Caitlin E Burgess

Writer, Vlogger, & Queen of Mayhem

[caitlineburgess]

2020 has kicked my butt

The year in recap:

In August of last year my car broke down, leading to the cancellation of the rest of the years schooling with intensions to start back up in the spring of 2020. Well we see how that went.

I also ended things with my ex leading to a lot of emotional drama that kept me from doing work on the book.The relationship was toxic and only until leaving did I finally see just how toxic it was for me. More news included my sister and roommate moving her boyfriend in with us without consulting me and getting pregnant then moving out leaving me to find new roommates. This is another reason book work didn’t get done properly. XD

Since my sisters move out and the break up I’ve been doing amazingly, both my emotional and mental state has evened out and I’ve become so much more productive. I’m now happily engaged to the most spectacular man who understands and respects me. He’s moved in along with another roommate, so not as much financial stress as I previously had. Yay!

We recently got super excited about the purchase of new pots and pans, and ya’ll they cook so good!

My book is on the mend, with a new 20k words on the pages and a critique partner lined up. I send in the edited first chapter later today so fingers crossed that it goes well and I get some helpful feedback.

Stress is still a huge issue for me, especially working retail for the day job with this COVID stuff going on, but I’m trying to manage things as best as I can. Letting my inner Virgo have control sometimes and telling her to shut up others. 

I am hoping to continue daily writing exorcises for you guys and can’t wait to let you know about the books future!

[caitlineburgess]

Book and Life Update

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all having a good 2019 and start to the May month. Summer semesters are coming in fast and I can’t wait to get back into the swing of art development and advancing my craft! I hope all you students out there are ready and as excited as I am!

Life Update

Here lately I’ve been dealing with a lot of stress, stress that actually made me physically ill (a state which I’m dealing with right now) and some pretty bad depression on top of that. When I’m stressed like that I just don’t enjoy anything or produce any reliable work.

I work in a pretty stressful environment, with people who like to gossip, something that just spirals out of hand at this job. However I’ve decided that I’m going to work towards relieving a lot of this stress, and try not to let it wear me down. Instead I’ll focus on sticking to a schedule (to calm my poor little virgo brain down out of its crazy), meditating, eating a little better, and just generally improving my life outside of work. 

My end goal is to complete this book, and publish it, and hopefully become a full time writer/story teller in the process, so fingers crossed.

Book Update

The book is going swimmingly despite the long rest I took on it due to my earlier stated stress and depression. I’ve managed a good number of words written and a fair bit of the story covered finally!

My hope is to have it finished by August and already in the beta reader phase at that time. 

I can’t wait to share it with everyone!

(If you are interested in being included in the Beta Reader selection stay tuned as I will likely begin announcements for the book type, name, and general synopsis in the next month, closely followed by the Beta Reader selection start!)

[caitlineburgess]

March Update!

Working on my book today with the fever of someone who just woke up, and went straight to it! Outlining is almost complete and so are the first few chapters!

Question of the day: If you could be any supernatural creature, what would you be?

#writing #writerlife #editing #supernaturalromance #questionoftheday

[caitlineburgess]

My stream this week was such a hit, thank you everyone who joined and here is a little bit of what those who couldn't make it missed.

[caitlineburgess]

Check out the comic Yunna's Everyday Life Just updated.

[caitlineburgess]

Check out the comic Yunna's Everyday Life :: November Update

[caitlineburgess]

Daily Writing Exercises

Exercise 08 Random Subject

In this timed exercise to get the creative juices flowing I’ll be using a subject prompt to write for 10min. without stopping. Just letting the words flow as they will. Making writing a daily exercise helps to keep the brain sharp, and the creative tools well practiced. After all no one ever got good at throwing a spear by never throwing a spear.

This exercise was used from: writingexercises.co.uk

Random Subject: Describe your bedroom in detail. “Oh dear...”

So first thing is first, you all should realize that I am a right brained individual with a preference towards the creative type. However, I am also a lazy pants, I do not like to do anything until it is absolutely imperative that I do it right that minute. Perhaps this comes from my need to control the OCD part of me that  requests a calm orderly life with everything in the right place, and my insistence that I absolutely CANNOT give into it. I fell like if I did, the insanity would never stop. So as a result, my personal space tends to be horrific.

Its a rather moderate sized bedroom with four walls, an entry into what could be a small storage room or walk in closet--which at the moment serves as a junk room. The walls are white, the floor supposedly is hardwood in a deep oak color, what of it peaks from beneath mounds of what are supposed to be clean clothes tossed about the floor. In the far corner sits a L shaped desk with an over shelf, piled down with books, empty water bottles, cups, paper plates with food still encrusted on it, and wine bottles all interspersed with paper and art supplies. 

Opposing the desk sits a bed, messy and unmade with stuffed animals laid about it. At its foot sits a low coffee table with a black tablecloth, ladened down with more piles of clothing and random assorted junk. Two bookshelves overflow with books, nicknacks, and clothing stuffed into every crevice. 

In all the room is that of an individual who prizes sleep above cleanliness, and who should get up off her lazy butt and do her dishes, clothes, and cleaning. 

Time: 8min

“Goodness I am a horrible house keeper of myself...”

Well now that I’ve torn down my biggest dirty laundry... literally, its time to take this moment to stop feeling bad about having to embarrass myself over that painful admission and clean my darn room spotless.

[caitlineburgess]

Daily Writing Exercises

Exercise 07 Random Words

In this timed exercise we will be using eight random words, the first word with start a sentence, the second the next with integration if able, and so on and so forth. This will be a mixture of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. These words will be in the order they appear, so things might not make the most sense even if they can be incorporated into the same sentence. I will also keep my editing to only spelling or typo errors so again things might be a little rough.

This exercise was used from: writingexercises.co.uk

Time: 15-20 min.

Words: Plant, Lopsided, Torture, Ghost, Attack, Pancake, Brave, Ravage

The plant stood tall and proud. It was a little lopsided, with one branch dangling down partially broken. It was torture to the obsessive part of me, wanting to fix that poor little plant. I could feel the ghost of it on my fingertips, the itch that drove me to fix everything or make everything better. I wanted to attack the problem, make everything right with the world.

With effort I turned back to my pancake, trying to be brave as I ate. All I would do if I attempted to fix that poor plant would be to ravage it further, and that was not something I felt the thing could handle.

Time: 5 min.

[caitlineburgess]

Daily Writing Exercises

Exercise 06

Random Plot

This is a timed exercise to test the story telling muscle. I will create a quick timeline of events that will serve as a mock first outline. This timeline will be bullet points, and insanely rough, only handling the main plot and no sub plot detail. This will consist of a start scene, three main points that drive the story, and  a conclusion.

This exercise was used from: writingexercises.co.uk

Story Plot: Your main character is a man in his early twenties, who can be quite mysterious. The story begins in a police station. Someone thought dead is discovered alive. It’s a story about Loneliness. Your character realises no one will listen to what he’s saying.

Note: Just for fun we are going to recycle the character from the previous exercise Liam, (mostly because I love the name), the dead person will be his girlfriend Ida. Since this is a quick mock up storyline for practice we will not be worrying too much on flushing the characters out, however it is suggested when you write a real outline that you have fully flushed characters from the get go.

Time: 15-20 min.

-Prologue

Liam is sitting in the police station questioning room

They say they have found Ida, he however is sure he saw her killed

He tries to tell them however they refuse to listen

When they release him he gets a glimpse of the creature pretending to be Ida

-Chapters

Liam and Ida are out on a date

They are attacked on their way home by a monster

The monster kills Ida, leaving Liam alive

Liam is injured and ends up in the hospital

Later the police accuse him of murdering his girlfriend and take him in

A mysterious woman from his past shows up

She believes his story and offers to help him

She busts him out

They go to find the creature

While questioning a local witch a smaller version of the creature attacks them

The woman kills it

She is ambushed from behind by the larger one

Liam uses a ‘power’ to repel the monster

It turns into Ida and almost kills him

The mysterious woman injures it and it leaves

They are out in public chasing after the monster

A police officer recognises Liam

He arrests him leaving the mysterious woman to run after it

They take him into custody again and question him

After a day they are interrupted by another police officer

He says Ida is here to retrieve him

Liam tries to tell them it’s not her but a monster

They don’t listen

They won't hand him over to her for fear he might hurt her

While they are telling her this she gets angry

She transforms back and attacks the police station

The mysterious woman saves Liam and they flee

The monsters voice echoing for him as they run

-end for now

Time: 11 min.

[caitlineburgess]

Daily Writing Exercises

Exercise 05 Random Scenario

A timed exercise to get down a particular scenario, to stretch the mind and the creative muscle. This exercise will follow a what if scenario and follow up with an answer, using little to no editing.

This exercise was used from: writingexercises.co.uk

What if: A man lies close to death. (We’ll call him Liam)

Describe the images from his childhood that fill his mind.

Time: 10 min.

Liam lay on the cold pavement, his golden eyes staring up at the graying sky above. There wasn’t much time left, and he knew this despite the cold creeping into his limbs. It had been four hours since the attack, no one had come to his aid not then and not now. He was alone.

Laying there, his mind found itself far off in the distance past.

‘If only… if only I’d told her…’ He thought.

For a few brief seconds he could see the cherry red sunset behind a petite blonde girl, her hair in pigtails swaying in the wind. She was seven and she had on a blue dress. She was laughing holding his hand as they trudged through the woods back towards the house.

Liam had run away that day, intending to just stay gone in the woods. His childhood had never been the happiest but Ida had always been the light in it. She’d found him that day and talked him into coming home.  

The scene changed again and they were standing in a flower field at the age of eight while Ida tried to show him how to knit wildflowers into a crown. She was laughing at him because he kept breaking them, she didn’t know he was doing it on purpose so he could see her fix it with her chin resting on his shoulder.

At thirteen they were in the gymnasium, bad music playing over the packed crowd for homecoming. They’d come alone, neither one having the courage to ask the other out but yet they’d been drawn to each other… he’d managed up the courage to ask her to dance, and had been rewarded with a slow dance that had lasted an eternity and the blink of an eye all at once…

He should have told her then, instead they’d gone off to college without ever saying what needed to be said… and now here he lay alone without ever having said what he’d wanted to say to her so many times….

Time: 10 min.

[caitlineburgess]

Daily Writing Exercises

Exercise 04

Random Setting

This is a free writing exercise to help stretch the creative muscles. This exercise is dedicated to describing a particular setting in a set amount of time without stopping and with minimal or no editing. I will be describing a scene with the below requirements to the best of my abilities.

This exercise comes from: writingexercises.co.uk

Time of Day: It's late afternoon.

Weather: There's thick fog.

Location: You're in a rough neighbourhood.

Atmosphere: There's a restless feel to the place.

Time: 10min.

The sun was low in the sky over the Glaiden neighborhood, a cold wind wafting through the dilapidated buildings off of Baker Street. Two women were already at the corner, their too short dresses clinging to bodies that had seen better days while behind them two men vanished down the alleyway. It wasn’t a question of what they were doing, it was pretty obvious, people didn’t ask questions around this neighborhood not unless they wanted to wind up in the emergency room or Glaiden Hills Cemetery four blocks down.

Questions were a luxury most people around here couldn’t afford.

The wind picked up again, icy tendrils that crept out of the darkness of Glaiden’s bad side of town. Down the streets the good people were already gone and home, sitting with their families while the rest of the world crept out of their shabby houses and into the dark dank bitter cold.

Something in the air was off tonight though, a dread that filled in the hearts of all those who dared to venture out on these streets nearing the evening. Something was coming, the question was, what was coming. And was it a good thing or a bad?

Time: 10 min.

[caitlineburgess]

Daily Writing Exercises

Exercise 03

Random Words

This exercise is devoted to freewriting, in which I will take three randomly generated nouns and write without stopping what they make me think of, how I feel they are connected, and even making a scene in which the three words will be used.

This exercise comes from: writingexercises.co.uk

Time: 10 min.

Nouns: Adventure, Garlic, Battle

Adventure, the act of setting out of leaving, of having something beyond the norm happen. Garlic, vampire, food, monsters, a food substance which has supernatural qualities to repel evil. Battle, the act of fighting, an attempt to live, the act of revenge and the will of the human and monstrous mind to continue on without the loss of life. Horror, death, anger, anguish, pain, bodies...

Yumi stood at the crossroads, her sword in hand. They had rubbed the blade in holy water infused with garlic in anticipation of the upcoming battle. The vampire were close at hand, their dark figures swarming around her as she crouched down readying her hand over the hilt of her blade. This was not where she had intended to be at the beginning of this adventure. Covered in sweat and blood, the horrors of the past hour clawing at her brain. They were coming, coming for her and she feared this time they might very well succeed in killing her. Beside her one black eyed form lunged, Yumi spun pulling the blade from its sheath to counter…

Time: 6 min.

[caitlineburgess]

Daily Writing Exercies

Exercise 02

Random Plot

The goal with this exercise is to generate a plot when given some basic information. This is more a creativity exercise as opposed to a written exercise, so I will be editing it so as to fit a single scene from this story in here instead of the full plot. That being said I am also going to set a time limit to this scene too because we love a good challenge.

This exercise comes from: writingexercises.co.uk

MC: A young woman in her late teens, who is very adventurous. We’ll call her Ellena. C2: A woman in her early twenties, who can be quite arrogant. We’ll call her Kaylin. Setting: A nightclub. We’ll call it Club Night. Situation: A blind date starts something big. Theme: A story about deception. Action: MC discovers some unpleasant truths. View: Written in third person limited, no dialogue Time: 10-15min

The blind cheater...

The day Ellena found out he was cheating on her was probably the worst day in her life that she could remember. It had started out like any other day, she was a waitress at the cafe across the street from Club Night, the it place in a podunk town like Adkins. She wasn’t old enough to do more than dance at the club on Friday nights when they had their virgin hour. The teen night as the rest of the town called it.

It was there that she’d met him, he was a bartender at the club three years older than Ellena but she hadn’t cared. He was an enigma, a sexy dark haired enigma that had captured her world in an instant. They’d been dating exclusively for a month when she’d found out, but had been together for almost three if you counted from the first date. She hadn’t wanted to believe it when on of the guys at work, Rickie, had told her he’d seen him with another woman at the club last week. She’d had to go see it for herself.

Now, Ellena was wishing she hadn’t. Because she didn’t know what to say as she stood there her fingers gripping her purse strap so hard it hurt. His hands were in her hair, their mouths smashed together in the hallway of Club Night. His bouncer buddy hadn’t wanted to let her in but was over eighteen and his job wasn’t worth his friends sex life that was for sure.

Ellena knew the woman Kaylin, they worked together. Kaylin had mentioned a blind date with a guy her friend had met on tinder last week. But of all the people she could have gone out with, it was him. It had to be him, Kaylin had said he worked nights at a club, Ellena just hadn’t thought it was this club and her boyfriend.

Kaylin pulled away from her catch, smiling and waving to Ellena as if she didn’t know. Maybe she didn’t, but the look on his face said it all. He did, he knew exactly what he was doing.

Kaylin tried to call her over, but with her heart in her throat Ellena just spun and ran. She needed out of that place, away from the lie.

Time: 13 minutes

[caitlineburgess]

Daily Writing Exercises

Exercise 01 Random Subject

The goal of this exercise is to write about a given subject for a length of time without stopping or editing. This is a break out of your shell sort of exercise to help get rid of self-criticism and the fear of failure. As such, this exercise will be completely unedited (no backspace or ctrl+z/command+z) and have all the mistakes and errors that can sometimes hold us back from actually completing anything.

This exercise was used from: writingexercises.co.uk

Topic: Describe the view from your window

Time: 3 min. (Since it’s something that is easily described)

It as dark outside, the sound of rain heaving against the metal roof above as rivers flowed over the edge and poured down. THe rees outside laidened branches swaying in the onsliught that berrated them. THe sun overcast and the clouds heavy. The sweet scent of green things and the bright colors of nature filled the view outside my window. A sweet soft view, which was both calming and alluring to the ears and eyes.

Okay, so definitely not my best work ever.

As you can see there are a looooot of typos, words that are misspelled, capital letters where there shouldn’t be and letters all around missing, as well as the addition of letters that just really shouldn’t be in there.

Now for an edited version. We didn’t go back to edit as we went and pumped out a full paragraph in 3 minutes which described sights, sounds, smells, and the general view. The next thing to do is some light editing. Don’t worry about fixing the wording because that’s what your full edit after the fact is for, we are just gonna fix our spelling and typos, maybe add a word or two for clarity.

It was dark outside, the sound of rain heaving against the metal roof above as rivers flowed over the edge of the awning and poured down. The branches of the trees outside swayed, laidend down by the onslaught that berated them. The sun overcast by the heavy clouds; the sweet scent of green things and the bright colors of nature filled the view outside my window. A sweet soft view, which was both calming and alluring to the senses.

Now we have a slightly longer paragraph, and we’ve edited it, leaving us with something that is pleasing to read. Now do the hard thing and move on, we can worry about editing it to add or take away more later!