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 |  My latest blogging endeavor to catalog my activities here on WdC |
 ~Myself~ My name is Cat Voleur and, as you've probably guessed, I'm a writer. I worked as a freelancer for a few years, taking several ghostwriting positions before finally deciding to start doing stuff under my own name. I've had a handful of small publications and am working on some bigger stuff now. ~My Blog~ This is my second WdC blog. I'm starting it because I just went through and renovated a lot of the things from my portfolio and I thought it would be a good time to get a fresh start. The book is titled after a song from one of my favorite Coheed and Cambria albums. It's mostly going to be about my and what I'm up to on the site. There will sometimes be other stuff like promotions for cool stuff that I find on other sites that I think you guys might be interested in as well as promos for cool content that I find on here. ~My Other Projects~ If you're interested in checking out some of the other work that I do, feel free to check out some of the following links: In Defense of the Horror ~ My Horror Blog hosted on WordPress https://indefenseofthehorror.wordpress.com/ And there's also a horror tumblr, for those of you who are interested: http://in-defense-of-the-horror.tumblr.com/ Toxic Bubblegum ~ A collaborative project I co-founded that provides free resources to creators. http://www.toxicbubblegum.com/ |
 Intro Leading you into the madness of my blog It's been hard to write. Anything, but updates especially. Nonfiction is sort of hard to fathom right now. My last entry was three months ago, and it just feels like the entire world is different now than it was then. There have been several times I've wanted to leave updates here and when I opened the page my words dried up. There have been several times I've wanted to reach out and world anxiety has stopped me. I've been on here sporadically, but I feel as though I'm just lurking most of the time lately. I have that desire to jump back into activities here because the distraction is so sorely needed. Blogging has always been cathartic, and so I hope this leads me back into life on this site, which has so often been the motivation I need creatively. I'm here to let it all bleed out. And with that, here is a very long update from a very long, dark season.  Personal A little context about my personal life outside of writing Things have been awful. A bad thing will happen and I'll compare my relatively lucky situation to people who are suffering so much worse. I feel like I don't have the right to complain. And then another bad thing will happen and it hurts worse, and I still haven't recovered from the last thing and the cycle starts over and I'm not sure I'd even have anyone to complain to. It's left all these sad fragments of things that feel impossibly large and entirely unimportant. The little things weigh as much as the bigger things, and it's hard to feel any of it anymore. I lost three jobs. I'm a freelancer. I already worked from home. I knew things might get bad financially, but I lost a single large-paying gig right before everything started shutting down, and then both of my part time positions put me on indefinite hiatus the first week of lockdown. The press I wanted to submit my manuscript to, and have been working to reach the submission deadline for all year, shut down. My cat, Fry, passed away. There was a feline flu going through the area, and most of the vets around us have been closed or cutting way back on hours. I called to get him appointment and they couldn't get us in for two weeks, and he didn't make it. A couple days after that, I lost another cat, Syrio, to a tumor. There was no warning, he was the only one that wasn't sick, and then he was just gone. My insomnia is back. The little sleep I have been getting is plagued with nightmares, and some days I will lay in bed all day on the edge of sleep and I'll get up more tired than when I laid down. I finished this really giant knitting project that I started for my ex when we were still together and have been working on (less so lately) for years. I thought it would feel like closure, and it sort of did, but it hurt a lot. He lives in an area that's got one of the highest infection rates and his mother is immuno-compromised and I have to constantly fight the urge to check on him. And even the finishing projects feels bad. I feel like if I'm not working at something all the time I won't have the energy to pick myself back up. My manuscript is edited. My crafting project is finished. The hospitals close to me are already full of on the mask donations that I was working on. These are all good things, but I feel empty without things to replace them and it's hard to decide on projects right now. It's harder than I thought it would be to help. Everything seems really bleak. The world is burning around me, and the problems I'm having are all still in me. I've been here before and struggled with these thought patterns. And I know it's going to be okay. But I also know that even if I make progress and get better, this feeling of uselessness will return.  Offsite Some information about writing that I'm doing off of Writing.Com An abrupt tonal shift. All the good news I have, such as it is, is writing related. I had a piece published in Siren's Call eZine.  And a collaboration that I've been talking about forever has finally gone live. It's an increasingly surreal fantasy epic that uploads one illustrated chapter a week. I actually wrote it for the NaNo Write-A-Thon on here a couple years ago and it's been the most satisfying part of my week seeing chapters go up after so long. The Landrian Archives (And it would seriously mean the world to me if some people wanted to check it out. With all the craziness in the world I haven't been promoting it as much as I've meant to, so the posts could definitely use some likes as it helps us with visibility.) And finally, I've learned Latin. That is to say, I've 100% completed Duolingo's Latin course, which is still only a beta size. So I know basic sentence construction a little over 1,000 words. I'm not not fluent in it by any means, but it was a big step for me because I have a lot of projects where I feel like having a basic understanding of Latin would really help.  Writing.com Updates about cool things I'm doing right here I haven't been on much, but the cool writing things I talked about above and linked to, are also things I have hosted on my profile.
 Reviews A place for me to share reviews I've done and received I have been doing A LOT of book reviews, if not a lot of item reviews. I noticed on Twitter a lot of writers who have been giving books away, making their ebooks free, or just giving out discounts for people who are doing their best to self-isolate and quarantine. Since I don't have a lot of money right now to be supporting indie authors in the way that I usually try to, I've been doing the little bit I can in the form of making sure to rate and review the books that have been given out for free, as well as promoting the ones that have really helped take my mind off everything else. Today this part of my blog is just a reminder that reviews really do help authors and if you have the time and energy to go to a book's page and leave some feedback, it's a wonderful way to support writers Conclusion Wrapping up my ramblings I think that's everything. I did a lot of moping, and some self promotion, and even though I'm not crazy about it those seem to be my only two modes these days. If you've stuck with me this long, you've gotten a little bit of everything. I'm tentatively looking for things to review, activities to participate in, and collaborations to undertake. So if you have anything to send my way, please message me. And thank you for reading. And thank you, for still being here.  |
| Intro Leading you into the madness of my blog Hello! It has been awhile since I’ve updated, for which I apologize. If you’re reading this you probably already know I vanish sporadically because I’m prone to fall ill suddenly and without much warning. December was full of those sorts of things, and this last week or so I’ve just been trying to get back into the swing of things here. It’s been a particularly wild week on my end because I invested in a new tablet for work. That’s been a little weird for me, partially because I’ve never spent so much money on myself or in my career and partially because there’s a lot of re-learning navigation and formatting and such to be done. It’s been a lot to deal with, but I do think that it’s really going to pay off in the long run, and overall I’m very excited to see what comes of this once I’ve made the transition. I’m feeling really motivated right now and I’m going to do my best to keep up this momentum. Personal A little context about my personal life outside of writing I never know what to say about my personal life that isn’t about my cats.  I officially have way too many of them, but they’re all rescues and it’s not like I can turn them out into the Ohio cold.Ebony is finally starting to recover some which is wonderful, because she’s getting older and I was really worried about her. She pulled through the worst of it, and now if I can just keep getting her to eat the food for her special kidney diet and have her sit still for a grooming, we’ll be in business. My two latest rescue boys (Archer and Vonnegut) have really made themselves at home, which is also good to see. As to, you know, like human company... I’m still bad at that. Worse, some might say. But as long as I’ve got books and cats, I think I’m going to be just fine for the foreseeable future. Offsite Some information about writing that I'm doing off of Writing.Com Like I said, the biggest news really is my tablet and learning how to work that. I’ve been planning the shift for awhile, but I only just bought it yesterday. (This is actually the first thing I’m writing online with it.) I do have a couple collaborative projects that I would really, REALLY like to kick off this year, but I don’t know how well it’s going to go. My favorite artist to collaborate with is just starting his own business, so he’s going to be pretty busy, and most of my writer friends don’t collaborate. I do have a cool job working for TheDeadWalk.Online still, and they pay me to review horror movies and write up true crime articles about American Horror Story, so that is pretty great. I plan to do the 100 Rejection Letters thing this year, so I’m excited and very, VERY nervous. I have not made a lot of progress on it so far aside from researching speculative fiction markets, but I’m working on cleaning up a couple submissions now so I’ll get the ball rolling on that soon. I also plan for at least a few of those rejection letters to come from querying for my manuscript, which I have made some awesome progress on this week. I’m working on what I’m going to (optimistically) call my penultimate draft. Writing.com Updates about cool things I'm doing right here Today’s big Writing.Com goal is just going to be to write up my rough draft for the Dear Me contest. After that I’ve got a pretty busy schedule for the week, but next week’s WdC goals include getting some PDG Reviews done, and finally, FINALLY sending out the MBs I promised back in November for my NaNoWriMo sponsors (you haven’t been forgotten, I’ve just been very sick.) This week I’ve pretty much just gotten through my email, read some newsletters, and of course I had to drop by SCREAMS!!!! A couple times. Here are my entries there, if anyone would like to check those out: "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" Reviews A place for me to share reviews I've done and received I will be doing reviews again starting next week! They really are coming soon! Conclusion Wrapping up my ramblings So that’s about it for me. I am all set up with a new tablet and content to write and get things done as best as I can. I’m setting new goals and harder challenges for myself this year, and hopefully I have all the tools I need to start tackling them. As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll update when I can.  -Cat |
| Intro Leading you into the madness of my blog I'm writing this at 4:00 in the morning. My insomnia has been acting up again. It's not as bad as it was this time last year (not by a long shot) but it is making me almost entirely nocturnal. The only reason I'm sleeping in the dark at all is because sunrise is happening so late these days - and even then I'm lucky to get a full 6 hours. Even though it isn't unusual for me to be awake and online at this hour, I'm surprised to see that it's this late. I just don't know where the time has gone today. Atticus Finch (my cat) must have eaten up more of my day than I thought. (He was sick, and I may have over indulged him in cuddles.) There are still so many things I want to do before I start trying to fall asleep. Luckily (unluckily? Depending on how you look at it?) I'm still wide awake. So for right now I'm just going to try and get my thoughts organized and give some updates before getting back to it. Personal A little context about my personal life outside of writing My personal life (such as it is) has not been going well. I'm still single, still only working part time, and just generally my mental health isn't great. (This could be because of the insomnia. It might be causing the insomnia. Depression and insomnia sort of feed into each other in a way that's not fun because all I want to do is sleep, and then I can't. Ever.) All of that fun stuff aside, I'm just at a point in my life where I feel sort of alone. It's something I've been writing about a lot (mostly through thinly masked fiction that's too depressing to be marketable) and really analyzing. I'm bad at in-person connections (maybe all connections.) I sort of use media as a crutch to express my feelings sometimes. I didn't know that I did that until I stopped being able to do it effectively. I had sort of a breakthrough, terrible moment where I realized that for the first time in my adult life, I'm the odd one out in every circle that I'm in. That's something I'm used to in some regards (age, profession, gender, sexuality) but not ever in tastes. I don't have anything in common with most of my friends anymore. The realization explained a lot of what I've been going through lately, but it also made me feel incredibly isolated. It's one of those situations where acknowledging the issue has made it a lot worse. Now when I'm at my game night Friday and I don't know the song everyone's singing to, I don't just shrug it off like I used to, I get fixated on why I can't force myself to like it and what's wrong with me that I'd rather listen to aggressively Jewish punk music than anything from any anime soundtrack. (I know it's an unhealthy mindset to be in, but that's where I spent a lot of last week trying to break out of.) It always made me want to give up on a lot of things I'd been trying to do, that maybe weren't as nice as I thought they were. A good example of this is that I'm constantly inviting people to work events. As a horror blogger, I get free movie tickets and screeners all the time, and I get rejected by friends and family pretty much every day. I thought inviting others was an act of kindness (and expected of me - the tickets are free!) but no one I know likes these movies but me. It's sort of that way with everything. No one plays the games I play, or reads the books I do or will study languages with me. I don't have a lot of common denominators with the people I care about, and I guess that's been true since I broke up with my boyfriend last year. I got frustrated sometimes (movie nights, usually) thinking we didn't share similar tastes in a lot of regards. But he was the sort of person who really liked having his tastes challenged, and we found more ground than I'd realized until just now. After we split I just sort of got lost in other things, charity work and work work and books - books more than anything. Trying to reclaim some of my old life, this might be the first I'm really allowing myself to really process the breakup, and it's hard. And lonely. I got off on a tangent there, but it's a good representation of where my personal life is right now. Offsite Some information about writing that I'm doing off of Writing.Com In terms of working on things offsite, I haven't. That's not entirely true, but I haven't been meeting a lot of my writing goals. The activities on here have been keeping me pretty busy as I'm sure you'll see. I've been journaling and brainstorming and editing a bit, but the manuscript I swore I'd finish before NaNoWriMo hasn't been touched in over three weeks. I do have one cool thing to report, however, I wrote my first True Crime Article. It has not been published yet, but pending approval it will be. It's called American Horror History: The Black Dahlia. It talks about how Elizabeth Short has been portrayed in American Horror Story and what the real life inspiration for her character was. With any luck it will be the first in a series covering true crimes across all seasons of the show. If my editor clears it I will share the link here, and hopefully I will get to do more of them because I loved digging into the research aspect of an article. Writing.com Updates about cool things I'm doing right here Alright, now for the part of my blog that people actually read My first exciting WdC news is that I won the following Merit Badge: ![Merit Badge in Good Deeds
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Congratulations, you won 1st Place in the September 2019 round of [Link To Item #gooddeeds] !](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/WDC-Good_Deeds.gif) This was awarded for coming in 1st in the "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .Last time I won this contest I went wild and treated myself and entered a bunch of raffles and sponsored a ton of contests and stuff on here. This time I wanted to do something a little bigger (and I hope that you'll forgive my digression here, because this is technically all work I did off WdC.) In order to put that money back into the Writing Community I took the cash prize and I spent it all on things that support writers. $35 of it went to an Apex Publishing project where they're selling mystery boxes to raise money for their goal of taking on new writers. The rest of it (plus some of my own funds) went to buying indie books that were needing reviews. I got 7 books in total (and did one pre-order.) It's going to be a lot of work to get done (especially with my TBR shelf full and NaNo coming up) but I'm going to try to get them all read, reviewed and promoted before the end of the year. I've seen so many people lately advertising their books, and I have to respect that hustle. If I ever win that contest again (or if I can scrape up enough money to treat myself to another big shopping spree like this) I intend to do a Writing.Com exclusive edition where I buy as many books as I can from the talented writers here who have been published. Other than that, my biggest news is that I signed up for the "NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon" again this year!(I was actually the first one to sign up this year, which I thought was fun  )I am doing OctoPrep but I am not 100% sure that I'll be working on the novel I was originally going to work on. I guess we're just going to have to see about that. Regardless, I will be looking for sponsors over the next couple of weeks and more information will come along soon about what my project will be (for anyone afraid to sponsor me because of the one year I wrote 100,000+ words.) If anyone knows where I can find some sponsors, I would be grateful if you could point me in that direction. (And it's a small incentive, but I do give all of my sponsors Thank You badges at the end of November.) Reviews A place for me to share reviews I've done and received My review requests are still open, and will be for another 2 weeks. I'm looking for spooky stories in particular, but am happy to review anything. (I'm also starting to get together some choices for what I'll be nominating for The Quills Award this year ~ although my final choices will mostly be made in December.) This last week I've done the following 4 Reviews: Review of "Bo Dockett"  Review of "The Girl (Never Little)" Review of "Solstice At Avebury" Review of "Goodbye Junk Food, Hello Health!" Check out the reviews, and absolutely be sure to check out the items. They were all wonderful. Conclusion Wrapping up my ramblings That is about it. This entry ran way longer than I meant for it to, but I'm working through some things (and am clearly very excited about some other things.) My schedule is going to be pretty busy up through the end of the year, but I feel like it's always good to have extra reasons to get out of bed in these cold months where I really get tempted not to do anything at all. Thank you guys as always for reading! - Cat |
| Intro Leading you into the madness of my blog I have been back online over a week and it seems like my connection might be alright *fingers crossed*. So one of the things that I'd like to do is try to get back into the habit of blogging more regularly, right before I break that habit for NaNoWriMo .That being said, I'm excited about my NaNo project this year (just picked it out today) and as always, projects on this site as well  Personal A little context about my personal life outside of writing There isn't a lot of new stuff going on in my personal life. I got an offer for a job that I'd be starting next spring. It's for a family company (which makes it hard to refuse, because it's hard for me to say no to anything where filling the position would also be helping out my family - especially my Aunt because I know she has her hands full.) It would require me to move, which has both pros and cons. I have plenty of time to make a decision about that, though. It's just a cool thing that I'm turning over. Another fun thing I guess is Fathom Events. I've gone to a couple over the summer for work, and a couple just for fun, but the last few have been pretty inspirational experiences for me. I don't know. There's just something magical about going into a theater to watch a movie you thought you'd missed forever on the big screen. Last weekend I got to watch The Shawshank Redemption, which was just so wonderful to see. Tomorrow I'm going in to see a few episodes of Friends - which I'm just really excited about. I don't think it will be quite the critically acclaimed, emotional experience that Shawshank was. But it's hard to deny that Friends was a big influence for me, growing up. That's weird, considering how much horror I do now, but when I was ghostwriting romance, a lot of what I knew about building romantic tension came from what I'd seen on sitcoms growing up. More currently, I think it shows a lot in my more humorous writing that I was a big fan of Chandler. Anyway, that was a lot of babbling. I'm just excited, and very grateful to have these sorts of opportunities. I think they've been really good for me, in a creative sense. Offsite Some information about writing that I'm doing off of Writing.Com Mostly all the work I've been doing for Writing.Com has been for my horror-blogging job. (This is the part where I would normally link to the horror blog I work for, but they're switching domain names at the moment, so just pretend that I was a good employee and plugged the company here.) This next week I get to start working on my new series of articles (entitled American Horror History) that cover the true inspirations behind American Horror Story episodes. It's something I've been wanting to write about literally for years (I almost did it as my NaNo book one year, actually) and now someone is going to pay me to do it! I'm so happy about that! Writing.com Updates about cool things I'm doing right here Some exciting things going on here, as well: First off, I wrote a couple entries for "SCREAMS!!!" One was a dark fantasy piece inspired by one of my tabletop characters (I know! I'm a giant nerd!) You can check that weirdness out here: "Invalid Entry" The other was a flash fiction piece inspired (very loosely, mind you) by true adventures in my babysitting career. "Invalid Entry" And this one was actually the daily winner!  In some other event news, the Monthly SCREAMS!!! contest has started. You guys can check that out here:
Every year I say I'm going to enter, and then I forget, but, I do intend to enter this year. I also just signed up for this awesome event here: "October Novel Prep Challenge" I signed up super late, but I do have time to participate in every single day of the OctoPrep, which is my goal this month! Reviews A place for me to share reviews I've done and received Since I know I won't be getting many reviews done next month (let's be realistic, guys) I am trying to fit a few extra in. I'm also planning on giving a horror MB to whoever spooks me most with a story this month - so if you have any scary stories you want to send me for review... this might be a good time to do it! Conclusion Wrapping up my ramblings I know that was a lot of things, but I think I'm finally done. I've still got some writing and prepping and general nonsense to do before I go to bed, but thank you guys as always for reading! Hopefully I'll be seeing you all around a little more! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Intro Leading you into the madness of my blog It has been a long, long time. Luckily this was an announced hiatus, but it was a bit longer than I intended for it to be. Over the summer I took a job looking after my cousins, so I was gone a couple months. The other, missing month, has just been due to technical issues. My laptop got a little messed up during the trip, so being back in my office isn't all that I'd imagined it would be. I am back though, albeit not reliably. One of the hardest things about being away is always jumping back into the swing of things here, I always say that. But it's also very true that this community has been great for me, and I miss you guys when I'm away. Personal A little context about my personal life outside of writing My personal life is, as always, a big mess. I don't even know what to say about it other than, of course, I'm fostering more kittens. They showed up in my parents' house, and if my parents aren't going to turn them away, I'm certainly not either. They're both little orange boys. They've been named Archer and Vonnegut and neither one of them trust me very much, but they're both very loved. Archer is poly-dactyl (meaning he has extra toes.) My life is pretty much just filled with cats and books right now, and there are worse things. Offsite Some information about writing that I'm doing off of Writing.Com I finished my manuscript over the summer! It was absolutely terrible. I hated a lot of the changes that looked really good on paper, and ended up shifting perspective totally which is, of course, requiring me to redo pretty much everything. Instead of being a third person past tense it's now going to be told in the first person past tense (mostly) and everything is being generally difficult. I'm trying to get the penultimate draft of that done before NaNoWriMo this year, along with the last few edits from last year's NaNoWriMo project, and the outline for this year's project. It's a lot to work on, but it's good to keep busy. Work just cut my hours considerably so I have the free time at least. Oh, and work! I am currently working for a horror blog, if you can believe it! It's called The Dead Walk, and they pay for me to go to watch horror movies. How cool is that? Writing.com Updates about cool things I'm doing right here I haven't done a lot on here in the few days I've been back, but I have done a tiny bit of new content. First thing, I entered a piece into SCREAMS!!! (Of course!): "Invalid Entry" And second thing was I uploaded a little WIP backstory for my latest tabletop character (if you can believe that I'm playing in another table top campaign ) It's not very polished, but you can check that out here if you like:
Reviews A place for me to share reviews I've done and received As of today, I'm officially open to review requests again! I cannot wait to get back to reviewing on here, honestly it's one of the things I've missed out on most the last few months. If there's anything that you guys would like me to review, you can send a request or just PM me!  Conclusion Wrapping up my ramblings So that about sums it up! It's where I've been, what I'm working on currently, and a little practice getting back into the habit of blogging. I can't wait to get back into the creative zone here ~ and thank you guys as always for being so great! All the best |
| Intro Leading you into the madness of my blog It's been awhile since I've done one of these. I've been busy and sad and busy. Anyone who reads this probably also knows that I've been active on the site again for awhile (over a month now) but I never posted when I returned after my latest hiatus. Things have just been weird. I've been weird, too, I guess. But I've been getting back into the swing of things, and part of that means talking about myself to an internet full of strangers. That's part of my normal, and so here we go. Personal A little context about my personal life outside of writing My personal life has been a beautiful mess. The last time I posted here (or remembered posting) I thought things were ending with my partner. Making the transition from thinking they'd end to having them actually end was the sort of horrible that I couldn't really prepare myself for. I never thought I'd be in a relationship so long. Yesterday actually would have been our six year anniversary, if we'd made it, and no matter how hard I try I can't stop myself from having little thoughts like that. If I thought I wasn't equipped to be in a long term relationship, I definitely didn't know what I was in for leaving one. It comes and goes in waves. I'll have a full week of feeling better about myself and then something will just sneak up on me, and I'll start crying for no reason. I'll wake up sad. I'll get into my own head about stuff way more than I used to. But if I were going to preemptively sum up this section just to keep myself from talking more about this than I already have, it's that I'm here, and mostly I'm okay. I'm trying. I'm going to be okay. Offsite Some information about writing that I'm doing off of Writing.Com I have not been totally idle in the time I've been away. Toxic Bubblegum This is still under construction, but it's live! This is a website/project I'm working on with my best friend and favorite collaborative partner. We create content geared for other creators. It includes a zine, articles, a creative community blog, and an advice podcast along with fun things like reference sheets for characters and the occasional prompt. There's going to be some huge site overhaul going on pretty soon, but if you want to check it out anyway, that would be cool. Speaking of websites.... Mine also is going to be undergoing some major construction pretty soon, but I registered my own domain and got a little bit of my professional portfolio up: Cat Voleur The graphics are bad and I don't have a ton of samples up yet, but like I said, it's a work in progress. (I do however have bribe slots open for writing/review commissions, so that's been fun.) And finally, in website news, here is the website I made for my best friend: Alan Johnson It's the only one of these three sites that is finished. It's a portfolio site with some great art by someone very important to me (who you might know as designing some of my signatures/item covers) and I did the website design myself, so you should really go check it out. Writing.com Updates about cool things I'm doing right here Most of my news here is review-related, BUT, I have also done some contest entries that I'm pretty proud of in the last week or so: "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" "Invalid Entry" AND they've all been daily winners. So it looks like I had myself a little bit of a hot streak over at "SCREAMS!!!" Reviews A place for me to share reviews I've done and received So this was awhile ago, but I think I should start my cool reviewing news by mentioning that I received Honorable Mention for Best Reviewer at the Quill Awards, which was a tremendous honor - so thank you to whoever nominated me for that. I'm thinking I might try for it again this year by giving out more reviews I've been making good progress on that in terms of quantity at least. I got a reviewer MB for ranking #29 on the Public Reviewer list - something that hasn't happened in awhile. A large part of that was thanks to all the reviews I did for National Poetry Month: Review of "The Right Steps" Review of "Ablazing" Invalid Review Review of "When I Get to the End" Review of "The Ocean" Review of "Autumn Morning" Review of "Here’s to Pete" Review of "More Than Ever" Review of "What I Fear" Review of "every morning shines me" Review of "Days No Longer Spent In A Haze" Review of "My dear." Review of "love travels on, part 1: her" Review of "Purpose Beneath The Surface" Review of "Where Water Breaches the Strand" (There were some really fantastic poems in here, and if anyone is looking for some poetry, I suggest link hopping over through some of these.) As for right now, I'm in the middle of this awesome event: "Invalid Item" that is trying to promote Mental Health Awareness through the month of May. If you want me to review something this month, your best chance to get one is to submit it to the forum there (or to put in a formal review request, I have those open again.)If you're looking for some amazing items to read/review yourself about mental health/ mental health awareness, I highly recommend you check out the forum. I've read 15 so far and they've all been so amazing. Here are my reviews for those thus far: Review of "68 Minutes" Review of "The Violinist" Review of "Soul-Scratched" Review of "Haunted Castles of the Mind" Review of "Suicide" Review of "My Journey to California" Review of "Lip Gloss" Review of "Love My Way" Review of "Body Memory" Invalid Review Review of "Hiding" Review of "Sleep Calls (PTSD)" Invalid Review Review of "Stop the World" Review of "i peel you off of me" I have also gotten some of the most amazing reviews in the last couple weeks, but those are going to have to wait because this post is getting out of hand. But seriously, go check out those reviews and the items they were written for! Conclusion Wrapping up my ramblings So, all in all, I'm a mess, but I'm handling it. I don't know if I'm handling it well, but I'm handling it a lot better than I could be. I'm staying busy, and most importantly, I haven't closed myself off from the wonderful community here (even if this blog went quiet for a little bit.) Thanks to everyone for continually giving me a reason to come back here to share my writing and these updates. |
| Intro Leading you into the madness of my blog Hey guys! This is going to be a shorter entry, but I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Years! I hope everyone's 2019 is getting off to a good start. Personal A little context about my personal life outside of writing My personal life is bad right now. Really bad, but I'm not going to get into it here because I promised myself I was not going to start off my year by dwelling on the bad. If there's stuff left to vent about, that can come later. Right now, I'm going to focus on other things. Offsite Some information about writing that I'm doing off of Writing.Com I feel like every year for the past five years I've had the same resolutions (more or less.) While the specifics have changed, it boils down to reading more, writing more, learning a new skill and getting published. 2018 was one of the worst years of my life, but at least I learned something from it. I met all of my resolutions and numbers in 2018 and I ended the year feeling absolutely terrible. It put a lot of things in perspective. I read a lot. I write a lot. I've been published a few times. I've learned a lot of new skills. I do things. It's not about how much I do, it's about what I do. This year, I've decided to set myself better quantitative, reasonable goals that will actually get me somewhere. Instead of writing "more" I'm going to finish a manuscript and get it polished for submission. I'm going to turn my fantasy novel over to my collaborators and do a sequel. Instead of spending more time studying foreign languages I never use, I'm going to start using the foreign languages I know. I'm going to read a French book this year, and a German book, and I'm going to translate something cool into High Valyrian, because fuck it, I can. And of course, instead of getting a small thing or two published, I'm going to spend more time hustling. I read an article last year about a writer who made it their resolution to collect 100 rejection letters that year, and had trouble doing it because of all the acceptance letters and it really struck a chord with me. I know I probably won't get that many more acceptance letters, but I know that I also need to start taking more chances and trying more things, and this is a good way to motivate myself while also preparing myself for the anxiety inducing rejection. Plus, who doesn't love collecting rejection letters? Writing.com Updates about cool things I'm doing right here I haven't entered into any super crazy intensive events (yet) this year, but I am hoping to get a few more character pieces up soon, so that's going to be fun. I also would like to enter contests, at least often enough to keep my creative juices flowing, so if you guys have anything fun going on, let me know! Reviews A place for me to share reviews I've done and received I am officially open for review requests again! I'm also going to be looking for things to submit to Quills this year in the last month  Conclusion Wrapping up my ramblings So that about wraps it up. That's my semi-motivational thing for the new year. Thank you all for reading, and I hope that you all have the best of luck with your resolutions! Happy Writing! Cat |
| Intro Leading you into the madness of my blog It's absolutely amazing how much can change in a month. I went on a hiatus that was just supposed to last as long as NaNoWriMo, and I'm not entirely sure what I'm coming back to. It feels like everything has changed, and I don't know where my creative focus should be. (Or personal focus, for that matter.) I felt so determined at the end of October and now it feels like the ground has slipped out from under me. So, you know, this is going to be a really cheery entry. Personal A little context about my personal life outside of writing I got into a big fight with my partner about communication and opened up a lot of old wounds. That was pretty much how November started, and it was downhill from there. I think it was good for us to have that fight. We're a couple that doesn't fight a lot and I'm not sure if either of us knew just how much stuff we were bottling in. It felt good to clear the air some, but we landed in two very different places in regards of where to go next, and I'm not sure it's something we're going to make it past. We've been together for over five years now, so the realization that we might be growing apart hit me really hard. What's been even harder to cope with is the idea that I don't really know who I am anymore. I've spent nearly all of my adult life in this relationship and even though it was never the defining thing about me, it's a big part of who I am. There have been a lot of changes in my patterns and ideals since this started and it's weird to think I was so different the last time I was single. There's a lot more there that I'm not going to get into here because it would be a definite case of oversharing, but that's the gist of a lot of what's going on in my life right now. Offsite Some information about writing that I'm doing off of Writing.Com tumblr. So I have/had a lot of traction on tumblr. I'm in contact with a lot of creators I really look up to on there, I have a small following that I've worked really hard for, and it's a platform I've poured a lot of my time and energy into establishing. I am trying so hard not to freak out about the fact that it's getting rid of NSFW content, but here I am, freaking the fuck out anyway. It's easy to say that because I don't run a NSFW blog, I shouldn't be affected, but a lot of my friends are going to start struggling on the platform. The filters don't work the best, and they've always been harsher than necessary with the horror community. It feels like it might be an uphill battle that I'm not sure I want to fight, considering that a lot of creators are already considering this the first stages of the end of the platform. I've been trying to branch out for the last year, I have a WordPress and a small following on Twitter, but I've never really found the success there that I found on tumblr. Tumblr has always served to fuel my readers on other places and it looks like I won't really have that as a tool anymore, which is utterly terrifying. I can't imagine not being a horror blogger after having worked hard enough to feel like I've earned the title. I've interviewed some amazing authors, done promos alongside indie film companies, and I feel like I've really built something that I might not have by the end of the year, and it has really, really shaken me. I had a lot of plans on how I was going to expand my name and my projects and even though a lot of that involved broadening my horizons, I thought I'd have a safety net and now I don't think I will. I have another collaborative project that I'm really excited to be working on, but a lot of the SEO and marketing aspects might not be relevant, so I might be obsolete in the group before I've even started, which is terrible. My own work is also suffering because I'm just in such a chaotic head space right now. It's like I've lost sight of everything all at once and am flying totally blind. Writing.com Updates about cool things I'm doing right here I did finish in the NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon, which is my good news. My team did terribly in regards to placement, but I'm not overly worried about it. It felt less competitive this year anyway, and not having a ridiculous word count actually made my draft a lot cleaner, so I've got less editing and stuff coming up (except for just a couple sections I need to revisit before I upload - but mostly.) My MB came in this week and everything, and it feels so good just to have finished something. Speaking of which, I am doing "Invalid Item" this year, and really struggling.I am not good at poetry, or deadlines, and I don't really like the holidays (so far 14/15 prompts have had something to do with a holiday, many in a very direct sense) so it's a lot more challenging to keep myself entering something every day than I thought it would be when I started. Some of my poems have been particularly terrible, and I feel so bad for the judges A lot of the challenge has been submitting something every day though, and despite all odds I have managed to do that, even on the days where every word felt like pulling teeth. In that regard I think it's making me a better competitor, and a better writer. Hopefully this week I'll be able to catch up on email responses and such as well, which is going to be a big undertaking because I've been terrible at keeping up on correspondence. Reviews A place for me to share reviews I've done and received I am not open to reviews quite yet - but I plan to be soon. I also have some wonderful feedback that I've gotten from generous reviewers that I'd like to share, but that's going to have to wait because I'd like to respond to them first. Gotta catch up on that email. Conclusion Wrapping up my ramblings So, to wrap things up; I don't know what I'm doing in my personal or professional life. I feel scattered and lost and a little mopey, and that's just where I'm at right now. Maybe feeling all those things is going to let me get back to my roots and come back stronger, or maybe I'll drown in all of it. It's hard to be optimistic at this point, but thank you for reading. -Cat |
| Intro Leading you into the madness of my blog This will probably be my last blog post for a little while, I'm trying to get things on track for "NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon" this year, but I just wanted to do one final post before November with a few little updates about projects and things I've done, will be doing, or will be putting on hold for the next few weeks.This will also include my NaNoWriMo project itself, which I have in fact changed last minute (and am still scrambling a bit to get prepared for - hence my long absence.) I'll also hopefully be able to look back at this blog post when I'm stumbling back into my normal routine the first week of December, trying to regain my bearings. So, I suppose I should just jump into it. Personal A little context about my personal life outside of writing One thing that I was hoping to get done (and probably won't) before November was I wanted to polish up a couple of personal articles that I've been working on. I'm a part of the LGBTQ+ community. It's something I don't talk about generally, because while I identify comfortably as a pansexual, I've been in a straight relationship for some time now - and even that isn't really anyone's business but my own. It's just something I've been struggling with a little bit because of the political climate. We live in a time where being private feels too much like being ashamed. I'm not now, nor have I ever been, ashamed to be pansexual. I came out very casually, and this post is even sort of the first time I've addressed the issue this directly, or at this length. It's something that's been on my mind a lot recently, and as it's something I've been thinking about I wrote a couple rough drafts for some personal articles. One is about the importance of learning about LGBTQ+ terminology - even if you're only an ally or don't think you want to be active in the community. The other is about how being cisgender can lead to taking certain things for granted, and how to be more open minded about the gender spectrum. They're issues that I think are important, and essays I'd like to continue working on, but hopefully taking a break from them at this stage and coming back to them with fresh eyes is something that will help me, and it's one reason why I feel okay setting the project aside until after NaNo. Offsite Some information about writing that I'm doing off of Writing.Com Mostly I have been NaNo prepping. I mentioned in my last post I had a couple projects I wanted to work on before NaNoWriMo (which was true) but even that got put aside so that I could work on my new outline. I will be tackling a more collaborative effort this year (which I also talked about a little in my last entry.) I've also been doing a lot of character work for my tabletop games, and for once, I don't just mean backstories (although, also that.) I've been doing some character art as well, which was fun. I used to love drawing and doing my own character art all the time, but art school I guess really beat it out of me - and it's something I'm just now starting to get into. I've been having a ton of fun working on some busts/profiles in oil pastel and they're not good by any means, but I've had so much fun doing them. I also have a stack of rough drafts that I need to type up piling up on my desk. I was hoping to get them, at the very least typed out before November, but again, that's just now what happened this year. Aside from the tabletop backstories I wrote some creepypastas that I was hoping to get uploaded here (and maybe a teaser for my novella) but, oh well. Depending on how my NaNo book is structured, I might be done with it fairly early into the month this year, and we can see how the whole thing goes. I had an idea for a longer version of my book (that would be great for that determination badge) BUT I think my partners would probably prefer the shorter version, and their input is really valuable to me. Besides, if I cap myself at or near the 50k I can maybe also finish my vampire novella and have it polished before the end of the year, which was one of my resolutions. Maybe even start like, submitting it places? Maybe? I have so many projects just sitting around, it's well past time I start facing down my fears and sending them out. Writing.com Updates about cool things I'm doing right here Alright, so cool stuff here. First, I want to thank my three sponsors for "NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon" "WhataLand" Escape Artist  Schnujo is Late to Lannister  They'll probably all also appreciate it if I go for that shorter draft I actually got my last sponsor by donating to an absolutely wonderful charity thread that I recommend you all check out. If you're seeking NaNo sponsors, they might still have a couple slots open for that deal and even if not, there are a ton of great prizes being auctioned off and some exclusive MBs. All the proceeds are going to a good cause and it's only going until October 31st, so you should be sure to check it out soon! "SuperPower Animals Auction for Charity" As for things I've done on Writing.Com that pretty much amounts to just a couple items and one awardicon: I got the awardicon for doing 15 PDG reviews in October, for my item:
I also uploaded a new WIP. It's an early, early draft of a story I'm doing for one of my tabletop characters:
And like it says in the Author's Note, I am looking for some specific kinds of feedback. There are still a lot of technical edits to be made (cross-platform formatting kinks, typos, punctuation, etc.) and I want to toy with the pacing more, particularly toward the end. That being said, I wrote it mostly for people in the game with me, and I'd love to know what parts are confusing out of context so the piece could be more appealing to a wider audience. If anyone wants to give me their thoughts on that I would really appreciate it (although I might not get back to you right away and I'm really sorry. And finally, my NaNo item!
Everything about it right now is a Work in Progress, but I'm setting up for NaNoWriMo and I intend to get a chapter template in place as well as my credits written before the first of the month so that I can upload as I go. You can't really view it right now, but that will change later on, as soon as the details are ironed out. You can still sign up to sponsor me, and although I'm not entirely sure that it will be necessary this year, you can also set a cap on that still, in case I go renegade again. Reviews A place for me to share reviews I've done and received And, unlike last year, I remembered to turn off my review requests for the month. I will be taking them again as soon as I finish my project, but, I have plans to do extra reviews in December that will hopefully make up for it. Here was my final batch of reviews before the hiatus: Review of "The Lakefront" Review of "The Benefit of Doubt" Review of "Questions" Review of "How Will You Be Remembered " Review of "Evanescent Horror" Invalid Review Review of "A dozen or so sentences" Review of "A Haunted House" Invalid Review Review of "She had learned" Review of "Autumn Holiday" Review of "A Darkness in the Trees" Review of "The Powers Of Haddenspor - Chapters 1-2" Invalid Review Invalid Review If you guys have something you want me to review, you can keep an eye out here, I'll be announcing when my requests are open again which should be in about 4 weeks give or take Conclusion Wrapping up my ramblings I will miss updating you guys here, but I will be back just as soon as my November Novel is finished. I am looking forward to the event this year, and appreciate your support so, so much! See you in a few weeks, guys! |
| Intro Leading you into the madness of my blog I am one week into my NaNoWriMo prep and a lot of it has been wrapping up other projects and narrowing down what I wanted to work on this year. This entry today is going to talk about the novel I plan to work on, the runner ups, and then small updates on the projects I'll be trying to wrap up this October. Spoiler Alert: This will end with me asking for sponsors for this year's NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon. Getting sponsors is always my least favorite part of this event, and I know last year I drove my sponsors a little insane because of the high word count. I can't promise this year will be better, but I can warn you guys going in, and let you know just how much I really appreciate you If anyone is interested in sponsoring me but not interested in reading me yapping about a bunch of stuff, I won't take it personally and I will still love you very much. The link to sponsor me will be down in the Writing.Com section with the green text. Personal A little context about my personal life outside of writing The biggest news in my personal life is that I've adopted another cat. I know I probably shouldn't have. I have arguably too many cats. But I literally cannot say no to taking in little feline friends, and this one desperately needed a good home. My best friend got a job working at a daycare center for animals, and someone just abandoned their sweet, adult cat there.If they couldn't have placed her they would have had to send her to a shelter which is sad enough on it's own, but they have such a tough time getting adult cats adopted - PLUS she's all black. Black cats are some of the hardest to adopt because of superstition, and I just didn't have it in my heart to see her go somewhere where she wouldn't be loved. Plus, they say all writers should have a black cat, and currently I just have a bunch of black and white / orange and white. She's my only female and she's already the boss of the house. The boys are not so sure about her, but she is already very loved by me.  Offsite Some information about writing that I'm doing off of Writing.Com Last week I posted that a lot of my time and energy went into a streaming guide I did for horror movies on Netflix. A lot of my time and energy this week has gone into researching my Hulu follow up, which will be released tomorrow. We did however release the first episode of a new podcast though on our Toxic Bubblegum channel called Devil's Advo-Cat. It's a show basically designed to make people hate me Basically we find controversial (or even just wildly disliked) bits of media and hold a little debate about them, where I defend the unpopular opinion. In the pilot episode we take on the first season of Netflix's Insatiable, and I'll just leave a link for that here: The Devil's AdvoCat || Insatiable Other than that I've just been trying to finish up some projects before November. Like I said, it took awhile to narrow down what I want to do for NaNo this year. I had it down to a few choices, and now that I've made my selection I can work on the others guilt-free, which has me all excited about them. The first is my Adventures book from last year. I completed the rough draft of the book, which came in at 135,000+ words. It was however a collaboration project and after looking through the pros and cons of the format the group decided collectively that I needed a little more creative freedom to take it in a different direction from the source material. That means it's going to be broken up into 5 books instead of five parts, each one being longer and exploring areas that just weren't covered in the podcast. I thought about doing the first of that 6 book series because there are a lot of people really invested in it, and this would be a good way to push through that rough draft and onto the collaborative portion, but unfortunately I still need a lot of notes from other members of the team, and I'm just not confident that they'd be done in time for November. (Although if they are... I might change what project I'm doing last minute, just like I did last year The other thing I thought about working on is an extended, book adaptation of one of the short stories in my SCREAMS!!! entry collection: "Invalid Entry" I got really excited about it and wrote up an outline that I initially thought would be great for NaNo BUT after careful consideration and some conservative estimates, I think the project might come out to be more of a novella length, and I did't want to risk being under my word count goal. So, I've been working on it a little this month because I am really excited, and I don't want to come back in December and find I've lost some of my momentum on it. I'm only 2 chapters in, but I think it was a good call not to use it because the chapters are coming out pretty short, and there's only going to be 15 of them, so I'm looking at something closer to the 30k range. Writing.com Updates about cool things I'm doing right here First up, some exciting SCREAMS news: I won daily story for my entry: "Invalid Entry" and I tied yesterday for my entry: "Invalid Entry" Pretty exciting! Alright, so now, to the part I'm dreading. The project that I've chosen to work on this year for NaNoWriMo is actually the same project that I chose to work on a couple years ago. I decided it had been too long since I'd written a book going in blind and I just wanted to have fun with the concept. I got some really good material out of it, but the structure was terrible and the focus was way off. I wrote up an outline of what I wanted the next draft to be like and realized I'd pretty much have to start that all over as well, which I intended to do last year, but I never got around to it. I kept the outline though and with one final round of adjustments, I feel confident in the outline going into NaNo this year. So, I've signed up for "NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon" and now I'm looking for sponsors.I'm not going to lie, it's probably going to be another high word count project this year. However! You can set a donation cap going in if that's something you're worried about. I also give out Thank You MBs to all my sponsors at the end of the month, and I'd be a great writer to back if you're looking to be the person to take home the Generosity MB from the event this year. If you can sponsor me, or know anyone who might be interested, I would really, really appreciate it. Reviews A place for me to share reviews I've done and received Here are my latest reviews: Review of "Ode to Jewelry" Review of "The Powers Of Haddenspor - Chapters 1-2" Both of which are responses to review requests. Remember, if you have something you'd like me to review before all the NaNo madness, you have about a week to submit your request, and after that I'll be going on a brief reviewing hiatus. I also got a really lovely review on the winning entry I mentioned earlier: Review of "Murmurationis Cotidie" AND a review for my last post here: Review of "The Writing Writer" Conclusion Wrapping up my ramblings Wrapping things up, I've got a new cat, a lot of projects, and am really, really looking forward to NaNo this year. Thank you guys so much for reading All the best, Cat |
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There is a constant stream of stray cats in our area. I said three was my limit with also having our big dog to care for, too, but now my limit is four! 
This is a great review and it's good to have you back Kat. Also, thank you for reviewing my poem, I will catch you up on that as I am a bit behind with myself and work. Loves Ya. 
