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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, This has been just an insane week - and the coming weekend is going to be even crazier. I have a lot of personal and professional stuff going on right now. This has been the last weekend that I'm staying with my boyfriend (not forever, but probably until at least October - because I don't really see myself getting a full time job until after this my NGHW contest is over, I am already stretching myself pretty thin just trying to keep up with everything. Because of that I've been pretty emotional - which is something I have never been great at coping with in the best of circumstances. These have not been the best of circumstances, because I'm already incredibly stressed from my writing contest - and I also came down with some kind of weird flu-like thing that's been going around. I think I'm on the mend though, which is great since I will be hitting the road on Monday night, regardless of how sick I am. My best friend in the whole world is driving all the way down here to pick me up on his spring break, and I am returning the favor by giving him the full, southern experience. After he meets all the different kinds of domesticated reptiles (especially my pet ball python Chronos, who my boyfriend will be keeping down here with him and I'll be missing very much), we're going to hit some of my favorite beaches, do a haunted tour of some kind, eat at a barbecue place, and spend some time in Harper Lee's birth town. Because that's the sort of thing people want to do in the south, right? Probably not - I'm just a giant nerd. But he's coming in between conventions and our local game shop just closed up...and I don't get out a lot. I'm always here, writing. Luckily he likes beaches, so that will take up most of our time, and I think he'll at least try to feign an interest in Harper Lee's birth-town. We might also get in a fight with some neonazis. I'm kidding about that. Hopefully. (He actually is an adorably flamboyant transgender though, so I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried about the possibility that I might have to take a bullet for him when he gets down here. Actually...I'm kind of surprised nobody down here has shot me either. Anyway.) While I am on the topic of controversial political issues however, I found an anthology that might be willing to accept my political horror piece. I need to cut it down quite a bit, but I'm really excited that somewhere is even willing to consider it. I've actually been kind of disappointed in the horror genre lately. I had been on a political horror kick for awhile before I wrote the piece, and it seems like nearly all of my favorite stories have really deep social commentary - but there are surprisingly few markets looking to take political horror right now. That deeply saddens me. Politics, in a lot of ways, are scarier than any kind of horror. It's real, it's gritty, and it's something that we have to deal with all the time. I think one of the scariest things I think about every day is that in my own home, in my own country, there are decisions being made that I feel are so blatantly wrong - and that I'm wrong about that in the eyes of so many others. When it comes down to big issues I feel so strongly that some things are right, and the fact that there are people who believe in all the opposite things just as devoutly can be...well, horrific. One of my least favorite parts about the horror contest so far is that I'm not supposed to submit work with a political agenda and that's just...it's been really rough on me, because this is the most I've ever cared about politics in my life, and it's something that genuinely scares me in a way that I haven't been so scared in a long time. Politics have been influencing a lot of my work lately, and it's been really difficult to dial that back. To be fair I was going to be having with this first challenge anyway because it's monster oriented and it's microfiction, which are two of my weakest links in the genre. I'm glad that this is score-driven contest and not an elimination kind of contest... though it also sucks to know I'll be carrying a bad score with me from the first round. Anyway... That's some stuff that has been going on with me. I'm kind of trying to catch up with a mountain of things I slacked off on while being sick, even though I'm still kind of lingering in the zone of not feeling well and my personal life (and yeah, professional life - all my life) is a total mess. But I am going to try to get through all my emails and stuff today. I won a contest thing that I'm excited about and it looks like I have some review stuff to sort out. I hope everyone is doing well with their projects and lives and everything is awesome. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, It's about time for me to start thinking about if/how I want to new my subscription here. My plan since I bought my first subscription later year has been to renew in gift points (because I have literally no money) and I was going to try to upgrade my account at the same time to go from upgraded to premium, which is the account level I wanted in the first place. I was really good about saving my gift points despite the inclination to spend them on awesome things. I've donated to a couple activities and tipped some reviewers, and I treated myself to a signature - but overall I've been really good. Unfortunately I'm not quite where I need to be to upgrade and still pay for the whole year. If I can find the time to do more activities and I stay as active I have been in the review groups I might actually have enough, but I am not 100% confident that I'll have the time, especially with this writing contest going on and my manuscript underway (and the trip I'm going on.) I have about a month to decide and earn the gift points if I decide to stay the course for the premium membership, but I need to figure out if it's something I want to go for. At this point I'm thinking buying a whole year of the upgraded might be better than buying less time of the premium. (Because it's not like I don't have plenty to do with the features that I have unlocked.) Do any of you guys have the premium memberships, and would you like to weigh in? Maybe holding off another year would be better for me anyway, until I get some more stuff up on my portfolio and utilize the upgraded features some more. Thoughts? Opinions? As always, your input is deeply appreciated. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, Today has been interesting. It's weird. I've been conducting interviews with writers all week trying to get even just a little bit of traction on the new wordpress blog (which is going terribly - btw. Not only am I not attracting new readers, but I've lost some of my tumblr followers with the transition, and the rest of them won't follow me over to the new platform. It's a nightmare, and I think my dream of transition into professional, crowdfunded full-time horror blogging is going to die before I make it a full week in.) I have researched interviews, I've conducted them, formatted them, posted a couple - and yet when I had to do my interviews today, I was totally unprepared. The first one was a mess all the way around. The sent me a script with their half of the interview questions and then I got to write and record my half of the script. I'm not a great speaker, so this would have made me nervous under ideal circumstances, which I definitely didn't have today. My allergies were acting up like crazy, my voice kept cutting out, I sounded super doped up (which I swear was because of the drowsiness the extra allergy pills gave me - but in the interest of full disclosure I had also had whiskey in my last couple cups of tea because my throat hurt.) It was terrible, but I survived it and sent in my responses on time. Then was the email interview, which I thought was going to be next week. But I know a lot about email interviews now (thanks to the all the practice I've gotten) but it's really different being on the other side of it. It was just such a surreal experience. Here's a woman who is talented, successful, knows the ins and outs of the horror genres as well, if not better than me, she has a steady job in genre-journalism, is objectively very successful. And there she was asking me questions. It felt so wrong. I kept wanting to turn the tables back around on her and have her answer questions. Then there were the questions themselves. Some of them were really practical and then some of them were like.... "I have no idea how to answer this." And then there were some that were a mix of both where it made sense she would ask, but I still had no idea how to answer. Can you describe your horror stories? I don't know. I like writing about gore but there's thing I wrote this lamp thing as a joke that people seemed to like. Some of my recent stories are about things like windows and games and demonic fish. Why should people root for you in this contest? They shouldn't, probably. Have you read some of these other people's work? Like, I definitely shouldn't even be here. Don't root for me. We'll both be disappointed. What turns you on in a book? Like, what turns me on in real life I guess. Guitarists and BDSM stuff that isn't 50 shades. Lip rings. Anything Daenerys Targaryen is doing pretty much also applies. So I finally managed to answer all but two of the questions without completely lying, but also while not going with my gut answers, which were usually sarcastic, depressing, pathetic or really creepy. (I want the audience to be afraid of my work, not of me.) And the last two questions are: What is your favorite word? What is your least favorite word? I like so many words that I decided least favorites would be easier. I was going to try to pick something like heteronormativity or rableism - a word that represents something negative that I feel is a problem in the writing community. But then I realized that a lot of people who say they don't like those words actually just don't like hearing about those issues, and I didn't want to come across that way. And then for a long time I couldn't think of any words I disliked. So I went back to favorite words. I wanted to say something deep or sophisticated, but I'm the kind of person who spends a lot of time listing my favorite words in my head, and a lot of the reasoning is juvenile and or nonexistent. Two great examples of this would be the following: "Pamplemousse", which is my all time favorite word in any language. It's French, for those of you who don't know, and it means grapefruit. I like this word because it's impossible for me to think about without smiling and it's fun to say. My favorite English word is "testicles", for very similar reasons. It's not that I have strong feelings about testicles obviously, I just think it's a funny word. I like the way it sounds. I also know that there's not a way I can explain this in my interview and still sound like an adult. (Or sound really perverted... and this is going to be read almost exclusively by people who already believe I'm a sexbot.) I'm also a big fan of expletives. As I have gotten older and matured (as much as a woman who just admitted to finding the words pamplemousse and testicles funny can mature) I have cut back on my usage of them in every day conversation, but they're still words that I find to be incredibly amusing. I'm particularly fond of the ones where "f***" has been incorporated into some other, hopefully ridiculous word. I tweeted briefly about my dilemma, but people found it a bit too funny to take seriously - so they were not a lot of help. Long story short, I've spent a lot of time today ranking random lists of words I found compiled on the internet - and this has been the reason why. I did finally find an answer that I deemed acceptable, but we'll see how this all goes over when the internet is published. I hope things are going well for you guys, and that you're keeping it together a bit better than I am. Because I am absolutely ridiculous, and this contest is making it worse, if anything. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, You know how when you are putting off doing something important you try to justify your procrastination by doing a bunch of other stuff? I have been taking that to a whole new level because as it turns out.... I really, really don't want to record podcast bumpers or clean up my Facebook page. In the last 24 hours I have written 7k+ in nonfiction content (reviews, interview formatting, articles, etc.), finished a chapter and a half of manuscript, I have screen-capped all my own movie/game stills for the next weeks worth of reviews, I have updated my tumblr queue, caught up on my submission notes, and outlined two new stories. Of course none of these are things that are as important as my bumpers...but that's just where I'm at. Coincidentally... I have a bunch of stuff I'd like to get done on Writing.com today - starting with answering the lovely messages that I have been letting pile up the last couple days. I apologize for that. I'd also like to post a story that's just been collecting dust on my laptop AND I have a cool idea for a new nonfiction item. AND (if anyone should be interested) The new WordPress version of my horror blog is up and running. I'm still going to be making a few aesthetic and style changes to it (probably a lot of them over these next couple weeks) but if any of you would like to read the interview I did today with the president of Hocus Pocus Comics, I am just going to go ahead and leave that link for you here: Inside Elevator with Dwight L. MacPherson  I hope you guys are all having a wonderful time and I'm looking forward to procrastinating here with you today. All the best, Cat |
| Hey Guys, It has been a weird couple of days. A lot of that can be attributed to the fact that I'm now on Facebook, a decision which is....regrettable. I can't seem to win regardless of what I do...which so far has been very little My site activity so far has consisted of the following: - Accepting an invitation to the contest group (the entire reason why I'm on the site in the first place) - Responding to 2 posts in the private group posted by my fellow competitors - "Liking" a post at the request of the group mentor that contained the contest schedule. But there are the facebook friends.... and it's just a battle that I can't quite seem to get the hang of. I accepted invitations from the contest judges, the other contestants, and my group mentors. I thought that was going to be the end of it. I woke up with 99+ emails full of friend requests. I guess my big error is that I just auto-accepted people. Before anyone starts, I know that there are dangers to this - but I don't use the site, and have otherwise been incredibly careful. I don't have any personal information on there, I haven't posted anything - I really don't care about the site or my profile. The only reason I chose to auto-accept people instead of auto-decline people is because my mentors have been encouraging me to network, and I didn't know about the follow option. The first thing that I learned about Facebook is that, unlike many of the other social networking platforms I have been an active member of - requests don't just run their course. Instead, friends seem to breed more requests. So by accepting people my profile got more attention and I got exponentially more requests in my second day on the site. This is when I first started to reconsider my plan, and since I had a slow day yesterday (or what I thought was supposed to be a slow day - I'll cycle back around to that) I decided that my best option would be to stop adding people, and look into a better solution. I started by deactivating my email notifications and then did a little bit of research (which in retrospect I probably should have done in the first place, but, you know. Hindsight is 20/20.) I found out about the following option and a couple setting options. Without spending more than a few minutes online I was able to set it up so that people can follow my page (an empty page, mind you) without needing to send me friend requests and so that friend requests can only be sent by friends of friends, which I thought should cut down on the invite traffic (it didn't.) I figured this was probably a solution to my problem and that the whole thing would start winding down. Unfortunately I had already added enough people to my friends list that the pool of people still able to send requests is apparently quite extensive. I have, for the time being, put a pin in the issue and am just letting the requests pile up - but don't worry. Even without adding new people I am up to my neck in drama from this site. The main thing is that people are under the impression that I'm a not a person, but a sex bot. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting, staring vacantly at my laptop trying to decide if people would notice if I just unfriended all of the strangers who got auto-accepted in the first stage of my idiocy. It would be a quick solution to my problem and I believe it would cut way. way down on future social media related stress. The only reason I could think of not to do it (and why I still haven't done it) is because the only place promoting my Facebook page at this point is this horror contest. I'm sure that 99% of the people I added don't care about me or this contest but the last thing I want to do is accept someone without thinking about it, and then while attempting to rectify my situation delete someone who is actually interested in this contest and alienate a potential reader who gets hurt because I accepted their request and then deleted them. (I know that this is likely never going to be the case - but what can I say, I'm neurotic and paranoid and full of meta-social anxiety.) While contemplating this I get a message from a complete stranger. I have gotten a couple of messages through the site so far, one from my mentor, a couple from other contestants, and one from a guy who I've never met who really likes the horror genre and wanted to talk to me about scary games (awesome dude, btw.) This (unlike the other, aforementioned interactions) isn't a greeting or an introduction, but rather a question that I found to be puzzling. Between his assumptions and my being a smart ass, our conversation was as follows: Him: Are you real? Me: That's what my AI programming tells me. Him: Wat? Me: Yeah, I'm real. Are you real? Him: Uh...yeah. Me: Cool. Him: So what do you look like? Me: Pretty much like the picture, except slightly older and my hair is more green. Him: no, I mean really. Me: Uh... my picture? Him: Then why do you only have the one up? Me: I'm really just on here to get updates about a contest I'm in. Him: What kind of contest? Me: A writing contest. Him: And you're really a girl? Me: Yes Him: Do you have any more pictures? Me: Nope. Him: I don't think you're real after all Me: That's okay. You can think what you'd like Him: Since you only have the one picture and all Me: Okay Him: I might buy it if you had more pictures. Me: I'm not asking you to buy anything. Him: I don't believe you're real. Me: I don't care what you believe in. Just believe in it. Him: Uhm, okay. I stopped communication (and I did take this one guy off my friends list... so I'm making progress. I like to think that he's out there somewhere telling his friends he met the world's most existential and poorly programmed sex bot of all time - even though I know that's probably not the case. The beauty is that I genuinely don't care if he believed me or not. Honestly if all of Facebook collectively decided to ignore me because I'm just a program with one picture to lure in guys before coercing them into paying for some kind of cam service or sex chat room - I would think it was pretty funny. If it's not making actual readers think I'm a bitch, and if it doesn't get me disqualified from my contest, I don't care. The most amusing part of the whole thing, to me, is how he acted, even under the assumption that I'm a bot out for his money. He looked at my profile, with only one picture and no posts, assumed I was a bot, added me, initiate contact, and then wanted me to prove that I'm not a bot despite his beliefs to the contrary. He's either very lonely and secretly hoping that I am a bot, or very bad at being a cyber-predator. In either case, it's sad and a chilling, but entertaining mystery, to which I'll never get my answers. I also have to question the line of logic in thinking that I would be a sexbot. Although I can sort of see making that assumption about someone who has a profile that's blank but for a profile picture of a woman... I feel like it's obvious that I wouldn't fall into that category. I suppose that my outfit shows some cleavage, but it's not a particularly provocative photo in any other regard (and the photo as seen on my profile is cropped at about my shoulders in any case.) I don't meet the level of attractiveness or makeup prowess of the average bait photo. I haven't added anyone, I'm only in one group (for a horror writers contest) and my background image is a bloody hand. If mine were a sexbot profile... it would be a weird one. I digress. This morning I finally caved and asked some people who have been on Facebook a lot longer than me to weigh in. I got conflicting answers about my next move and it seems to be split pretty 50/50. Some people are under the impression that yes, I should just go ahead and delete the people I added and add only a small, core group of friends/family/acquaintances. The other half seem to think that I should just keep automatically adding people because it increases my online visibility, and as long as I continue being cautious about what information I share there's very little risk. I would like to remind you again that at this point I still have not posted anything. All of this drama is for an account that hasn't made any posts aside from two reactions in a private group. This is it. This is why I didn't join Facebook for so many years. It is this kind of drama and stress that kept me off of this site and I cannot wait until it is all over. The really tragic thing about this situation is that I should be using this opportunity to network and build a fanbase. I have been given so much attention because of this horror contest and this would be a great chance for me to reach more readers and all I want to do is stay signed out of this site forever. Who knows when or if something like this is going to come around for me again. So tonight one of the things I get to do (instead of focusing on the launch of my new blog - which I'm already behind schedule on two days in) is hunt around to see if there are any people on my friends list currently who might genuinely be interested in the contest and then remove everyone else. Even if adding people is low risk at the rate I'm posting (which is nonexistent) It's just too much hassle. I have my follow option in case anyone wants to know what I'm up to that bad (and if that's the case they should be following my Twitter or joining up here where I actually talk about stuff) and I just don't want to have to be dealing with hundreds of new people every day. Even if this makes my web presence less pronounced and costs me hypothetical readers somewhere down the road... it's just going to work better for me to do it this way. Besides, I should be allowed to post about my projects if and when I decide to take this opportunity to network without worrying (extra) about who is on my friends list. I am a writer...and I want to spend my time writing. Not...whatever this has been. Now, about my busy yesterday which I promised to cycle back around to. I am spinning off the horror blog. It will no longer be a tumblr exclusive. I'll be posting articles that will be widely accessible via WordPress. I'm very excited and I've lined up some interviews with amazing indie creators of the horror genre to get me going. I plan on this being my new day job in the long run which means that in addition to a more professional platform I'll be doing so extra networking and setting up fun things like a Patreon page. Those are all plans which I'm very happy to talk about, but it's going to have to wait. Right now I have interview questions to answer as well as interview questions to ask. It hasn't even been a week yet...and I am already exhausted. I'm really, really glad that I got to my site reviews early this month. I hope things are going well for you guys. The social media drama over the weekend has really, really made me appreciate once again how wonderful the community is here on WdC. I'm counting down the days until this is once again where I'm spending most of my time. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, Sorry I vanished yesterday. I am a little overwhelmed right now by the amount of things I need to do. Preparing for this contest thing there is a lot of homework. Over the weekend I have to record a three page script...which is not in my skillset. I don't do a lot of voice work (none, actually seems about right) including bumpers. That's right. Sometimes during the podcast apparently they'll just have the option of using my voice to announce things. Yay. I've also gotten sucked into Facebook. Not deep sucked in, I think it's safe to say that I'll have no trouble quitting when this contest is over. But there is a Facebook group for the contestants and I commented on one guys message, now people are commenting on my comment and I feel like I have to comment on everyone elses message so it doesn't look like I'm favoring the one guy - and then of course people starting sending me friend requests, so now I have to deal with friends and a wall, and not the good kind of wall that's sung about by Pink Floyd but a Facebook Wall. Anyway, I'm hiding from my other social media pages for awhile. I think the contest is going to be a lot of fun, but setting up for it is just....exhausting. So, I am here to finish doing the things that I didn't do yesterday. I still have some reviews on my list and I have a lot of emails to respond to. I might even have some top secret House Stark business to attend to. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, I have some really exciting news. I have been accepted to compete in The NEXT GREAT HORROR WRITER Contest hosted by HorrorAddicts. Here is the website, in case any of you are interested: The Next Great Horror Writer contest If you looked through the announced contestants you will see that my name is there alongside my picture. Not thrilled about having my picture on a page with so much attention, but I am very excited about all the rest of it. I'm not expecting to get incredibly far in the contest, honestly, but I am so excited to have been selected. There were over a hundred applicants and to be named in the top 14 is just such an honor. This is really big for me, and it promises to be a very new (and at times uncomfortable experience for me.) It's also a little nerve-wracking and weird. I did a double take when I looked at my information and it says that I'm competing from Mobile Alabama because it was like "Where did they get Alabama from" and then I remembered they got it from me when I filled out the application - because I am in fact in Mobile at the moment. I have to record interview answers this week which just feels surreal. I get to work with so many talented people who are helping run the event and I get to compete with some extremely talented writers. This is going to be a rough challenge for like.... the one week that I get to stay.  But in all seriousness I am looking forward to it. Anyway, I just thought you guys would be interested to know that's what's going on with me. I'm really excited about it and I will be sure to let everyone know how it goes, if that's the sort of thing that would interest you. All the best, cat |
| Hey guys, I got a really late start this morning, but the day has been a surprisingly productive one anyway, and not nearly as unpleasant as I was expecting. I started the day by realizing I had overslept, and before I was even out of my bed or finished with my morning article I got the impression that everyone who knows me thinks I'm lazy. It was a very discouraging feeling at first and it put me in the sort of mood that is probably responsible for everyone thinking I'm lazy - because I just get super depressed and stare vacantly things for hours at a time. I could have done that today because no one was around to witness it, but I didn't. I was able to turn that annoyance at everyone into something productive. Here are some things I did today:  Fixed typos in "Invalid Item" Uploaded "Invalid Item" Signed my papers, wrote my bio, and dug up my Facebook information so I can qualify for the horror writers contest Added my first (and only) Facebook Friend. (My significant other, of course.) Got a confirmation from the writer of a horror comic mini-series that he WILL be doing an interview for my horror blog Reached out to three other indie authors about doing future interviews with them Worked on some formatting for the new portfolio site (I know I've been working on it forever, but I am so close to being done now and it's coming together so beautifully. I'm really proud of it.) Spent about an hour researching new speculative fiction markets. Found places to send in two of my short stories and sent them in. Had a breakthrough about a mini-series that I've been wanting to work on forever. Had a breakthrough about how to split up my ridiculously long project to make it more marketable Narrowed down what manuscript I want to work on. I am now down to three, neatly outline contenders. Read nearly half of the book for a pre-release review that I'm working on Outlined the steps I need to take to get my online profile and blog where I want them.So yeah. I'm feeling really good about the progress I've made today. Which brings me to an important announcement. I will be offline all day tomorrow, starting in a little under an hour. I was planning on taking the day off anyway to show my support for the "A Day Without Women." This means no working tomorrow. I will be wearing red and not reading material for reviews, not researching blog content, not writing, and as a freelancer - it also means I won't be networking or trying to improve my web presence. I still plan very much on doing this, but now I also plan to reward myself with all day video games because after today, I feel like I have earned it. I hope you guys all have a great day tomorrow and I will be back on Thursday to resume my regular writing/blogging/reviewing schedule. All the best, Cat |
| Ugh, I need advice. Alright, mostly I need to follow my own advice because it's painfully obvious what I need to do in this situation... but I don't want to so I came here to gripe and complain about it instead. I'm being considered as a contestant for a horror writing competition. They're still going to be cutting a ton of people, but I made it into the final 20. Even that is a lot further than I was honestly expecting to get (and now I have a ton of anxiety about that - but that's its own separate issue that I'm trying to ignore in the likely event that I don't have to worry about it.) But they're taking information and social media pages from the potential contestants and one of the requirements is that you have to have a facebook page. I technically have one (someone) because I needed to sign on to talk to a group-chat about a thing I was supposed to have it. There was a creative conflict issue and I left the team - and I never signed back in. I think I literally signed in twice and used it to create my Spotify account, and that was it. I never accepted friends I never did any promotions, I don't like Facebook. I understand that there's no way for me to say this without sounding like a hipster (in fact as I sit here with my flavored coffee typing this in my plaid jeans, vintage gaming T-shirt and glasses I realize that even though I'm not doing any of these things ironically I might be a lot more hipster than I care to admit - but this is a horrific revelation for me to deal with some other time) but I don't like Facebook. It's not a political thing, I don't know anything about the company or what it stands for or any Facebook subcultures, I just don't like it. I don't like the platform, and I don't really like the connections. My relationship with social media is, at best, strained. I've warmed up to certain sites (to an extent) because they are very usual for certain things. I do my networking and promotion through tumblr (because that seems like a strong professional decision, right?) and a couple months I caved in and finally started using my Twitter because it's a good way to support indie authors and... I get a lot of free books from indie authors (yes, I literally had to get bribed into networking.) What bothers me so much about Facebook is that it's not a 140 character writer community, it's not fandom driven, it's an outlet for real people to actually contact me - the same kinds of people that I spend all my time online to avoid. I'm not saying that everyone who uses Facebook is evil. Pretty much everyone I know uses it to some extent and that's fine for them. But there are a lot of people, former classmates, neighbors, extended family, ex-boyfriends (a couple ex-girlfriends) that I just don't want being able to find me. Plus, I'm a liberal living with my boyfriend's family in Alabama. They all love Facebook down here and the last thing I need is another platform to avoid sharing my political opinions on. It's just another source of social anxiety. Metasocial anxitey. Whatever. I don't need that in my life is this point. Plus, I've made it to 2017 without using it. If I start now... then I'll have to explain to people why I'm just joining, and I get so tired of being the person who has to explain these weird issues that I have with the world to strangers. So, I know that the adult thing to do, the thing I have to do, is just dig up my login information, fill out my profile and suck it up because I have a chance to be a part of something that would be a huge step forward in my career. Even if I don't win the contest or the book deal or any of the mini prizes or any of - it's still a lot of promotion for my writing, and that's absolute worst case scenario. But I don't really want to. I filled out my contest application because my friend sent me the application, and he keeps doing on these long speeches about I need to be confident and take more chances and I thought sending it in would get him off my back. I didn't expect to make top 20 picks) I'm really grateful for the opportunity (despite all the bitching) but it's a lot of pressure and then this social media thing... I don't know. It's going to be a lot of anxiety until I know one way or the other (and if I were actually chosen to participate in this thing it would be a lot of pressure and anxiety until October... and who knows how I would handle that? Probably not well.) That's my rant, everyone. I'm off to go... I don't know. Write or something probably. Put off signing into Facebook? Something. |
| Hey everyone! So I've been promising more portfolio content for... well, forever. Now it seems like I'm finally in a position to deliver. With editing and formatting and stuff it's still kind of slow-going, but I am getting stuff up. Some of it is (relatively) new content, some of it is stuff I've been meaning to post for awhile, and some of it is stuff that I already have up other places but thought that I should put up here as well (that mostly applies to the things in my Nonfiction folder. I have some reviews and stuff in there and will be putting up some articles from my horror blog and such.) Anyway, I'm working on it. I'm also going to see if I can find some good contests and stuff to enter. That's something that always inspires me to make new content, which is something I can always use more of. Plus if I won some contests it would go a long way toward my site subscription, which will be running out in about a month. I'm obviously planning to renew, but it would be fantastic if I didn't have to spend money on it. Lots of GPs to save up though. Lots of things to do, but at least I'm on top of my submissions for once, right? Hope things are going well for you guys and always, you should feel free to PM me if you want something reviewed or just if you want to chat. I think I'm going to be online a lot for at least the next couple days. All the best, Cat |
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