Cat Pollock Writes

Happy Thursday! Today's post is going  intended to be short - just a quick status update on a couple of my bigger writing projects. It's been awhile since I've shared anything here or on my social media pages, and one of my goals for this year is to do a better job of communicating these updates. Expect to see these once every few months moving forward. All right - now to dive in... The Switch Series After a longer break than I care to admit, I've gotten back to work on the first book in the Switch Series (tentatively called Izzy and the Safari Switch) this month, and am about 25% of the way through with the second draft. My goal is to have it complete between the end of February and the middle of March. Cover idea I've been playing around with for book #1 - obviously far from complete What about the rest of the series? Well... I've started writing book two, although I've only written a few chapters so far. Because I'm working o

Happy Thursday! Welcome to (almost) the end of January and the first review on the blog for 2019. Today, I'm reviewing a psychological science fiction thriller. If that's your cup of tea, then keep reading to see what I thought about this debut novel. Disclaimer Tag:   The book for this month's review as provided to me for free by the author in exchange for a fair and honest review of their work. An Unfortunate Dimension Dominic Schunker, 2018, Offworld Publishing Summary: On the surface, Salvador has the life we all would love to have - a beautiful wife he loves with all his being, a good job at a virtual reality (VR) tech firm, a house, good friends... the works. When Jemma falls into a coma and does not wake up, Salvador turns to the virtual world for a solution to the real world nightmare she seems to have fallen into. Her doctor's grim pronouncement that Jemma has seven days before they pull the plug pushes Salvador into a desperate attempt to wake her

Remember how I did a two-part series a couple of months ago that checked to see if Netflix would recommend sci-fi and fantasy movies I was interested in? Well, before I launch into the blog series I was talking about a couple of weeks ago , I thought it would be fun to take a look at Goodread's science fiction recommendations in a similar manner. With 50 recommendations on the list, and in the interest of not turning this post into a novel, I decided to narrow the list down. There were numerous recommendations based on a few authors I've read, so I chose one recommendation per author. Also, all of the summaries are taken from the book's Goodreads description unless otherwise stated. The Iron Duke (Iron Seas series), Meljean Brook   (3.86 star rating on Goodreads as of Jan. 2019) Recommended because I've read Waistcoats & Weaponry (Gail Carriger) Summary:   After the Iron Duke freed England from Horde control, he instantly became a national hero. Now

How do you come up with character names? It's a question I've seen come up quite a bit lately in some of the groups I'm in on Facebook. Answers varied, but most writers seem to have specific places they go (online or off) to help them find names. Those answers inspired me to share the sites that have helped me the most here on the blog today. Behind the Name - Random Name Generator Link to generator:  https://www.behindthename.com/random/ Behind the Name is better known as a site that allows people to look up the origin and meaning of names - first and last. A fun tool on their site for writers is the Random Name Generator. It's one I use often when I am creating characters for my writing projects. Why I Use It for Some of My Characters This generator gives me options when I need to generate character names. In real life, parents are influenced by many things when they select a name for their child. Sometimes it's their national/ethnic backgrou

Last year was quite the year, wasn't it? I published a second short story collection, I started reviewing stories by indie authors, and even my personal life got a little bit crazy. Sorry, almost got carried away with another 2018 retrospective (see the last two weeks of posts here and here  if you missed them). The purpose of today's post is to talk about 2019 - what I'm focusing on this year and what you can expect to see from me. Ready? Good. Let's get started. Focus Words I am not usually one to focus on a word or a set of words for a specific year, but a couple have come to mind as I've been brainstorming and planning for this year. Organization Persistence Organization is not something I have a difficult time understanding or doing. I love organizing. Weirdly, I have a lot of fun doing so - enough to write an entire series of posts about getting organized  for a couple of writing projects a few years ago. The bigger issue is that I of