January 2019 Project Update

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 on the second draft of the first book, the earliest I will be able to get back to this story is ~~mid-to-late March~~ the beginning of April, which may or may not coincide with Camp NaNoWriMo (I tried searching for the 2019 dates, but I'm now confused about what is going on with it).

As excited as I am about the first story in this series, I'm as excited (if not more so) for this next one. I think it's going to be good.

Also, I do have a general outline for the series as a whole. I know where I want it to begin and end, and some ideas I want to explore over the course of the series. I've left room in the outline for other ideas as they come up, so the number could grow from the six or seven I have planned right now.

The Memory Bank Chronicles

This is a series of novellas I've been writing off and on for a while. I'm happy to say that the first drafts are complete for all of the stories in this series. When I finish with the second draft of Izzy and the Safari Switch, I'll get back to work on this project - sometime between late February and the middle of March.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get the second draft of the first novella whipped into shape and ready for that third round of edits by the beginning of April.

What else is on the horizon?

Right now, not much. Outside of the blog, The Memory Bank Chronicles and The Switch Series are the projects I'm concentrating on at the moment. I may slide a short story or two out in the meantime, but I'm not sure where, when, or what those stories would be.

The best way to find out is to follow me on Facebook or Twitter (links below).

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catpollockwrites

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/capollockwrites

Until next time,

Cat

My Writer's Toolbox: Thesauruses I Love

I don't know about the rest of you writers in the crowd, but there are times when I struggle to get the right words to come out onto the page. The debate over using thesauruses amongst authors can be fierce. My personal opinion is that there is definitely a place and time to use them (they've saved me from missing deadlines on a few occasions), so long as a writer is careful not to overuse them. Because I do consider them an essential in my writer's toolbox of resources, I thought I would share the ones I make the most use out of and where you can find them. 1. Webster's New World Thesaurus (credit: @catpollockwrites IG, posted 8/24/2017 ) When you were in grade school, did your teachers ever hand out those monthly or bimonthly Scholastic book catalogs with all the age-appropriate books coming out that they wanted you to buy? That, my friends, is how I got a hold of my thesaurus. It's almost like mid-thirties me traveled back in time and whispered int

Metaphors: Candles

I've recently fallen in love with candles. Since coming home from the World Race , I've bought at least one a month. My favorite candles are the ones that come in glass jars - because when they burn out, I can clean the remaining wax out and put the jars to other uses. Right now, that means they get cleaned out and packed away in anticipation of my move to Flagstaff. But as I was lighting one tonight (vanilla spice... Thanksgiving smells? Yes, please!), I saw a metaphor for writing flickering away in the flame licking at the wick and melting the wax. I suppose it could be a metaphor for life in general, but since the theme of this blog is writing... Well, you do the math.

[Five Minute Friday] Purpose

Fiber bars, strewn along the side of the road. There had to be at least a dozen of them, still in their wrappers and completely unopened. No box in sight. Really? That's about the reaction my younger sister and I had when we stumbled on them on our early morning run. Really? along with disgusted sighs about the wastefulness of it. These were the expensive ones, not a generic store brand that kind of tastes and kind of looks the same sometimes. So, when we weren't keeping an eye out for their box, we speculated about what had happened. And wondered how many more we were going to see before the end of our run. "Maybe they took one bite and thought they were gross," my sister said. "So they threw them out because they didn't want them anymore." I let out one of those disgusted sighs and nodded along with her theory. "Yeah, or they got in a huge fight, and threw them out in a fit of rage." "That's a possibility." And

Cat Pollock Writes

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