Author: Kassandra Carrillo

Kassandra Carrillo received her B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Houston. She enjoys writing dark paranormal fiction. However, she has dabbled in writing fantasy as well, science fiction, western, short stories, poetry, and scriptwriting, but she prefers writing novels. When she's not writing, Kassandra likes to crochet, practice her art, and stream video games.
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Trying My Best

Posted on by Kassandra Carrillo

It’s been close to a few weeks since my last post and a lot has happened since then. Quite frankly, it’s been very tiring. Not to mention the end of the school year is near and everyone is feeling it. So much to do and so little time.

New things are happening going forward. Some have stayed the same. Query letters are being sent but I haven’t heard anything back (other than rejections). I decided to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo this July. It’s been a while since I participated in July but I have a novel idea that I want to get on pen and paper. More details to come closer to the start date.

I also started up my Dungeons & Dragons homebrew campaign. I can only managed every two weeks right now, but I think that works for all my players as well. That’s not all. With the new Avatar tabletop RPG game released a few months back, I was lucky to get invited to a game by a friend. So, that’s happening every other week as well.

I have definitely added more to my plate but the games have been helping me manage my stress. They offer me a break from work and let me enjoy myself with friends. I see it as a win-win situation.

Despite everything that has been going on, I’m still writing and still trying my best. Right now, that’s all that matters.

Posted in Uncategorized, updates

Overcoming Stress

Posted on by Kassandra Carrillo

It’s been some time since I managed to write a post. The last few weeks have been so stressful due to my work and the nature of said work.

While I won’t get into it, the situation boiled down to false accusations and that impacting my mental health and my reputation at my job. Needless to say, with support from family and friends, and my boss having my back, I was able to get through the situation.

I feel better now and hope to have a better schedule of keeping up with writing posts in general.

Posted in updates

A Little Disappointed but Hopeful

Posted on by Kassandra Carrillo

It’s been a few weeks since my last post. Needless to say, Spring Break came and went. It was definitely a much-needed rest. Plus, it was very eventful, from visiting the beach to visiting family and even attending a concert. I had so much fun that week. Plus, my cat Princess had a blast sleeping in my arms daily.

I managed to send a third round of query letters out as well. However, I wish I had better news to share. So far, all my queries have been rejected. A lot of the agents I want to send to have been closed and, the only thing I can do, is go back and check their availability.

While I’m not exactly discouraged since I know most of my queries will be rejected, it’s a little disappointing. The last time I tried to query, I had to give up because it was a year with so replies (I think?) and it was time to take a break.

I don’t want to do it this time. I want to keep trying. Sometimes it is tough to remember that it might not work out the first twenty or thirty times. Rejection is “normal”. But, nevertheless, I’m feeling hopeful. One of these days I’m going to have more than rejections.

Posted in Writing

A Whirlwind

Posted on by Kassandra Carrillo

It’s been a whirlwind of events since my last post. I’ve definitely been kept busy every day.

Cats

To start off, both of my cats needed a vet visit. Turns out my oldest, Princess, had IBD (inflammatory Bowel Disease). Giving her medicine and changing her diet hasn’t been easy. It was by far the most expensive visit.

The second cat, Olive, started wheezing. I’m here thinking she might have a hairball and doesn’t know how to expel it. However, this continued for a few days and she started hiding. She had also started eating less so that was concerning. After the vet visit, it turns out she has asthma. Not sure how it suddenly appeared since it was the first time it happened. Needless to say, she also gained weight (1 lb.) so I think it’s time I play with her a bit more. Hopefully, that helps.

Training

Due to work, I had two days of training for new math curriculum. While it was very informative, I found myself falling asleep more often than not. It was good information but the presentation was a bit dry. At least, I wasn’t in the classroom for two days. Not only that, I have a week left before going on Spring Break.

Queries

The biggest thing since last post was possibly getting more rejections on my queries. So far, there’s been two waves of query letters sent out. On the second wave, I did tweak my query a bit to see if that helped.

There are three agents I’m waiting to hear back from so maybe there will be good news there. But I know I can’t wait forever. I’m planning on send out the third wave of queries next week.

I’m really liking how almost all the agents I’ve queried use Query Manager. I feel like it’s less stressful for me than sending an email. Plus, you also go back and look at your submission. Most of the time, I don’t because it makes me more nervous.

Writing

On a different note, I have finally figured out how to end the third and last book of the Vampire Prince series on Wattpad. For a long time, I struggled with how to finish up the book and somehow, it finally clicked. I sat at my desk and started planning the next few chapters and kept going until I got to the end.

Sadly, there are some scenes that I want to add but they won’t happen until further down the timeline. I’m thinking of adding extra chapters to the end of the story as a way to remedy that.

What’s more exciting is that I also thought up of a second series (maybe) that is set in the same world. I don’t have any plans for that series yet until I’m done with the first series. At least it’s good to know that I do have more series planned.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, I feel like I’m making progressed. I started drawing (doodling) again and definitely writing more every day. I’m proud of myself.

Posted in Writing

Older and Wiser

Posted on by Kassandra Carrillo

Since my last post, I’ve kept busy though not as much as I would like. I might have even overwhelmed myself with the amount of projects I’ve wanted to work on. As soon as I realized that, I took a step back from a few of them. Before, I’m not sure I would have been able to do that, but now, I have a better idea on how to take care of myself.

I’m still working on the sequel to Clan of Ash (the novel I’m trying to publish). Although I made progress on it, I’ve come to realize that I don’t like it very much. The way I written it doesn’t work with what I’m trying to do. Instead of starting from scratch, I’m still continuing it. I’ve made notes for myself on how to change the beginning once I start editing the draft.

It was difficult to continue to write. I think I’ve always restarted the draft because I didn’t like it. But now I know that I shouldn’t. I’m not sure how I managed to write anything in the past. Maybe it was a fear of rejection that kept me from unable to finish my drafts. I’m glad I’ve stepped away from that habit.

Needless to say, there has been some news on my query letters. It also the news I expected. My query letter has been rejected two more times. While I’m disappointed, I didn’t let it get to me. Rejection is expectation. That’s the mentally I’m adopting.

Saying this, I not disillusioned. I’ve been finding more agents to query for the second wave. That hasn’t been very easy. YA Paranormal is hard to find right now. While there is a romantic element, it’s not the forefront of the book so I don’t feel comfortable using YA Paranormal Romance. I feel like it would be misleading.

Good news though is that the website I use is undergoing maintenance and an update in four days from this post. While I’m still using twitter to search for agents in the meantime, I think waiting for the update might be a good idea. It will decreased, hopefully, the amount of time it takes to search for agents.

Until then, I’ll keep offering updates. All I can do is keep going.