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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, So it has been pointed out to me a few times that I haven't done a SCREAMS!!! entry since before the Game of Thrones event and I thought I'd whip up a quick one before it was time to head out to my convention. Of course I'm about 200 words over the limit. Anyway, I'm going to be working on that for a bit, so if anyone would like to come talk to me, that's what I'll be up to. Hope you guys are having a good time, writing, being productive, etc. Best Wishes, -Cat |
| Hey everyone! I am back for real this time. I'm home from house sitting and now the only internet issues I have are the minimal ones provided by my router. It's good to be back. I've got a couple review requests to respond to and stuff, and then I might just do some extra reviews. I also have a ton of new stuff to upload, you would not believe how much work I can get done when I suddenly don't have access to videogames or Netflix. If anyone needs anything or wants to chat, I will be on for a bit trying to catch up. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys! One of the things I've been working on is finally editing down, you guessed it:
I said awhile ago that because of the good reception it got I was going to try to do a version that was less of a character piece and more of a traditional short story. I'm not finished with it yet, but I do have it started:
So far the only thing I've really done is cut out the story about the two of them meeting and replace it with a couple rough transitional paragraphs - which was the main piece of feedback that I was receiving for the story. I personally felt like leaving the romance story in there was more true to Jane's character, but I can also see the merits of taking it out, since it was relevant only in showing the progression of the character and not to the story itself. I've gotten two other pieces of feedback about the piece that I'm currently contemplating, though not sure I'll be able to incorporate even into the new version. They are as follows: 1.) Expanding on the hotel's history 2.) Pacing the story faster. In terms of expanding on the hotel's history - that's something that I don't want to do. It was originally my plan to do so when I started writing, but I've gotten rather attached to the enigmatic quality of Jane not getting clear answers about what started the haunting or why the spirits on that floor are as aggressive as they are. To me, the element of unknown is a lot scarier than any explanation that could be spelled out, and I've had a lot of readers who have told me the same thing. In regards to the story's pacing, this is another thing that I've gotten mixed feedback about. It is a very slow-paced piece of fiction - I'm not going to deny that, argue or anything of the sort. I like stories that are paced slowly and it was fun to write one that reflects that. A big part of what makes this piece what it is is the pacing, and I feel like speeding it up would make it seem too much like I'm trying to turn it into a mainstream paranormal tale. The other thing about the pacing is that the slow nature of the story goes a long way toward building suspense, and it makes the developments have more of an impact. That's something that I have heard from reviewers and is an opinion that I personally share. So far this has been a lesson in making compromises about feedback. Now I just need to see how well I'm doing. I'm hoping to get some initial feedback on how the story feels without the extended backstory and if I'm headed in the right direction with it. After that I plan on going back and seeing if I can whittle it down by another 400-500 words. If I could get it under 10k I could officially deem it a "short story" and I would technically be correct. I'm also still considering adapting it into a novel. If it were a novel, I would feel more comfortable exploring the aspects that didn't get covered in this format, the beings on the fifteenth floor, the history of the hotel, and perhaps even revealing the proper names of the characters. First though, I'd like to get this out of the way and finish up this version, for better or worse. Thank you guys so much for reading the blog, for giving me feedback, and as always for giving me advice - particularly on this project, which I know has been sort of a rollercoaster. I'm learning a lot from the community and I think I can see where I'm starting to grow as a writer. I couldn't do it without you guys. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys! I'm still house-sitting for a few days so my internet connection is still....not good. I finally got the wireless working but it is dead slow so I'm still not going to be able to be very active. (I wish you could see how long it is taking me to type this.) On the bright side, without the interwebs distracting me, I've been getting a lot of offline work done. I am finally meeting submission deadlines again and I have a couple new pieces geared up for my portfolio (which, okay - they're basically the reject pieces from my submissions so it's not my best work....but still.) And I can add those when I get home next week. I hope you're all having a good time with everything! I hope the masquerade is going well, it sucks that I'm missing out on it. I was trying to load it before I came here and my internet shot me down pretty fast. Hope to see you guys soon -Cat |
| Hey everyone, Sorry I vanished (and that I will likely vanish again.) I got some really fantastic news. I've been asked to house sit for someone for a couple weeks. The money is not great, but it's enough to finish covering some of my medical expenses (like contacts and medication) and then I think I'm going to have enough left over to go see my boyfriend! I have missed him so, so much and am really looking forward to the trip, which is very much overdue. The downside of this is of course that I'm freaking out. There were so many things I wanted to do be able to do before I went out there and it doesn't look like I'm going to have time to get most of them done. The main thing is that I really need to get work lined up because while I do have a little money coming in, most of that is going to be going to getting out there in the first place. (Plus, he works really long shifts to which he takes his car, which means that I'm basically going to be stuck in his apartment for long periods of time without him.) I also feel like it's going to be weird to be seeing him again. It's been a long time and while I'm absolutely stoked to be seeing him in person, there's a part of me that's insanely nervous about how well it will or won't go. I didn't do any of the things I came back out here to do, I've gained some wait, and most of my relationship history involves boyfriends becoming bored or disappointed in me and leaving, which would just be.... yeah. That would suck. My stress is being added to by the fact that if I want to get back into ghostwriting I need to write a more current romance sample to send out with my applications - and I've never been good at coming up with ideas for those. Ideally I'd actually have a selection to choose from, a nice piece of flash fiction, and then a couple excerpts from stories of varying intensity - one that could be young adult, once very vanilla erotica, and one that's a little kinkier. If I had the time (or ideas) I'd do all of those and one paranormal romance just to build up a good range... but I need to start applying ASAP and I have absolutely nothing. Pretty much what I have right now is 2 rough drafts for prologues to stories I lost interest in (and when even the author loses interest, that's obviously not a good sign) the flash fiction prompt response in my romance folder, and the contest entry in my romance folder that I didn't have time to edit in time to enter and am thinking of just scrapping completely. It's not great. Still though, around my frantic scrambling to get some stuff done and find a job before I leave, I am mostly just happy to be going. I might end up doing another entry soon about romance ideas to see if I can get some feedback, but in the meantime I'm just going to try and be optimistic about my own romantic entanglement.  I hope things are going well for all of you guys and that I'll be able to get things sorted out soon so I can come back and resume my normal site activities. All the best, -Cat |
| Alright, So I don't consider myself to be the type of person who scares easily. I don't have any crippling phobias, I pretty much breathe horror fiction, and the people who try to scare me are more likely to get a punch than a scream. I'm sitting up at 3:00 this morning working in my teeny, tiny little office that is barely wide enough to fit my desk, working on the final draft of a story that I'm hoping to submit to a Body Horror anthology - which is pretty much what I've been doing all day. I happen to glance up to notice that less than a foot away from me, crawling up my wall is a spider. Obviously my instinct is to crush the thing with the notebook I was working in - which I do reflexively before realizing that this would get spider guts not only on the notebook - costing me about a quarter of a paragraph's worth of writing - but that it would also get them on the concept art the spider was crawling on. Stuck with the unpleasant task of trying to clean off spider off my walls I look around only to see that there is yet another spider on my desk. Not being overly in control of myself at this point I pick up my journal and crush the second spider. Paranoid (and yeah, frustrated) I decide that perhaps the best course of action is to go hang out downstairs, where the world is less like a low-budget Arachnophobia sequel. As I'm setting up my less spidery work area I feel something brush up against my leg. This this point I haven't slept in nearly 20 hours, my nerves are frayed, I'm out of spider crushing tools and I finally scream - only to realize that it's the tail of my cat. This of course leads to me needing to explain to my roommate (who usually asks me to be the one to gently move the spiders outside) why I woke her up over one of my pets. It is possible that I'm not the unshakable, fearless individual that I like to pretend I am in order to trick myself into getting out of bed every morning. It's also very possible that, as the title of this suggestions, I'm not brave enough to be a horror writer. Maybe I wouldn't be wound so tightly if I were up writing high fantasy or, dare I say it, romantic fiction? Unfortunately... that may very well be my future. It's time for me to get back in the working game and, as always, most of the ghost-writing positions that want me are interested primarily in the overly-romanticized, sickeningly sweet erotica. The horror thing does not seem to be kicking off any time soon, and I find it unlikely that something more attuned to my genre preferences will open up in time to save me. But, enough ranting since I would actually like to finish that horror piece at some point. Thank you guys for reading, and hopefully I'll talk to you soon. All the best, Cat |
| Hey guys, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone. Last night I added a blog entry ( "Invalid Entry"  ) where I explained my trouble with a review I had received, and I got a ton of support from people which really, really helped. I appreciate it a lot when you guys take the time to comment or email me about the things I'm trying to work through on here. I got lots of moral support and some really great advice. Thank you guys.Wordsmitty ✍️  gave me the idea to go check out some of their other reviews. It's something I knew I could do, but I probably never would have thought to do that on my own. I'm glad I did though, because it did give me a lot of perspective and that made me feel quite a bit better. They don't belong to (or at least affiliate with) any review groups, they don't have any work uploaded yet, and all the other reviews they gave seemed to be equally confusing - at least to me. It also helped with the rating. They were some pieces that they did give higher ratings to, but I only saw one that had 4 stars, and all the other ratings ranged from 2.5 - 3. So at least it's not just me.I'm still going to write back with a thank you to them, and maybe still ask for clarification, but I have a feeling it won't help too much. I've decided that if I hear back and it's not helpful, that I'm still going to be okay with that. And who knows, maybe I'll get a wonderful elaboration and this whole experience really will end with me becoming a better writer. If nothing else, at least I feel better about the review and learned some new techniques for dealing with reviews that are less than helpful. I also got some very nice encouragement from sybarrios, ~Minja~  , and RavenAmor  . That's something I love about this site - there's a great community and it's always nice to get nice messages. It helps balance stuff out a lot when other things aren't going so great.Now, I'm going to go join the masquerade party (finally - and late) and have some fun before I get to work on some stuff. I have way too many ideas for the day's agenda - but at least I've got some options  Thank you guys again for being awesome. -Cat |
| Hey guys, Have any of you ever gotten a review where you just honestly don't know if you're being messed with or not? I got a really low rating (my lowest ever, in fact) on a piece that, up until this point had been receiving fairly strong feedback. I know I'm not perfect. I know that even my writing, which I think is the thing I do best, is very flawed. I'm certainly not as conceited as to think that "oh, someone gave me a low rating, so it must be a joke because obviously I'm better than that." I know that there's a ton of room for me to grow as a writer, and even if I were better there would still be times when I'd get low ratings. To be honest, I'm surprised that my ratings have stayed relatively high for even this long, and I knew that at some point that was going to stop - especially when I started posting rougher pieces and conceptual work. I honestly believe that I earned a lower rating because, yeah, the work isn't perfect. It's flawed. The rating stings, but it's something I can live with. What really killed me was the review itself. I didn't learn anything from it. It was like...each of the individual words made sense but I read it over three or four times and have no idea what the person was trying to tell me. I feel like it was just a bunch of nonsense. I don't know if that's an objective opinion or a wounded ego talking, but I literally could not make sense of the thing past vague ideas that I feel only applied to the story so much. Having a low rating I can deal with, but knowing that something is terrible and that I don't know how to fix it, that's really discouraging. I take criticism badly. It's hard for me to hear bad things about something I've created. I think that's probably hard for anyone. Taking criticism well it's one of my biggest faults, not just as a writer, but as a person. It's something I've been working on really hard in the last year, and I'm still terrible at it, but I feel like I've made a lot of progress. Sometimes bad reviews still make me bitter initially. Sometimes I still have to fight the urge to lash out at people. I 100% of the time go immediately to the defensive and I feel the need the explain why things aren't perfect. None of that's good stuff, but it's a weakness that I'm working on as best as I can and overall I feel like I have gotten better. In the last year I've gotten so much better. This time last year I received my first rejection letter. It was very nicely written, I was complimented in it, and it was very sweet, but it was still a rejection and it still made me want to give up on being a writer. This summer I've gotten all sorts of varying reviews and I haven't stopped writing, haven't stopped posting things, and haven't taken anything so badly that I've cancelled my site subscription or completely vanished from the community. I think I've had one writing-related breakdown in the last few months, and even that wasn't too bad. That's not good, but that doesn't mean I haven't taken steps, because I have. I feel like this review has set me back. I feel like I've spent all summer learning how to incorporate feedback and make the most out of negative comments. Now I'm faced with my lowest review and feel absolutely powerless to do anything about it or get better or...anything. Plus I feel like an idiot because I have no clue what they're trying to tell me. I need to write back, and I need to ask for clarification. That's the only way I can improve myself, and that's what I want to do. It scares me doing that because all these things are welling up. I feel bitter and self-conscious and yes, defensive. I don't want to sound ungrateful or condescending or come across as a bad person, but I'm afraid I will because I'm struggling a lot with this. I do actually appreciate the reviews, even the bad ones - sometimes especially the bad ones, when those are things I can learn from. I don't ever want to discourage people from leaving me feedback because the fact they took time to do that for me is awesome. It's just difficult. And some days it's just more difficult than others. I guess the best thing I can do is take some space and respond to the review when I have some time to collect myself. I'll ask for clarification and I'll take it one step at a time from there. I'm going to obsess over it in the meantime, because I can't help myself, but that's the best option that I can see. Anyway, now that I'm done with the emotionally ranty part, I figure it's time for updates and the part where I ask advice. Tonight's plan (once I get back from my food run) is to get in on some of the great activities going on this week, since I'm almost out of time. (oops) I'm also thinking about coming up with some sort of static item/article/journal thing about different ways to handle bad reviews. There are a ton of wonderful things like that already on here (so maybe it will be more of a compilation style thing) but I think it would be therapeutic. What do you guys think? As always, thanks for reading and for any comments/feedback. All the best, Cat |
| Hey everyone! Look at me, finally staying on task (sort of.) I've actually been working on something I said I was going to work on and it's going pretty great if I do say so myself. I mean, the project is a giant mess, but aside from that I think it's going pretty well. I've been working on that template book I was talking about yesterday and the project is kind of a giant mess, but I feel like I'm actually making some headway on it. Basically what I've come up with is having two entries for every template. There's a public page that has the template previewed on it along with a list of additional questions/headers that I have coded and standing by, an introduction of what inspired the template/what sort of items I review with it, and some external links to reviews I've done with the template. Then there's a private page just for me with all the code for the templates in headers so that all I have to do is copy and paste certain elements into the review I'm working on to instantly add any necessary headers/options that apply. This means fully custom reviews that match my template. It's going to be neat. It's a huge undertaking, but as I hoped it's been inspirational. I've been cleaning up a lot of my templates, finishing some old ones, and all in all it's just got me excited about reviewing. It's also going to be a great way to get some feedback about templates, review questions, formatting, etc. It's more for me than for people on my portfolio.... but hopefully it will be at least a litter interesting for them as well.) I'd like to get at least a couple more templates actually in the book before it goes public (right now there's a lot of filler content) but hopefully it's something I'll be able to open up soon so I can get some feedback on how the whole thing is coming together. Also, I'm thinking about going and ordering some custom signatures. A lot of the beautiful signatures that I use currently have either been gifts from generous site members or have sort of acted as promotion slots for artist friends, but now that I'm putting this book together I'd like a nice wide variety - not to mention it will be a great way to support some of the wonderful graphics shops on here. If anyone does graphics or has an artist/shop they'd like to recommend, it would be much appreciated. In the mean time, thank you for reading about my latest insane idea. Hopefully things are going well for all of you. -Cat |
| Hey everyone, I just finished all the review requests (formal and casual) today (plus about four more because I realized I was really close to getting my 15 for the month.) It's been a crazy week, personally speaking. Had a lot of errands to do and then I rewarded myself with a spontaneous trip to Cedar Point. I had forgotten how much I love roller coasters, and it was good to have a day just to relax. Now that I'm back, a little de-stressed and well rested, I thought it might be time to start up a new project. I'm thinking about finally doing my template book but I do have a lot of big decisions to make about it, whether or not the coding will be private (or whether I should just make the whole item private) how to present stuff, how much commentary to include, etc. Those are probably all things I need to decide before I actually start working on the project, but I am excited to start. I've been wanting to edit some of my templates for awhile, and I think this item might be a good way to motivate me to get it done. It was also a really rough writing month for me (which I'll undoubtedly rant about at some point in the future) but working on something like this might be a good way to make me feel productive while giving me a little breathing room to cool off from all the writing/editing nonsense I've had to deal with lately. I think right now I'm just going to sort of play with an item, open this project up to comments and suggestions, and keep messing with it until I find something I like. Perhaps not the most logical way to begin a new project, but it does mean I get to start working on it right away - which I like. So yeah, if you guys know anything about template presentation or have any input, by all means let me know what you think I should do. As always, thank you for reading and for your comments. Best Wishes, Cat |
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