%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  A place to talk about myself, my writing, and any upcoming projects. |
|
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, So I finished all of my February reviews! I used to be so good about getting group reviews done early but these last few months have just been sort of hectic. But I did get them all done this month. Aside from responding to review requests I chose exclusively horror pieces that were written by women in honor of WiHM. On that note, I also ordered a lovely new custom signature for my horror review template: ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Isn't it lovely? And it fits the theme so well, I'm very pleased with it. I'm wanting to get some others commissioned as well, but at the moment I need to be saving my gps. I have about a month and a half to finish saving for my years subscription, and I'm still a ways off from having it done. Anyway, that's what is going on with me. I'm going to get back to doing my submission work and such, but hopefully I will have a more exciting update for you soon. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, So toward the end of January I mentioned that I was going to have a piece published in a zine dedicated to Women in Horror Month, and that zine came out yesterday, so I thought I'd drop a link for that here in case anyone was interested: The Siren's Call eZine Issue 31  The issue features exclusively women in the genre, and it was such an incredible honor to be featured here alongside so many very talented writers and artists. The piece is an extended/polished version of one of my SCREAMS!!! entries. You can check out the original entry here: "Invalid Entry" And since I retained all rights to the story after the zine publication I will be using it on my online portfolio - which means that I have uploaded that version here as well as its own, separate item:
Now I just need to find a cool image for it and I'll be all set.  Anyway, thank you guys for reading. This means a lot to me. It's always cool to have my work published somewhere but I'm a huge fan of The Siren's Call and it's for a movement that you guys are probably sick of hearing me talk about by this point, but I'm still really inspired by. I wish you guys all the best and as I'm currently on my way to finish my monthly reviews and respond to emails, I will probably be talking to at least some of you very, very soon. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, So I took a day off from my reviewing and submissions and everything to work on a project that I've been talking about doing for a really, really long time; my template book. It's still undergoing A LOT of editing and stuff but I finally have it kind of set up and about half of the pages are view-able for everyone.
So, yeah. That's a thing that I'm now officially working on. It's not exactly a huge priority or anything, but it feels good to finally have the groundwork for the project finished and I'm excited to keep playing with it and stuff. Anyway, I should probably be getting back to my reviews. I only have a few days to finish up my group reviews for the month and I have a request to finish as well. Just thought I would share the progress on that since it has been a long time since I updated you guys on my portfolio stuff. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, So I don't really know what I should be working on at the moment. I'm dealing with some personal stuff and it's made me feel sort of...aimless I guess. I want to keep writing despite these feelings, but at the moment I lack focus. I'm going to finish editing up this month's submission pieces today, and then I have no idea what to do with myself. I feel like a longer project would be good for me... I've been feeling that way for a long time. That's one thing I really miss about writing books and novels; I woke up every day knowing what I was going to be working on. It was easy to track my progress, set goals for myself, and I had a sense of purpose. The more I think about it the more I feel like I would really, really like to write a book. On the other side of that however, since I have been working with short stories for so long it feels like it might be a good idea to stick with it until my submission rotation is filled up more. If I had a larger selections of short stories to be submitting places it would be one less thing to worry about when I do eventually pick a serious novel to work on. (I have one still sort of on the back burner, but I'm not in love with it, honestly.) Anyway, enough rambling from me for now. I'm going to go do my editing, maybe do a couple reviews, and see if I can find someone to clear my head. As always I wish you all the best and hope that you're making progress on any and all of your projects. -Cat |
| Hey guys, I'm really, really sick. I don't know what's wrong exactly other than I have some kind of weird throat thing and have been sleeping.... a lot. So I'm not really wanting to spend a ton of time at the desk working my usual insane hours...instead I'll be doing that from bed under lots of blankets and I'm going to try to stick to the less stressful stuff. Like reviews. Today I'm going to get back to the list of things I wanted to review, as well as respond to the reviews for my own work that have been piling up. I just want to remind everyone (again) that I am looking for more horror pieces to review, especially horror pieces written by women as it is still WiHM and I am doing my best to celebrate and promote that, both on here and on my horror blog. Which, if any of you guys feel brave enough to submit a horror piece or two to me, I would still be happy to promote. And that's about it. I hope you guys are doing well and hopefully I'll be getting emails from some of you who would like reviewed and or promoted. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, I am trying to get in the habit of blogging on a more regular basis, but there hasn't been a lot of exciting stuff going on lately. I've mostly been submitting stories, which doesn't make for a lot of interesting blog content I'm afraid. I'm toying with some new ideas, but I don't have a lot of concrete progress made on that yet. I think I want to do an anthology of short horror stories I've written that are loosely based off of real events. Oh, and I won the daily SCREAMS!!! contest yesterday. So that was pretty cool. Yep. That's about it. My life is boring. I hope you guys are having a good time and such, hopefully I'll be talking to you guys soon. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, So I got an acceptance letter today that started with the words "it is with a heavy heart" and continued to tell me that the press publishing the anthology I submitted to last year will be closing. I was however accepted into the anthology, which it turns out will be their final publication, and is scheduled to be released later this year as an e-book. I'm really sad about the press (and that the release will not be in print, in light of the situation) but I am really proud of myself to have been included. Because of the press being about to close it went from a two-part print release to one, much shorter e-book and over half of the stories ended up not making that final cut. I feel really honored that I get the chance to be a part of the anthology, even with the sad circumstances surrounding its release. Aside from being excited to have my story included alongside so many talented and better-established writers, it's also a huge relief. The story is centered around a concept that I've been hoping to get my name on officially for awhile now, and I think it's going to feel really good to have that out there in the world. It's an idea that I really want to expand on, and this takes some of the pressure off to get all the required research done quickly. Now it's something I can look into leisurely, and I'll cycle back to the story when I have the time. So yeah, that's about it. I just thought I would share that with you guys, and I'll be sure to post more information about it when I can. Thank you guys as always for reading. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, This is just a short thing to let everyone know (in case you didn't already) that February is Women in Horror Month. I mentioned it briefly in another post last week, but now that it's here I thought I'd remind everyone that it's a thing. I personally feel like women generally are under appreciated, but that's something that's really relevant to the horror genre in particular, and we should all take some time this month to read some horror written by women if at all possible. (Or potentially, women, write more horror.) I've got a lot of things to promote this going on over at my tumblr page, but since this is a writing community it would be silly for me not to mention and try to celebrate here. Formal requests aside I plan on reviewing exclusively horror genre things this month (since the reviewing community of a genre is important too) writing more horror fiction (although I'll still be getting a couple non horror things up on my portfolio since all I have left to do is format them) and priority will definitely be given this month to female writers. That being said, I will be looking for all horror related things to review, so regardless of gender if you have anything creepy/scary/spooky/over-the-top-gory that you would like to send my way I will be happy to add it to my review list for the month. Thank you guys for reading and be sure to spread the love this month to female horror writers because we, as a unit, are bad ass and deserve the appreciation. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, So I have been pretty busy as of late, but I'm taking some time out of my schedule at this very moment to do a little polishing on my item "Invalid Item" , which as you may or may not remember is up for a Quills Award. I'm very honored that it's being considered for "best short story collection." While I'm mostly just excited, I'm a little nervous as well. One of the whole reasons I made the book in the first place was because I was trying to get comfortable with the idea of people viewing work of mine that wasn't as polished, and now that the entire collection is being considered for something so wonderful, it's really testing my ability to leave the drafts up in their original form (especially since I have longer, more polished drafts of many of the stories in there.)One of my January goals was to get it cleaned up a little to make it a little more presentable. I'm not going to go crazy and rewrite everything (although part of me is still tempted  but I am going to make what small changes I can without feeling like I'm going overboard or changing the ideas behind the project.I made a new template for the entries that I think looks a little sharper, so I'll be going through and replacing my WritingML. I will be pasting in text to my reserved post from entries I wrote prior to creating the book. I'll be making sure I note which entries were winners (even though it's going to be a pain in the ass to dig up the old information for those.) I will be doing slight annotations to mention which entries inspired larger projects or are being considered anywhere offsite. Finally, while I will refrain from posting any radical revisions to my entries, I will be fixing small things like typos that have been pointed out to me. So yeah, that's about it. If anyone has the time to check it out and see how it's coming along, I always appreciate the guidance. This is something that I am hoping to finish within the next couple of days. Thanks everyone for reading, and hopefully I'll be hearing from you soon. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, So I had a really, really good writing day. I didn't actually get a lot of writing done (yet, but I'm cautiously optimistic that I might before bed) but a lot of good things did happen that involve writing. I woke up to an acceptance letter from The Siren's Call eZine. I had a piece accepted into next month's issue, which is their 5th annual Women in Horror Month edition. Obviously having them accept my work makes for great promotion (and I get to be featured along side some very talented writers) but it's also really cool that I can now officially consider myself a "woman in horror." I also got a rejection letter today for a microfiction contest that I had entered, and at first I felt really bad about it (because I really, really wanted to win that one) but then I found out that they only accepted 3 out of over 500 and it really helped me cope with the failure. (Besides, while we're being honest, I know microfiction is not an area of strength for me.) It also means I have two shiny new pieces of horror microfiction either for my portfolio or to submit somewhere else. The thing that I mentioned in my last post that I was worried about the deadline for, I didn't finish. I made a valiant attempt, but there just wasn't enough time to edit to the level I hold my anthology submissions. The good news is that today, the anthology posted that there will DEFINITELY be a follow up anthology sometime this fall, so I have plenty of time to tackle this next draft and polish it up before I submit once I catch up on some of my January submissions. I have started socializing with authors, which makes me giddy still whenever they talk to me - and one of my most recent acquaintances is an author/short story writer whose work I absolutely adore. I've also started getting free horror ebooks. I got a promotional code for a free audible book and I did a review for it on my blog. It helped make some sales and since then I've gotten requests from other horror writers. My blog feels very legitimate now (and also I love free books.) I am (as of this moment) about 4 followers away from finally hitting 1,500 on the blog, which I'm really excited about. Oh! And I have started following/stalking one of my favorite authors on twitter, and I found out that we have similar tastes in both alcohol and music to enjoy while we write (which further indulges the creepy recurring fantasy I have where we one day share an office to write out super successful line of collaborative anthologies in. We also record a podcast together and have and MST3K style show with a handful of my favorite creepypasta narrators where we watch B-Horror Movies before our weekly game nights.) All of these are small steps, but I've been taking a lot of small steps recently and eventually, I have to believe it's going to add to something more substantial. The recent line of successes (from today especially) have me inspired to take some bigger steps and I am vowing to do the following things this year:  Write a manuscript (with intention to seek publication) Start submitting stories to narrators (I'm looking in particular at some of my favorite creepypasta narrators and horror podcast voice actors) Buy a proper domain name for myself. (The site(s) I'm using are currently through site builders, which have that in the domain name. It's free, and they get me a lot of extra readers/clients/employers (plus they're super easy to use) but they do look less professional. Since one of my goals is to transition from a portfolio site for potential clients to see my range to a promotional site where I can have a steady following, I'd like to think it's worth it to invest in a real domain name.) Really beef up my portfolio (both here and when I re-launch the portfolio site) Find someone to do (and finish) a collaboration with. (Other than Alan. I love my collabs with Alan, but I eat up far too much of his time already) Start looking at agents.It's a lot. But these are some of the more important next steps and I'd like to try my hand at them, even when they scare me. I'm probably going to have to make some compromises here and there... the layout quality of my site is going to go down quite a bit when I have to code it myself until I get better at it, I might just join Authors.me instead of properly submitting to agents, etc. but some level of attempts will be made. I need to start taking bigger chances if I want better things to happen, and I think I'm getting better at handling the bad stuff (if only slightly.) Anyway, in some more realistic terms, here are some things that I'm going to be doing more immediately, and more relevantly to this site: Get some reviewing done - I have let these pile up on me. Seriously, I have about 30 started that I'd like to wrap up before the end of the month, which isn't likely to happen but I'd like to finish as many as I can. Finish formatting Murmurationis Cotidie Read some newsletters Respond to reviewsSo, yeah. That's about it. Thank you everyone for reading and checking in, and feel free to message me if you'd like to chat. I'm going to be online for awhile and I love hearing from you guys  -Cat |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
If you want to be published, keep trying and you will get there. Don't you dare give up!