Cat Pollock Writes

Last weekend, I posted a blog about how I printed out the incomplete manuscript for the novel I started writing back in November. This weekend, I am taking another trip down Memory Lane and sharing two of my favorite things that go along with my National Novel Writing Month experiences. First, the cover art. My junior year of high school, I took what amounts to a computer graphic design course. It ended up being one of my favorites - I still have my portfolio from it if anyone ever wants to see it in all of its late 90s beginner designing awesomeness. Ever since then, I've taken great pleasure in the (extremely) occasional opportunities I've had to play around with what I learned. For NaNoWriMo, that means seeing how well I can translate the cover I envision for a book into an actual book cover design. I never have been, and probably never will be, a professional, but I'm pretty happy with how NaNoWriMo 2013's effort turned out (although 2011's attempt ...

Luhrs Tower, downtown Phoenix Standing in the shadows of tall buildings always makes me feel small. That's the caption I added to a photo of the building across the street from where I catch my last bus for the day on my way home from work when I posted it online earlier this evening. I probably could have snapped a quick picture of any one of ten or fifteen buildings an actual stone's throw away from where this was taken that are just as tall as (if not taller than) this one. But it was the closest, I was waiting for a bus... And, well, this one counts as a historic building, which - in my weird, history-obsessed mind - trumps any claim any other building nearby could possibly make of being photo-worthy. Wait - what was I saying? Oh, right. Standing in the shadows of tall buildings always makes me feel small, and that's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing because there are some days where I need to be reminded that I am small. Yes, my design is intri...

I went to bed last night with a list of things to do today (not so) neatly listed in my head. Laundry. Baking. Straightening the house. Quiet time. Not one of the things on my list had anything to do with the one-half to two-thirds complete first draft of a novel sitting on my laptop's hard drive. I hadn't touched my novel since the beginning of December. Yes, friends, as crazy as it might sound, I intentionally took a seven week break from a first draft that has yet to be completed. I also intentionally didn't touch any other non-work-related writing projects in that time period. The holiday season is always especially crazy, and I've developed this ridiculous idea lately that if I want to breathe real life into the stories I write... Well, I need to lead a life that breathes real life into the lives of people around me. So I took some time to let the people, places, and things that breathe real life into me do exactly that. (I'm not going to make any pro...