting around my office collecting dust. Typing, editing, uploading, formatting and linking literally dozens of pieces. That's a very daunting task, which is probably why I keep procrastinating. After that I've got my social media pages. I really, really hate social media, but one thing that I wanted to do was establish a small following, and that's not going to happen unless I get some accounts up to date. My tumblr is going alright (it's the only one that is actually) but along with my portfolio site I should probably update (and start using) at the very least my twitter. I should also update the resume I have on linkedin or delete the account entirely because as of right now, it's just sad. I should also probably delete my Facebook page. I only got one because my last job wanted me to be able to sign into the group chat for brainstorming and now that the project is done, I really don't see the point in keeping the profile open. I've never used it for anything else or even accepted any friend requests (which my boyfriend is still pissy about.) Then there's the romance writing. I'm really, really not looking forward to it, but the sad truth is I need to write up some current romance-genre stuff before I start applying anywhere. I don't really like it, but romantic fiction is where the money is - especially in ghost writing, and all of my samples are outdated. It will be good for my portfolio site, good for my applications, and I probably should have done it a long time ago. I don't know how I'll get ideas for that (romance ideas always come the most difficult for me) but I'll need to strive through and get it done - soon. Then I won't have to apply to ghost-writing positions with Silence of the Lamps anymore, and won't that be nice. Maybe I'll do some commissions. Offer a %50 off discount for anyone who will let me post the commission on my portfolio site. That's how I got my last set of romance samples, and I've been using them for the last 3 years, so it must have worked out okay. It would be really nice to get all my articles back into my queues for the theme blogs to use as nonfiction samples, but with the formatting always acting up on my netbook, that dream is just not practical until I get my laptop replaced. I can probably put that off for a little while longer. Publishing something would be amazing, but I'm so far away from having that done. I have a book ready to be self-published, but it was a spin off for a collaboration that got discontinued, which is not the best publicity. I could still consider self-publishing one of my other pieces, but I feel like at this point I don't really have a large enough following - and I'm pretty bad at self-promotion. It would be a lot easier to focus on publication and agents and all of that if I was better at writing short stories, but I always have been more into novels. The last thing I'd really like to get done before starting work up again, aside from networking and portfolio stuff, is finishing a project for me. I've done a lot of collaborative work (especially with the zine coming out every month) but it's been so long since I've written something just for me. Even my last few years of NaNo have been things based off of projects someone else is in on. I can't do it now because I'm running out of time before my Parapsychology class, but maybe my next blog entry can be a list of potential candidates for projects I'd like to make some headway on. I can get some feedback, maybe set up a folder on here, and see what people think deserves my attention. Then I could, at the very least, have an idea of what direction I'll be going in. Who knows, I could work on it on the side of the job hunt, and I might have something really accomplished before I go back to anything full time. That's a lot of things, and it's still overwhelming, but at least now it's sort of organized.If I could do one portfolio item a day around my classes, I'd be done by the end of the month, and the rest of the work I have (other than the romance samples) could probably be done over one, very productive weekend. With my homework, I don't know if that's a possible goal, but it might get me back on track if I can keep it. Anyway, it's time for me to leave, I've got some serious note-taking to do. When I get back I think I really will do a write up about the projects I'm thinking of focusing on to help me get that mess organized and maybe get some feedback. -Cat |
| This blog actually has more viewers than I thought it would - although no one has commented or anything yet. I think it's weird that people are reading this, but it's also sort of exciting. Anyway, tonight I'm online, but instead of working on getting some more items uploaded to my portfolio (which I should be doing) or editing existing portfolio items, I'm going to be doing reviews of some of the stories on here. I really like doing reviews, and I've been looking to make some writing connections, so hopefully this helps some, and if not, at least I get to read a lot of really cool things, right? As for my reviews, I'm still learning how to do them. I've been reviewing things for a long time (as my previous blogs and good reads profile can attest) but it's only recently that I've been trying to make them more constructive. I unfortunately had fallen into that internet mentality where a thing is either defended blindly because you like it or criticized mercilessly because you don't - and that's not really helpful to anyone. I don't think I've ever said anything in a review that I wouldn't back up to whoever wrote the item in question, but it is different handing these reviews out directly to the creators, and it's a little intimidating. On the one hand, I'm a writer. I get negative stuff said about work I'm proud of all the time and it always hurts. It always gives me that moment of doubt where I wonder if this is a dead end for me. No matter how nicely bad stuff is said, there's the risk that it will discourage people from creating further, and I would never want to be responsible for that. On the other hand - I recently had a close friend publish a book. She asked me to review the book on her site and even gave me a free copy. I was excited for her and I thought it was going to be a lot of fun, and then I read the book. It wasn't terrible or anything, but it lacked depth and the whole thing felt rushed. I didn't say anything, gave it 5-star reviews and kept my mouth shut because I wanted to be supportive. Then she submitted it to a bunch of critics and it was, well, it was bad. It's hard to take criticism and stay motivated at the same time. That's something I struggle with all the time. Still, it's important sometimes to hear the negative reviews, just like it's important to hear the good ones. I try really hard to be honest and to be constructive. I'm also learning to appreciate things for what they are, and review them accordingly. For instance, I was giving feedback on the work of one of my tumblr followers earlier today and I really disliked the piece because it was nothing I would ever read otherwise, but I let him know that he did a really good job writing it and how he could make it better. I'm not going to like everything that I read, but that doesn't mean I can't see the value in things. But, anyway, enough ranting about that. I'm going to be reviewing things from the Recently Requested Reviews section on here, but if anyone has anything they would like me to read, let me know. I'm pretty good about getting to stuff in a timely manner, and I really would love to read some of my 30ish mysterious blog readers. -Cat |
| This entry is just a little piece dedicated to one of my portfolio pieces, Silence of the Lamps. With the purchase of an upgraded account, I was finally able to upload the most recent draft of it, and it got me thinking a little bit about how I got the idea so I thought I'd share, just in case anyone was interested. I wrote the first draft about 3 years ago when I was doing my first convention circuit with my close friend, Alan. We had just started selling prints and taking commissions as a collaborative art team, and had gotten accepted to participate in our first Artists Alley at a small anime convention in northern Ohio. We drove up Thursday to get our table set up and we spent three nights in the hotel. The convention was pretty much a bust. We just barely broke even of what it cost us to attend by the time we paid for our table space, food, gas and the room, and I felt like we were pretty lucky to even get that much because we probably only saw a couple hundred people walk through Artists Alley the whole time we were there. By Friday, we were committed to staying (having already paid for the trip) but we were also bored out of our minds sitting at the table waiting for convention-goers that just weren't there. The nights were pretty much the same except for instead of sitting at the table, we were sitting up in hotel room. There were two things that were really memorable to me about the trip, the lamp and the elevator. The lamp was huge, I mean, really, really huge - to the point you could see it from ground level looking up through the window. We seemed to be the only room that had a lamp like that, and it's honestly not the sort of furniture you'd expect for a hotel at all. As for the elevator, it just seemed to be broken. It would stop on extra floors and often take us up a floor above where we wanted to go. On the Saturday of the convention, Alan was feeling pretty down about how things were going. I told him that the trip was worth it because it had given me for a new story about a haunted elevator. He pretty much ignored me (to be fair, I say stuff like this all the time.) I told him I was going to call it Hellevator, which he smiled at, but continued ignoring me. In an effort to lift his spirits I continued adding details to the story to make it increasingly ridiculous, and the whole time he basically pretended to ignore me, shaking his head and working on the few commissions we had gotten the day before. We spent the whole day mostly communicating in me offering hints about a story that I honestly, at that point, didn't intend to ever actually write. "It's going to be about our stay in the hotel." "Whenever the elevator takes us to the third floor instead of the second floor, I'm going to write about how we get off and battle with ghosts." "I'm going to include that giant lamp in our room." "You and I will be the main characters." "Only we'll be a married couple." "And I'll be a man." "My name will be George." "Your name will be.... Mary." "We'll be on our honeymoon." "I'm still going to be a writer, but you're going to be an out of work actress." He finally laughed out loud at the last comment, which I made as we were packing up for the night, and I pretty much thought that the joke had run it's course, and was entirely ready to forget about it. We made the most amount of money on Sunday, but it was all in print sales, so we didn't really have anything to work on. I thought that it would be funny to write up a quick draft of the story to read to him on the ride home as a surprise, but at that point I couldn't remember what I had said it was going to be called. I asked him what the title had been because I was going to start working on it, and he rolled his eyes and told me he couldn't remember. I told him if he couldn't come up with it that the new title would be something even more ridiculous. He basically ignored me, so I came up with the pun-iest name I could think of on the spot; Silence of the Lamps. He answered me with "Oh dear God" and I knew it was something I had to write, if only to mess with him. I wrote a few drafts of the story I had described, but none of them felt right and increasing number of changes were made in what the story was and how it was told, and I worked on it on and off for about 3 months with basically no success, because even though I had wanted the story to be funny, it wasn't coming out as a comedy piece, because I've always leaned more toward more emotional writing. Finally it hit me that since I'd been joking about writing a stupid story called Silence of the Lamps for months that the better thing to do at that point would be to keep joking about it and writing it off as a silly piece, and then give it to him as a more serious story because he'd never see it coming. I went home that night and wrote the rough draft in one sitting. I kept up the joke about it being silly for another 3 months until finally I couldn't wait anymore, and I uploaded the first draft to Deviantart and sent it to him. The response was pretty much as I had expected it would be. To be honest, I'm not sure why I ever put it up anywhere else. Even though I'd stopped trying to make the piece into something particularly funny, I never really took it very seriously. It was the first thing I ever uploaded to Writing.com, but that was mostly because I was trying to figure out how the site worked and that was the document I had on me. I had it on my writing portfolio for a bit as well, but again, not because I expected people to read it. I put it up mostly so I could tell Alan that I was using it as a portfolio piece - but since the other things on there are around 2,000 words (as oppose to the 10,000 that the original Silence of the Lamps draft was) I figured people would just see it was long and ignore it. Then something really strange and amazing started to happen, people started to like it. I remember the first instance of this, someone emailed me through my commission site and asked if I was still taking commissions. I said I was and they put in a request. In the comments section they wrote that they had read Silence of the Lamps and been really moved by it. Of course, I called Alan straight away to tell him that I had gotten a job because of the story and he had to be sent a screencap of the line before he believed me. I thought it was just the funniest thing in the world, but it ended up not being an isolated instance. A lot of people on my site were telling me they had read and enjoyed it, and shortly after that I tried sending it in as a writing sample with my applications for ghost-writing. The first time I thought for sure I had made a mistake, but I ended up being offered the position. It's actually the only piece I've ever had reviewed on this site, it got a really good rating (to my surprise) and that was what motivated me to finally do a second draft. The second draft ended up being a huge pain because at nearly 12,000 words it's slightly too long to host just about anywhere in one piece. It's not like it's been a huge success story for me or anything, I still don't have anything published in my own name, no one knows who I am, nothing else I've ever written gets any attention, but it's the most consistently positive story in my life - and I never intended it to be. I might do some future edits on it, more than one person has talked to me about potential interest in a novel-length adaptation, and I had briefly played with the idea of adapting it into a short film. I feel weird defending the artistic integrity of a piece that I never meant to take seriously, but I feel like changing it or adapting it at this point would just make it into something it's not. For some strange, unfathomable reason, this is turning out to be my most successful piece, and I don't want to take away whatever appeal it seems to have. I suppose it just depends on whether or not there ever gets to be any serious interest (which I somehow doubt.) It was so much fun to write, and as you can tell from this post I enjoy talking about it, and if it ever came up I do think I'd consider doing more with it. Anyway, I'm not sure why anyone who hasn't read the story would have suffered through all my blabbing about it, but if you've stumbled across this and are interested in the story, you can find it with one of the following urls: Writing.Com: http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1960327-Silence-of-the-Lamps Horror Blog: http://in-defense-of-the-horror.tumblr.com/post/142998946668/silence-of-the-lamp... Deviantart (Part 1): http://cat-voleur.deviantart.com/art/Silence-of-the-Lamps-pt-1-410009940 Deviantart (Part 2): http://cat-voleur.deviantart.com/art/Silence-of-the-Lamps-pt-2-603749344 My Portfolio Site - Coming Soon (if and when I ever find the time to finish revamping it) Thank you for reading. If these sorts of memories don't interest anyone, that sucks because it's basically what I intend on writing here, but let me know anyway I guess. If anyone enjoyed it, feel free to tell me, and I'll try to update this a little more regularly. -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!