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chapter 16 blog
Hello!
Since it's the start of the month I just figured I would drop by to let people know about some of the projects and stuff that I'm working on. More than anything my time is going to my horror blog. I'm trying to get the queue set up and the theme fixed without letting my promise of more live content slide, and reading/listening-to/playing-through/watching all the content I share is very time consuming. Not to worry though, I am still juggling this around my own creative writing. Here is a glimpse into the things that are coming up in my world of fiction:
And I will potentially continue working on my manuscript. With all of the submissions I've been doing I have not made a lot of progress on that but I also haven't abandoned it quite yet. So that's what I will be up to. Thank you guys for reading the blog and I will hopefully have some updates for you soon. -Cat
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Hey guys,
There hasn't been a lot to update everyone about recently since making submission deadlines isn't all that exciting by itself (and I doubt you want to hear about each and every rejection letter because believe me, it gets tedious fast.) Today however, I got an acceptance letter, which I figured you would want to know about :D I will be having a short story featured in next month's issue of The Siren's Call eZine, which just so happens to be their fifth annual Women in Horror month issue - so I'm doubly excited about it. I'll get to work with their editor throughout the next week and it will be a really neat promotion for me. I am a big supporter of The Siren's Call - not just because they accept my work, but because they run a wonderful eZine that promotes writers of speculative fiction and provides free, quality horror content to thousands of people. That's something I can definitely get behind, as my horror blog essentially tries to do the same thing (although I'm only reaching about a fraction of their viewers.) I also really support Women in Horror Month. It's a great cause that tries to bridge some of the inequality that women face when writing in a genre that is definitely male-dominated (as are most speculative fiction genres, sadly.) A lot of the horror writers that I've looked up to for the past several years have been men, and a big part of that has been that they get more exposure and are easier to find across the various subgenres. Women in Horror Month showcases some very, very talented female horror writers and shows that we are every bit as talented and disturbed as men. I am so excited to be a part of that movement and so incredibly honored to be featured with so many talented women. This is a great opportunity for me. The story I'm having featured will remain secret until next month, but I can tell you that it's a short story developed from a flash-fiction content I entered on Writing.Com. There is also some talk of it being adapted into a super awesome comic that I'm also looking forward to. So, that's about it. I thought I would share the exciting news and I will provide some links in the future. Thank you guys for your interest in my site. -Cat Hello everyone! I hope that things are going well and that everyone's 2017 is getting off to a good start. I just thought I'd drop in to let everyone know I'm still here, I'm still writing, and I'm still working on things. All of the pieces that I have polished and ready for submission are, as of this moment, submitted somewhere. I'm expecting a lot of rejections, but with any luck I'll be back on here one or twice to announce a publication from one of my 2016 submissions. Man, I am so glad for 2016 to be over. As for upcoming things, some of you may have noticed that I took my horror blog off hiatus. (And also technically the game blog, though I never really got the ball rolling on that one before so...) and that's eating up a fair amount of my time. I am (in theory) working on my portfolio site still. I was making really good progress on that until I lost my flash drive, but with any luck that will be turning up soon and I can wrap that all up. I have some things coming up on the distant horizon - I have my manuscript narrowed down to just a couple options for instance and there's a good chance that I'll be writing a graphic novel at some point this year. And of course - I've got January submissions coming up. The stories that I'll be working on this month include the following:
And, my all-time most requested aspect of original fiction
(I'm not even kidding - people seriously ask me for that all the time. I seem to have accidentally stumbled into a very specific niche with mildly BDSM-related, LGBTQ+, paranormal erotica. Who knew, right?) And that, my dear (and possibly imaginary) readers, is what you can be expecting from me to be working on this month, as well as my daily horror flash fiction, which I'm going to try to do on a more daily basis from hereon out. One of my resolutions is to write more original stuff, and I'm only one day in, but so far it's looking good. With any luck, there will be more updates from me in the near future, regarding the progression of the aforementioned stories, my attempts to finish a manuscript, and any potential publication attempts. - Cat Hey everyone,
I have been absent from the blog for awhile, but I have not been lazy. I've been working on my 2016 NaNoWriMo project, which I announced just about everywhere but here (oops.) Balancing that with submissions has been really, really tricky, I'm not going to lie, but I'm kind of doing it. I keep forgetting to update my wordcount (which I need to go do actually) and as of today I'm about 1,000 words behind, but I'm mostly doing it. As for the submissions, I think I've been doing okay. November has been a slow month for horror fiction (which I suppose is understandable after the Halloween craze) but I do have two or three places that I'm currently polishing up my submissions for (or writing the rough draft for in one case) that will be due in the next couple weeks. The submissions I'm working on now include:
I'm very excited about them, they've just been cutting too deeply into my novel-writing time. I'm also really excited about some of my upcoming December projects, which is actually one of the things I wanted to talk about. Since I am currently staying with a very handsome gamer who lets me use the very nice gaming computer he built for my work stuff, I now have the ability to get back into the world of tumblr blogging - and maybe some other blogging as well. It's very possible that I'll have some theme blogs coming back off hiatus very soon and depending on how well that goes... well, let's just say I've learned a lot about blogs this last year and might be looking to expand my operations to a more professional hosting site. I have also joined a novel writing group. Obviously the only novel I'll be working on until the end of November is my NaNo project, but I do have a couple outlines I'm really excited about. Embarking on another novel is something that might not be realistic in December, but it's something I'm actively considering if I feel I can juggle it around my other projects. We'll just have to see how everything plays out. Anyway, This is probably going to be a slow blogging month for me because I am swamped. Novel writing, portfolio work, job hunting, and an active submission rotation is sort of kicking my ass. If anything exciting happens though, you guys as always will be the first to know. -Cat Hey everyone.
As you may or may not have noticed I have been cleaning up the site a little bit, making some minor changes and such. I'm still sort of tweaking it, so you might see some stuff getting reworded or moving around. I'm just generally trying to get it to look a little nicer - especially now that I'm starting to get some traffic on here. I know that the big issue I need to be tackling is obviously getting my portfolio site back online with all my samples. getting a job was a lot easier when I could just link that to perspective employers. It's coming along, it really is. I'm still trying to round out a nice collection of genre samples and get editing done and all the normal stuff. The more I get done, the more like it feels like there is to do. I am going to make a couple small design compromises for the time being - putting some ideas on hold that while amazing from an aesthetic standpoint, won't really affect the functionality of the site. That is really, really hard for me to do but I'm getting pretty desperate to get this site launch done. It's one of about a thousand things that I'm working on right now, but I will do my best to make some progress and keep you updated. Hey everyone!
The erotic Halloween Microfiction I've been telling you guys about that got accepted got published today. It is called Touring Moreau and it can be found here: Halloween Microfiction: Touring Moreau I definitely don't think it's my strongest piece of erotica, but incorporated all of the elements that were given while still making the word count qualifications - so I'm going to call it a success, You guys should also check out some of the other amazing work from Circlet Press, because if you are a geek who likes erotica, they have some stuff that will probably be right up your alley. (They also have really great LGBTQ+ representation in both writers and characters - so it's a great place to support.) Thank you everyone for reading the blog and potentially also the microfiction. I will hopefully be seeing you all again soon. -Cat Hey guys,
I just heard back from Circlet Press about the flash fiction piece I wrote for them, and it is on the schedule to be published on the 19th. I will be sure to put a link up here on my blog when it goes up. In the meantime I've got lots of writing to do to keep up with my submission schedule for the month. Also, since there is going to be a link included to this site when my story goes up, now might not be the worst time to clean this up a bit, which I've been saying for awhile now that I'm going to do. -Cat Really great news, everyone!
I was accepted into The 2016 Writing.Com Anthology - which I am very excited about. For those of you who don't know, Writing.Com is a wonderful online community for writers. It's a really good place to get feedback, support and they have a ton of writing resources. The basic membership is free and if you haven't checked it out yet, you should. Even if you're more of a reader than a writer, it's worth joining just for all the amazing work that's been posted. The anthology features some highlights from the site, including both short stories and poetry. I am very honored to be a part of it this year. Copies are available for preorder here. I don't know which story I'm having featured, but I'll be sure to share that information with you when I get it - and I'll include links to it so that if anyone's interested they don't have to buy the anthology. If anyone is interested in the anthology however, I definitely want to encourage that. I personally won't be making any money from sales, but every copy sold goes to support not only the wonderful project and the press that's publishing it - but it also promotes some of the wonderful writers who have been included. Some of them are my personal friends, and all of them are very talented. Some of you have been asking me if I have anything available for sale - and now I can finally say yes. For a limited time this book is a physical thing that you can order where you will get to see my name in print. Thank you so much for reading and for the support - you guys are awesome! - Cat I just got some really cool news, I've had a piece accepted into an erotic Halloween flash fiction event. I don't have all the details yet, but I'll be sure to let you guys know more when I do.
That's a pretty uplifting way to start a month of very hard work! I'm sure you guys have been wondering for awhile where the portfolio site has ended up, why the links to it vanished, and when it's going to be back. I finally have some annoyingly vague answers for anyone who is actually wondering that.
Setting up the new portfolio site has been something that has been problematic, to say the least. The main issue I was having with it is that I wanted it to do too many things. I wanted it to have the clean, concise feel of a business site while also having the casual feel of a more relaxed commission site. I wanted it to show off all the different sorts of things I do while promoting only my best work. I wanted it to be visually appealing, focused, versatile, and serve as an easy to navigate master source of all my work while still being something I could link to potential employers. None of that is practical. I finally came up with a solution, and it's flawed, but that's no less than I would expect from a compromise of so many different ideas. The result is as close as I could get to a nice middle ground for all the things I wanted it to do. That's made it a little bit more cluttered than would be ideal, but it has lots of variety, all the information I could want, and the only things omitted are things that I would want employers to know that could be included in my cover letter. The layout is done, I'm pleased with the aesthetic quality, and despite the clutter (which I've deemed a necessary evil for the time being) I've gotten mostly positive feedback from my testers. The layout is finished and ready to go. Now I just need to fill in all that information. Between the gargantuan size of the site and the slow-loading nature of my netbook, this is proving to be a much larger undertaking than I have anticipated. I assure you that I'm going to be sticking with it though, and you can expect some word on how it's going shortly. Until then, all the best, and thank you for sticking this out with me. -Cat |
Chapter 16 BlogJust a place for me to give updates on my work and mission of publication. Archives
February 2018
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