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 |  A place to talk about myself, my writing, and any upcoming projects. |
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Hello! I'm not really sure who is ever going to read this because I don't actually know anyone on this site and I highly doubt this is the sort of thing anyone would be interested in reading anyway. I'm writing it for two reasons. The first is for myself, so I have a place to sort of keep track of my progress on various projects and everything. The second reason is because I just got my upgraded membership today, and I want to try and make the most of it, which means finally getting around to using all of the features. On the off-chance that someone is actually reading this though, I'm going to do a little introduction here where I talk about myself and my writing and the sorts of things you can expect to read if you check this out. My name is Cat Voleur, I'm currently 21 years old, and I'm a professional writer. I got my first writing job a few months before I graduated high school. After that I spent about a month taking writing commissions while I looked for steadier work, and I was eventually employed as a ghost writer, where I spent about 3 years. I've quit ghost-writing very recently (and am consequently broke) to pursue my own dreams and perhaps establish a small following. I really enjoyed ghost writing because it gave me the freedom to travel and sort of choose my own schedule, but now I'm looking for something that I can take credit for. It's pretty sad to have steady writing work for 3+ years and wake up one day and realize all of the pieces in your portfolio are things you wrote as an angst-filled teenager. I'm going to take some time, edit some of my old pieces, write some new things, and try to see if anyone is interested in reading the things that I write under my own name. My commission and portfolio sites are, as of this moment, down for some maintenance work, but hopefully I'll be getting it back up soon with links to some of my work on this site. I also have a couple theme blogs run through tumblr and am currently the head writer of Toxic Bubblegum which is a zine published monthly put out by myself and my very talented friend, Alan Johnson. As for what I'd like to do in the future - I guess it just depends on what sort of opportunities I run into. I'm a big believer in just seizing the moment and going with the flow. The one thing I am sure of is that I'd like a career in writing. I sort of lucked into my first job, but now that I have a taste of being a writer I can't imagine being anything else. Ideally I would like to eventually have something published under my own name and become an author, but I'm willing to see where life takes me. I prefer writing in the horror genre, because that's where my real passion is. I look up to a lot of horror writers and if I could do anything, that would be it. I have the most experience writing in romance because that, unfortunately, is where the money is and that's what a lot of my paying gigs have been up to this point. I've been told that my strength is in fantasy. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's what most people tell me. I first got my account here a few years ago, around the time I started writing professionally, and I haven't done a lot since then other than upload a piece here and there. That's something I'm going to try really hard to get better about. I'd like to upload more stuff, get more active in the community, maybe see about meeting some fellow writers. Today is a very exciting day for me because I just purchased my upgraded membership. It was on sale or I might not have done it because I am, as I previously stated, broke. I've really wanted a membership here for awhile and I'm so glad that I finally did it because so far it really has been motivating me to get some stuff done. The first thing I plan on doing is uploading the most recent draft of Silence of the Lamps, which was the first thing I ever put up on the site, and it's undergone a lot of editing since then. After that I'm going to work on getting some more rough drafts up on here, and then maybe attempt to socialize, which is hard for me because even online I get really nervous reaching out to people. Anyway, if anyone read this, I'm sorry I babbled so long and thank you for your interest! Feel free to message me at any time if you want to chat or would like to have me read something or collaborate or anything. I don't bite, I promise. -Cat |
| Hey Guys, I made a very bold and possibly counterproductive decision about what I'm doing for NaNoWriMo. This year I'm not going to outline my project at all. In fact, I'm not even going to pick a project until the event starts. Despite what you may believe, I'm actually not doing this in an attempt to drive my Write-A-Thon sponsors insane. I've just been so obsessed this week with picking a project, I've outlined everything, I've made pros and cons lists, I've done test pieces to develop settings and character histories, I've harassed everyone I know by making them read all these bits and pieces of different stories in an attempt to get feedback, and I'm done. I realized just how long it's been since I've just sat down and written something without an outline, without an agenda, and it has been a really, really long time. Back when I was just writing for the hell of it before I set up my NaNo account to officially register, every November was awesome for me and I had a ton of fun with what I was writing. Obviously, I am still registered (and because I still want to participate in the Write-A-Thon) I'll still be following the official rules. So it won't quite be the same care-free event it was when I was younger, but it is going to be close. The downside of this of course is that I won't have the same level of progress for a finished manuscript at the end of next month, and that was something I was really looking forward to. I would love to have a horror manuscript that I could start submitting, and having a rough draft at the end of November was going to be a huge step in the right direction. Now I don't think that will be the case because honestly, I'm not expecting this year's novel to be any good. I think it will be good for me though.I can feel a lot of the stress melting away from me since I've decided to do this. It will be a spur of the moment decision and I think it will be a good form of stress release. Even when the book sucks, it will get me back in the habit of writing for myself which is something I need to get back to. Anyway, enough ranting about that for now. Although I have abandoned my outlining work, I still have a couple submissions I need to finish up before Halloween, and I'd like to get to some reviews done. I hope everyone else is getting their stuff done relatively stress free, and I'll be speaking to you guys shortly with any luck. All the best, Cat. |
| Hey guys, I have been trying to get things done today, and it's not going the best. I feel a little bit unfocused. I've got a lot of projects that I'm trying to balance and I'm doing a terrible job. I keep running into issues with things and it's keeping me from working on one thing too long, or falling into a rhythm. I have been working all day but since I'm only achieving bits and pieces of things, it makes me feel like I don't really have anything to show for my efforts. One thing that I did manage to accomplish today was to talk my boyfriend into starting up a channel on Youtube. He's going to be doing Let's Plays, which I for one am really going to enjoy. Let's Plays are a ton of fun to watch and I imagine they'll be just as fun to record. If I were more photogenic or had a better voice or less anxiety issues or were better at videogames I think that would probably be my dream job. In any case, I'm very excited for him and I think I'm going to have a lot of fun watching these events unfold. It's going to be a lot more fun than watching all of my own projects not get done. I hope you guys are doing well, and that you're having more fun and or being more productive than I am. As my deadlines creep ever closer, I am probably not going to be on here as much. Or maybe I'll be on here more because I have this deep, unavoidable desire to put things off until the last minute. Oh! One good thing before I get back to weeping openly of my NaNo Outline, someone told me that one of my stories reminded them of Neil Gaiman. That is without a doubt one of the greatest compliments I've ever received. That's pretty much been the highlight of my writing endeavors this month. Now, back to work things. I will hopefully be talking to you guys sometime soon. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, Just to let you know, I plan on participating in The Newbies Academy Group's Halloween Review Raid, starting tomorrow. I spent a little bit of time going through and setting up a queue of items to review once it begins, but as always I thought I'd see if anyone has anything specific they'd like me to look at. So, if any of you guys have short stories, chapters, or poems about Halloween that they'd like reviewed as part of the raid - then by all means let me know. In the meantime, I hope everyone is having a good time and getting lots of spooky writing done. All the best, Cat |
| Hey Guys, I am starting to get a little bit worried about my NaNoWriMo Project. The last I mentioned it I think I had it narrowed down to two things, and I had just done my little character background pieces. I sent them out to a friend for a second opinion and the feedback was really positive, which I thought was great at first, but then he couldn't pick a favorite. When I pestered him about it I found out that his favorite idea out of all the things we talked about was actually an idea that I had already rejected (because I thought I was the only one who would care about it.) I am just sort of at a loss at the moment, and am definitely running out of time. I have a lot of non-NaNo related work that I have to get done today, and then with any luck I will have enough time left over that I can come up with a new system for choosing OR if I'm really lucky, maybe one of the ideas will just jump out at me when I sit down to look at it. I will be back on later I imagine, but I just wanted to let you guys know that that's my agenda for the day and what I'll be up to. I still have some mail to respond to and one more review that I have to get done, but I don't know when I'm going to find the time. Anyway, I hope things are going better for you guys than they are for me, because it looks like I have a pretty stressful day ahead. With any luck I shall be talking to you guys shortly. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, I am slowly starting to get back into the swing of things after my rough patch last week, and I think I'm off to a pretty good start. I still have a ton of work to do, but at least some progress has been made and there are some more positive things to look at. First off, my Halloween Microfiction got published yesterday - which I was really excited about. I feel like it's not my strongest piece because there were a lot of elements that had to be incorporated for a piece of under 1,500 words, so the pacing is a little off - but it still got accepted. I got paid for it and I think it will be a good promotion. Secondly, I won an amazing raffle.Angus  sponsored me for "BINGO - CLOSED!"  and I was the Grand Prize winner, which was very exciting. I'm now finally closing in on the home stretch of being able to pay for next years upgraded subscription!I'm also making a lot of headway on my NaNoWriMo project. I have it narrowed down to two ideas and I spent this morning writing out a couple short character pieces to give me a better idea of how each one will go. I'm going to type them up, get a second opinion, and then I think I'll be ready to finally, start my prep (just a few weeks late - oops.) And in regards to the Write-A-Thon, I got two new sponsors after posting a note about how worried I was about the event last night. Now in addition to ~Minja~  , I am also being sponsored by Warped Sanity and Escape Artist  . It's giving off the illusion that I'm not quite as lost in this event, and it's much appreciated. In all seriousness though, I think the event is going to be great, and I think the teams and the sponsors will both be really motivating in regards to doing really good work for NaNo this year.Last up on the list of things I wanted to talk about is my reviews. I am 3 reviews short for Black Case Month at WdC Kind Hearts and for my monthly PDG, so I'm looking for just a few more items to review. If anyone has anything they'd like me to look over now would be a great time to let me know. When I sign back on later today I'm planning on going ahead and knocking those out of the way, and if no one has anything specific they'd like reviewed I'll just go ahead and take them from the Review Request thread. I'll be on for a little while longer to try and get through some of my emails, and then I'm going to work on finalizing my NaNo decision and getting some of my submission work done. I hope things are going well for you guys, and I will hopefully be talking to you soon. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, So I sort of figured out what's going on (a little bit) I think I've made the accepted author's list for the 2016 Writing.Com Anthology. I haven't actually seen the list, but I did get a bunch of congratulations for it. If that is the case, I'm very honored and very excited - it will be so cool to see my name in print alongside all the very talented authors. If not, well than never mind. Thank you to everyone who wrote me (and a special thank you to anyone who can send me a link to this list because I could not find it for the life of me.) I am going to be offline a couple days. Tomorrow I am driving down to Alabama and I have a lot of catching up to do down there, so I'll be taking at least a day or so off for that. I honestly am not sure what the situation will be after that, I know that I'll have plenty of computer time but I'm sure that most of it will be devoted to job hunting so that I can, you know, afford to stay down there. Anyway, I'm going to miss you guys and hopefully I'll be talking to you again shortly. I hope you all have a fun/productive/inspiring couple days - and I'll be sure to let everyone know as soon as I get back on. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, I didn't sign on yesterday, I was off packing and just generally trying to get ready for my trip. I signed back on here and it looks like a lot of stuff has happened, so I will be online for a bit trying to figure out what all is going on. Hopefully I will talk to some of you guys soon and in the meantime, I hope everything is going on. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys! Some really neat stuff has happened to me today and I thought I'd drop by and share the good news with everyone. First off, I'm having a piece of flash fiction featured in a press's website for their Halloween erotica features! I entered it in last month and I wasn't sure how it would be received (we all know that romance genre and flash fiction are not the things I'm best at) but the editor liked it and it's going to be included. I don't know when exactly, but that's something I'm really excited about. Plus, I will be getting paid for the piece, which means that I'm one step closer to the dream of being a professional author in my own right (even if this isn't technically the genre I've been chasing after.) I will be sure to share the link for that, and after the rights and everything get sorted out, I'll put the piece up on my portfolio here as well.  I'm also delighted to announce that I've been chosen for an amazing opportunity right here on WdC:
It's a very cool activity and I feel honored to be a part of it. It's a great promotion for my portfolio - which is always appreciated, and I'll be receiving a lot of help in making my portfolio more presentable - which you guys are probably all sick of hearing me say is something I need to get around to. I am a little a worried about balancing this with all the other stuff I've got going on right now, both in my personal and work life, but I feel determined to make it work. This is a great chance for me to learn and grow, so I obviously don't want to waste it. Now I'm going to go do some reviews (since I probably won't have time later in the month) and try to upload a little more work. I know one of the biggest issues I have is that a lot of my folders are empty.... I wanted to get the creation out of the way all at once but I am terrible at remembering to upload stuff, so I should probably get to that before I seek too much assistance from my Showcase Supporter. Thank you everyone for reading, and I will talk to you soon. -Cat |
| Hey guys, So as promised I'm about to do a post outlining some of my thought process for NaNoWriMo this year. I have a lot of ranting to do, so it's broken up into sections. Feel free to skim, skip or whatever as you see fit.  My NaNo History I mentioned in my last post that I have sort of a love/hate relationship with NaNo, and that's probably a bit of an exaggeration. I haven't ever hated NaNo - it's just something that I've had varying degrees of interest in throughout the years. Now, that's not to say I haven't participated and, to a certain extent, succeeded every year. It just hasn't been in the most traditional sense. I was 11 the year that I started. I heard from of my Mom's friends that November was National Novel Writing Month. I had always been a big fan of writing things, and I honestly never questioned it. I didn't know it was a group or a site or something people could join, I just thought I was supposed to write a novel in November, so I did. Now, I was a kid, and I didn't have a grasp of what a novel really meant, what the guidelines were, how long it had to be, etc. I wrote a story that was 26 chapters long (longhand of course - all my rough drafts are) and stuck it in a folder that's still sitting on a shelf in my office. I don't know if it's actually 50,000 words (probably not - honestly), because I never had the desire to type it up past the first chapter or so - but I had finished it. In my mind I had successfully participated in National Novel Writing Month, and that was enough to make me happy. Next year, I decided to do it again because it had been fun, I liked the feeling that came with finishing, and I was the only person in my school focused enough on creative writing at that age to do something like that - so the bragging rights had been pretty intense. I wrote the sequel to the book that I had written the year before, finished it, put it on the shelf with the first one. I probably kept that up 3 or 4 years before I actually learned what NaNoWriMo was... that it wasn't just some arbitrary "write a novel this month" sort of thing, but that it was an organization and you had to register and then of course, validate. This was also the first I had ever heard about the 50,000 word mark. I thought about registering at that point, only I was embarrassed. At that point I'd been talking for years about how I did this thing every year without actually knowing what I was talking about, and I thought my best option was to play it cool. I assumed the attitude of "I write a novel for it every year, but I don't really feel the need to register - because I write my novels for me." (I know what you're thinking and, yes, I was incredibly pretentious for a teenager.) Finally I did cave in and register, and that was just a few years ago. This will be my fourth year participating "officially." The one issue with this is that, while I have an attention span perfect for writing novels in a very short amount of time, I don't have the drive to keep updating. The first two years I won, updating my wordcounts a couple times throughout the month and validating when I finished. Then my third year (2015) I just gave up. I was too shy to get in on any of the community stuff, and I was on the road at the time, and I honestly just didn't have any motivation to stick with the site that month. I set up my book item a couple days in, sat down to write my rough draft, finished it a few weeks later (with a word count of 65,000 I'll have you know) and never took the time to go validate it. For me, the important thing was finishing the novel - and once I had done that I was ready to be done. That brings us to this year. NaNo 2016 I've taken a lot of positive steps this last year. Since last November I have quit my soul-crushing ghostwriting job, put my name onto a zine, learned a ton about becoming an author, set up a submission rotation, and have actively started trying to get my name out there. I even had a piece of flash fiction published (to an online magazine - bust still.) One of the biggest differences in my writing life though, is that I have learned how to network and socialize - at least to some extent. I started actually using Writing.Com and I found this amazing community on here. That's something that I didn't dream I'd ever be involved in before. I'm opening up about what I do, sharing my work, discussing projects and going after community recognition including awards and badges and all that fun stuff. I'm like an entirely new person from the woman who forgot to validate her NaNo book from last year. Despite my checkered history with actually validating, I do love NaNo, and that's why I joined the amazing NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon this year.
It's something I was planning on doing anyway and this way I get to be involved more in a community of people who understand, I get the cool MBs, and there's a chance for prizes - plus it's a fundraising thing. The groups that are benefiting are all great groups I believe in and want to support. Seems great, right? The Issue Well, it's mostly great, anyway. The issue for me is that I'm deep, deep in the habit of doing NaNo more for myself than for anyone else. Not caring if I validate, not concerning myself too much with wordcount, spending all that time doing long-hand drafts, those are things that I need to get past. If I'm going to be doing the Write-A-Thon, I need to do things a certain way. I feel like that's going to be a really difficult adjustment for me. It's a challenge that I think I'm ready for, bit it is something that I'm worried about. One of the main concerns about this is picking a project that I know will be 100% supported by the group. Since it is a competition, I need to be careful to choose something that I'm certain qualifies so that it's completely fair to everyone. The Project Before I joined the Write-A-Thon, my plan was going to be to work on a preexisting project. I know people reading this are probably freaking out right now about that violating the rules but again, up until yesterday I was just doing this for me. I also wasn't planning on using any preexisting drafts in my total for the 50,000, or even for my project at all. The two things I was thinking about doing this year were re-writing a story that I wrote when I was younger (and I'm not talking about a second draft, I'm talking about same characters but new outline, new plot-structure - really a complete overhaul) or adapting one of my short stories. Earlier this year I posted the following:
The novel I started for this was taken from a story I wrote when I was a kid. I had a ton of fun revamping the project, updating the characters and even though I don't have any of it posted yet, I've been having a lot of fun working on the new story. I have another set of characters that I actually did finish the story for, but that was back in high school. I was originally thinking of taking those concepts and starting over with a new series. Since I would be basing it off something I already have finished though, I feel like that might not be entirely honest. As for the adaptations.... I'm sure you know where this is going. There has been a lot of talk of me making a novel out of this:
I think that for the piece to work as a novel, there would be enough changes to it that this might not be cheating. Structurally it would be completely different, and I have been leaning toward the idea of writing it in the third person - which means that literally none of the text from that draft (or the abridged version) could be re-used. Though it's very possible something like that could be acceptable, I still feel that just because so much of the story is established it might be unfair. (Plus, you know, as nice as it would be to get all the nonsense from this piece out of the way all at once - I could use a break from the story, having just recently posted another version of it.) There were a couple other stories that I had been considering trying to make novels out of from my portfolio as well - primarily the following SCREAMS!!! entries: "Invalid Entry" by {suser_id:}"Invalid Entry" by {suser_id:}Although my first couple choices are still redoing something or adapting something (because I would really like to get those done at some point) I feel like the most honest thing to do would be just to start something new. A New Project If I'm going to be starting something from scratch, that leaves me with a ton of options. There are so, so many stories out there that are just waiting to be told. For a long time I've been saying I need to write one solid romance piece for my portfolio that I can send to potential employers if and when I go back to ghostwriting, and I did have an idea for a romance concept the other day. I've also been wanting a nice, polished horror manuscript for some time now. While working on short stories has taught me a lot, kept the creativity flowing and has given me practice in breaking into the horror market - my dream has never been to be a short story writer. The dream, the eventual goal for me, is horror novelist. A good step for that might be actually writing a horror novel. Plus... and I hate thinking about it this way, but there is always the fantasy route, which might be easiest. Although my passion is for horror novels, I have a lot more experience completing very, very large fantasy projects. I'm not overly concerned with hitting or not hitting the 50k - but since there are word count prizes, my team might appreciate me writing something that I know I can go above and beyond in. Lots and lots of good choices. Too many good choices, really. Conclusion So, this is where I'm at with my whole decision making process. Basically I have no idea what I'm doing so far.  I have a lot of writing that I have to get done for work this month, which leaves me less time than might be ideal for prepping. Fortunately, the majority of my prepwork comes from making a decision about what to work on. I have been known to outline my NaNo projects in October, but for continuity reasons I always do my outlines in one sitting. I think I'll be okay with one solid day of prepwork...just as soon as I decide what project I want to do. As always, input from you guys is welcomed and appreciated. If I have anyone who actually reads my stuff that has a preference on what sort of content they'd like to see, if there's anyone who just reads my ramblings that has an objective opinion about the best course of action, or if there's anyone who is more familiar with the NaNoWriMo/Write-A-Thon rules than I am who would care to shed some light on any gray areas outlined above - I definitely want to hear from you. Also if you're bored or sad or want to talk to someone, I want to hear from you. Mostly I just like hearing from you guys. Thanks for reading, those of you who did. I know this was a particularly long one, but this is something I have a lot of ideas about. I hope things are going well for all of you, and that anyone participating in NaNo this year isn't laughing at me too much  All the best, Cat |
| Hey Guys, It's only the first of October, but I already am getting the feeling that this is going to be a better month for me than September was. I had a very, very busy day and even though nothing went as planned, I still feel like I stayed on top of things and got a ton of stuff done. Thanks to my insomnia I was able to get a little bit of work done on my Portfolio, making the proper edits to some items, responding to reviews, etc. I joined a really exciting group activity on here that I really can't wait to get started on:
I think this is going to be really good for me because up until this point I've had sort of a love/hate relationship with NaNoWriMo, but that's a story for another time (especially since I'm probably going to be on here in a few days asking for help choosing a project - I already have too many ideas for this.) It looks like a really great activity though, it support some absolutely amazing groups here on WdC, and there are exclusive MBs, which I'm finding that I really enjoy collecting. (Big surprise, right? The gamer likes virtual badge I was also able to enter another "SCREAMS!!!" contest, which was great. A lot of people have been pointing out my absence from there lately, and I guess I didn't realize how long it was since I had been on, but it felt really good to get back to it. My entry "Invalid Entry" by {suser_id:} won, and that always is a great way to get motivated - especially since I have been wanting to get some more horror stuff done.I came up with what I think is a really good idea for a romance story, though I need to decide on whether I want it to be longer or shorter before I can actually start working on it - but still, I think it's cool. I usually have to spend hours and hours racking my brain for anything resembling a romantic plot line. Finally on the list of crazy things today, I went to Cleveland Comic Con. To be honest, it was super underwhelming this year, but I still had a blast going and hanging out with people, getting some gaming in, and buying some super nerdy jewelry. My wonderful artist friend, Alan, also bought me an adorable shiny Magikarp doll, that I am personally very pleased with. I was finally able to get some sleep in the car on the ride home (thanks to the many drinks I had at lunch....oops) and now I feel well-rested and ready to get some more neat writing things done. On the agenda for the day is a little bit of template formatting/creations, the potential launch of my template display item, some new reviews, and maybe another SCREAMS!!! contest. I don't normally like entering on the 500 word days, but I want to get in as much activity on here as possible before it's time for me to hit the road and vanish for another few days. Thank you guys so much for reading. If you're at all interested in NaNo things, review things, or even blogging things (oh yeah, because I have some ideas for the blog on here as well) then you should stay tuned because there should be more content coming up soon. All the best, Cat |
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