How Did I End Up Writing a Novella About Cats?

I have always been a writer, in the sense that I have always written. I have yet, however, to be a writer who earns money with his craft.

When my office job was becoming more than I could handle, I searched (desperately) for a way to use my writing to earn money. (I'm still searching for that, by the way.) I wasn't an immediate success, clearly. It could be that I'm not serious enough about a writing career; it could be that I'm picky about what I write. I'm working on loosening up the strangle hold on topics because it seems like I could learn to grow as a writer by expanding what I write about, even improving my art in my preferred subjects. Also, it could help attract more readers. I understand that it's important to develop a niche, but there's much to learn out there.

Then, there are novels. Writers write novels, so I decided to write a novel. I thought about what I wanted from this experience and what I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to write, to earn money, and I wanted to enjoy the process. I love mysteries, so I decided that would be my genre. I had a character in mind, even before I began. I had lived with this guy in my mind for a couple of years, in fact, so sitting down to give him life felt natural, and other characters came easily.

… but the cats kept calling me

The actual plot was something else altogether. I researched ways to develop this. There are many good resources out there, free and otherwise. I didn't mind paying for one or two of them because if I want to make money writing I shouldn't be shy about paying other people for theirs. Also, you usually get what you pay for. Free is free. I found "The Story Toolkit", by Susan Bischoff to be the most helpful.

It was slow going. Writing about what you know and experience is one thing; creating worlds and generating plots and scenes is a different thing altogether. I tried just writing whatever came out—AKA pantsing, or flying by the seat of your pants. I got nowhere. I used the Story Toolkit to help me organize it all, but that meant I had to have a plot in mind, and what I had were a bunch of people talking to and about each other in my head. They weren’t interested focusing; they were content just hanging out, drinking wine, and gossiping.

Then cats.

I live with cats. At one point there were 15 here, and before you gag know that we have two acres and that they were all in their own little areas. There were five cats in the house at one point and that's far too many for my taste. But I wasn't going to just throw any of them outside because of a personal preference. When a close friend died over a decade ago, we swooped in and adopted her six cats, which is what led to the surfeit. If we had put any of those cats outside, our friend's ghost would have wreaked havoc on our lives.

I, myself, had three cats to call my own. I'd sit in my room watching them interact, and for the most part they didn't like each other. Raku, the youngest—and a ginormous bundle of cuddliness—loved the other two, but it wasn't reciprocated. There was bickering, the occasional hiss, and a lot of pretending that the other cats weren't there. I'd also watch some of the other cats interact, and stories just generated themselves in my mind. Cats have their own personalities and my mind began evolving those into human personalities. Complete with conversations. In English.

At the time I was taking a workshop where we would be given a prompt to start us off. Using that, we wrote for anywhere from five to twenty minutes. Then we'd critique each other's work. During one of these workshops I decided to write about some of my cats, jotting down a few paragraphs about them.

I took those paragraphs home and they sat in a drawer. I had to pick them up periodically and write more stories, because stories were running around in my head. Then I'd put them aside again, because I was working on my mystery novel. That is a real novel in a real genre, and it is something that one does when one is a writer. I wanted to put my attention on the mystery, but the cats kept calling me.

Most people that I worked with encouraged the mystery. But, eventually I found myself three quarters of the way through a legitimate novella about my cats. I made the decision to work on that project, let it loose in the world, and then I could work on the mystery while the cat novella did what it could do. (Hopefully generate some money around here.) While it wasn't necessarily what everybody advised, once I made the decision they were all on board.

View fullsize

Raku and Anastasia on the bed, inspiring me to write about them. Demanding it, even.

So, I picked up the Story Toolkit and began plotting out a continuous storyline that would take me from beginning to end. I crafted characters, which was easy because: one, they are my cats, and two, their anthropomorphized personalities had already established themselves in my mind. I observed the very first cat I ever owned, Carmela, walk around, ignoring the other cats, distancing herself, exploring the outdoors and being a loner. Situations created themselves from what I saw my cats doing, things like going under the house and getting too spooked to come out, or lying on the sofa, looking out the glass door. Jumping on the bed, sitting in the window seat. I learned to stitch these things together as I drafted the outline of a narrative arc.

I worked with a writing coach. This was key. He was the same man who gave the workshop that I mentioned earlier. He’s spent his life as a writer, and though it was not necessarily fiction, he knows how storytelling works. He guided me as I struggled. I can tell a good 4k word story, but a novella—and later a novel—takes a different kind of skill. He didn't tell me what to write, not at all. But, as I wrote he let me know which parts were interesting and which parts were flat, and he suggested ways to make it better. One never enjoys hearing that any piece of their art is not good, but we won't grow any other way. Anybody who is outside of your own head will be able to give you insights into things that you don't see, but a professional writer can do so much more.

Holding in my hands my little novella, which I printed from my computer, felt good. It wasn't the exhilarating experience that one might expect; it was a quiet, calm feeling of knowing that I could do it. I took a project from beginning to end despite doubts, fears and a lifetime of creating excellent excuses for not succeeding.

View fullsize

Carmela, the first to give me inspiration. My muse, my baby, my cat.

And along the way I gained insight into the mystery novel, which I'm tackling again. What I enjoy most about that piece are the characters, the people. I'm the boring guy at the coffee shop who watches people. I enjoy having a good conversation, but I am more fond of watching others have them. Back in its heyday writers of mystery novels would focus on plot. It was a game with their readers, leading them to guess whodunit, and packing a surprise at the end. The writer succeeded if their readers did not guess, and if their ending was believable. I enjoy that, but it's probably not what people are looking for these days, not like they did in the early to mid-Twentieth Century. I'm adding it to my work, but less in the plot, and more in the development of the people populating my novels—their minds and the way they interact.

I've deepened my natural appreciation for characters. I've learned that it is a strength in my writing and one that I need to continue to develop. While I work on learning to create novel-length plots, narrative arcs and consistency in style, I'll focus on learning to have my characters drive the whole thing.

That's what I learned from writing about my cats.

P.S. The writing coach I worked with is Ron Seybold and you can find him at The Writer’s Workshop website.

The Dance of Writing and Painting

I have been writing in one form or another since I was a child. And, as most kids, I've been drawing/painting my whole life. Both have come and gone as I’ve grown, but they’re always back there, in a corner of my mind. The child in me knows that the corner where writing and drawing reside is a park where I can always go to play. Sometimes I forget it’s there for months or years, but I always go back and find it eventually.

I began to take the visual arts more seriously in high school when I had a teacher who encouraged me and made me feel good about my work. This was a very new experience for me, and it changed my life quite a bit at the time. Art was something that I was good at, as it turned out, and I enjoyed exploring different mediums. Drawing, especially, takes me to another plane of consciousness. When I’m drawing, music is more exciting and food tastes better. Life in general is better when my pencil is dancing on the paper. Of course, I’ve studied color theory and painting as well, but drawing is a special experience for me.

Notebook, pen and drawing

I began looking into writing as a more serious endeavor a few years ago. I was in one of those jobs that suck the soul out of you. For my mental health I had to do something else and I had no idea what something else was. For years I had written in a blog where I would write for fun, and where I could recapture a writing skill that had atrophied. When I needed to break away from the soul-sucking job, I began to make a more concerted effort to write regularly, and to learn to do it better.

For me, writing and visual arts feed off of each other. Typically, in my blog, I learned to write posts around a photo or series of photos that I had taken. There are many ways of getting images and illustrations from the internet, but when I've tried to do that it always felt flat to me. When I use my own photos—though they may not be as professionally rendered as ones I could purchase—they are more ME.

Scene from a pocket cemetery in Kimbro Texas

I was walking around a small graveyard in Kimbro Texas one day and I saw a church a few miles away in the background. I was taking pictures of the gravestones, and I captured a few of the church as well, for the heck of it. That experience led to a post about the concept of needing a home, of having a home and about those of us who feel like leaves in the wind. The article revolves around the cemetery pictures, but the feature image is the church. I love that picture, with the clouds seeming to spin around the steeple. It is a Swedish Lutheran church in a town called New Sweden, inasmuch as there is a town called that. New Sweden is an unincorporated community with 60 residents, per Wikipedia, and it’s vaguely near Kimbro, another town that seems to be only a sign on the side of the rode. To me the church looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere, which is why I love it. Walking around the pocket cemetery that day made me a little melancholy, which is how that post came to be, and the church gave me a feeling of comfort and hope, which also found its way into the article. One friend, after reading it, asked if I needed a hug. (Of course I do. I always need a hug.)

I recently finished writing a novelette (Carmela’s Outside) about some of my cats. Writing it, and working on publishing it, inspired me to paint a picture of the main character, Carmela. It illustrates the story perfectly: a curmudgeonly cat on her sofa who learns to enjoy life again outside. And while painting makes me feel happy in its own right—I love the colors and the way it came out—knowing how it represents Carmela as she is in my book transcends the canvas for me. I didn’t set out to illustrate my story, per se. I wanted to paint a picture that captured the same feeling as the story, which came into being from watching my cats in candid moments.

What I love about this relationship between writing and visual art is that they are both in me. My love of photography, drawing and painting produces the pictures, and my writing captures feelings and situations. Both of those come from outside inspiration, but they are filtered in my mind and that is where they interact. I do write as a solo effort. Carmela’s Outside did not have any photos or drawings to inspire me, though several painting ideas did come out of it. And I do draw and paint alone, for the love of doing those activities. But when I find myself stuck with either writing or painting, I know I can lean on the other to get me going. Sometimes in the end, a story I write does not include the photo or picture I used for inspiration; sometimes it doesn’t even seem to be related to it. But in those cases, it was the picture that set the writing in motion. It works both ways, and the best part is that both of them came from me.

Bookseller, Improve Thyself

I've been listening to the 'You Are a Badass' books by Jen Sincero. One thing that she mentions over and over again is that once you've made the no-nonsense decision to improve your life, Life will then throw challenges in your path. She suggests such examples as a flat tire on the way to an awesome interview, a flood the day you open your business, the flu just as you're about to sign a business deal, and other things of that nature. Those seem to pale in comparison to getting ready to publish your first book and the world's economy grinding to a halt. That's where I'm at right now, and the irony is delicious. But, I move forward with faith in God and the Universe, and with gratitude for what I have.

I never thought I'd be a self-improvement kind of guy. We used to snicker about those books when I worked at a Corporate Bookstore. Then one day recently, I found myself sitting on the toilet at work in the tiniest bathroom stall I've ever experienced, shaking with anxiety, the level of which I'd never felt before. I decided that I might need some help.

I saw a psychologist, therapists, a psychiatrist, many friends, religious folks. I thought about a daily calendar that a friend of mine had given me a few years ago called "You Are a Badass". The daily readings really struck a chord with me, so I looked it up and sure enough, it was a book. I bought the audiobook and listened to it on my way to work and back. When I finished that one, I immediately got the follow-up, You Are a Badass at Making Money. I went to the author's website and looked around. She suggests other reading material I might find useful, so I've read a few of those. The funny thing is, there are a few points that are pretty consistent across these books, things  that the therapists told me, and religious writing. They all say it differently, in their own voice, coming from their own place, but the message is the same.

I don't want to mention here what those points are; that's not why I'm writing this. If I said them, you either would have already heard them, or you wouldn't have heard them and they probably wouldn't really resonate with you, because a lot of it seems like the kind of stuff that young booksellers laugh at. I recommend you look into it though. You Are a Baddass is a great place to start, because she has a good sense of humor and her writing is easy to follow. But, that may not work for you. There are others.

I know that there are people who aren't even be aware that they could improve their lives and by how much. Myself, I was in a very dark place when I started, but imagine if I had actually read those book in my 20's when I worked at the bookstore. None of us had no idea that we might benefit from some guidance, and looking back, I can see that all of us could have. My point is we're all humans and we can all learn and grow.

So, books. I have a book that will be published soon. It is about my cats. Being around these darlings as much as I have, I started to see personalities, and then the real anthropomorphism began and I could hear their conversations in my head. Finally, I was pushed to write the stories down or they'd make me crazier than I already was. I wrote a story here and there. At some point, and I don't remember exactly when, I decided that they needed to be stitched together into a larger piece. I got out my pen and paper and wrote a few ideas that I felt floating in my head, then I wrote down what the ending would look like. Then all I had to do was color it all in. Granted, there was a lot of work, a lot of agonizing and help from a writing coach, but in the end, it's mine. It's the story of my cats. What was busting to get out of my head is on paper, albeit virtually.

I was reading Twitter the other day and somebody had written that, of course he writes for other people to read; he wasn't journaling. If people weren't going to read his writing, then why would he bother? I get that, but at the same time I don't think quite the same way as he does. Of course I want people to read my writing (except the journal that I do keep.) Part of me—I think it's the part that felt compelled to write it—also felt compelled for me to share it, which can only mean that The Universe has it in her mind that people will read it. The word 'Faith' is buried in there somewhere. I don't think I have to know exactly where, because if my faith is there, that's what counts. My book is in the hands of the publisher; I'll keep y'all posted as it gets closer to being released.

Thank you for taking your time to read this little post. Tell me, have you ever had this sort of epiphany? Gotten to the bottom and realized that you had to get your own self out? What was that like? I want to hear your stories.

I'll write more soon. Be well.

Looking Forward to 2020

As I've written here before, I, along with a small group of friends, have been pushing each other to expand creatively. Most recently we tasked each other with coming up with five paintings for a studio show in December. I, personally, managed three... well, two and a half. One wasn't quite done, but the day and hour had arrived so I hung it up. It felt good to have work hanging and shown.

All three pictures I painted were of cats. One was Carmela, whom I've written about here in Bemol Ardiente. The second painting, the one that wasn't quite finished, was of PumKin, a beautiful orange cat that lives in the back yard. (The Cat in the Grass from a few posts ago.) But, the real star of the show was Clarice. Clarice is a black cat who is getting up there in age and who has a lot more white in her fur than she used to. The most prominent examples are two white whiskers that stand out on her face. In the painting (and the picture that I used as a guide) she is looking at the person who is holding the camera and letting them know that taking a picture is not an acceptable alternative to actually giving her attention.

A lot of people, as it turns out, have needy black cats. I knew that people would relate to cats, and I've always been fond of the picture that I used as a model. (Have you ever tried to get a cat to sit for a painting? Just save yourself the tears and trouble and use a picture.) But, I was a little blown away by the response to this particular painting. Looking back, I shouldn't have been surprised. In Carmela's painting, she's sitting on a quilt, in profile with the sunlight gently falling on her face. I find it lovely, and people told me that as well. But Clarice is facing the camera, her body language and facial expression clearly say, "Give me attention.” It’s a much stronger image.

People actually requested to be able to buy prints of the Clarice painting. This is new for me, and I don't quite know what to do with it. Of course I want to sell prints; that's why I painted it. But, that part of me who's not used to selling his artwork is screaming that my art isn't worth it yet, that I should be giving it away until I have developed more of a style, a following and a body of work. I gently shut that part of my mind up by putting a chocolate chip cookie in its mouth. That done, I began to make plans on how to sell prints of Clarice, and create a system that can be used for future paintings as well.

Carmela the cat, who is featured in the second painting, is the main character of a novelette that I wrote, "Carmela's Outside", which is due to be published this year. I've mentioned to the publisher that I have a painting, and they are interested. That is doubly exciting for me, and makes me think that I should focus my attention on painting the cats that are in the novelette. Mozart, Tom Cat, Anastasia and Raku are all quite beautiful, each in their own way. I'm working on finishing up the PumKin painting and starting one on Anastasia.

At the moment I'm having the Clarice and Carmela paintings professionally imaged. That is a logical next step. People have also asked me about buying the original of Clarice, but I’m not willing to part with it for a small amount. I can use the digital image to make limited edition giclée prints, which could be sold for a reasonable price. And, I can send a digital image of Carmela to the publisher for their consideration for use on the cover of the novelette. To get the digital images I am using a photography service here in Austin. I had considered taking the picture myself, but there are other people with years of experience and studios set up specifically for that, so I decided that my time would be better spent painting and I'll let the professionals do a better job at photographing the art than I could possibly do on my own.

Now I'm preparing for the May studio tour. And I'm writing on a mystery novel, until I begin working with an editor on Carmela's book. 2020 is stacking up to be a very successful year. I like to think that I laid a good foundation for it during the atrocity that was 2019. As I fought to retain my life and my sanity, I also made plans for what to do once the storm had passed and I found myself still alive. I don't know how I had the presence of mind during all of that, but I'm thankful that I did.

Check out a few related websites: davincibox.com is Tamara Talamantes' page. She is a graphic designer, among other things, and she is one of the friends who painted and showed work. barryperez.com is, not surprisingly, Barry Perez's page. He's the other friend in the group. Barry is a master jeweler who has been making hand-fabricated jewelry for over 30 years. Lastly, a work-in-progress page is elginstudio621.com. This is the studio where it all happens, a place with great energy and where we plan to have many more events—not just visual arts but yoga and writing and ceramics. Keep an eye on it.

Let's here it for new years, new decades, and new beginnings. Make 2020 a great year.

Writing

I should be writing. In a sort of twisted game of procrastination I’ve ended up writing in my blog, which is, in fact, writing. Shh… don’t tell me; I think I’m procrastinating and distracting myself from painting, which was part of the long list of procrastination techniques used to keep me from writing. A few minutes ago I was working on a mandala that I plan to use in a small exhibit that I’m supposed to be a part of this May. So, here I am at my keyboard in spite of myself.

If I’m going to be using my laptop, it would make more sense for me to be at my desk, where I have a docking station along with a larger monitor. However, there’s a spider on the computer and I don’t want to disturb him. He might be my father visiting me. The spider was here earlier; he dropped onto my mandala and wanted to play with my pen. He’s so tiny and delicate you can barely see him, and only if you try hard. I didn’t want to let him hang around a piece of paper I was working on, so I grabbed him by his thread of web and carried him outside. The light out there was not great. I could see him on my finger, but I had to kind of go on faith that I had successfully released him into the wild. When I got back to where I am working—a meeting table in the middle of a larger space that also contains my office—the spider was right there on the table. I resigned myself to the fact that it was my father visiting from the other side and no amount of taking him outside was going to change anything. So, here I sit with a tiny spider building a web on my Surface computer like he’s supposed to be here and we’re just hanging out.

Life, overall, is better than it was earlier this month. While work is still a handful, I seem to have more emotional wherewithal to deal with it. I’m not hiding in the revolting bathroom of that very old building, or calling in sick, pulling the sheets over my head in bed and contemplating what excuse I could find to go on disability so that I could spend my days taking care of the cats and writing. Now I go to work, and most days I look forward to it. I don’t for a minute want to give the impression that my employer is abusive. They’re wonderful; I’m simply falling apart.

I visited a psychologist a few weeks ago. Come to think of it; he’s supposed to call me back with what my insurance company said about his plan to go forward with a psychological assessment. (He pitched this as a wonderful thing for me. He said that I could use it with his clinic or take to any clinic of my choosing, that it would be treated as a golden egg.) I went so that I could learn better coping mechanisms and techniques. I’ve kind of given up on the idea that it will all just go away. It’s probably a part of my genetic make-up and I just need to learn how to deal with the depression/anxiety or what-have-you. When I visited him for the intake interview I was so distraught that I forgot to ask him what I should do if I have another episode. I’m not certain I want to know what his answer would be. I have a feeling it would involve an emergency facility, and I’m not looking forward to being in an emergency facility. Not while I still have sick days left.

I’m not even sure why I’m feeling better. My medical doctor, when I described that horrible Tuesday in which I was hiding under the sheets, told me that it sounded like an anxiety attack, so I’ll stick to that term until I learn otherwise. Anxiety attack: a nice little package I can present to people when they wonder why I’m nauseous every morning of my life, or why I’m in a fetal position in a bathroom stall that is so small you can’t open the door without straddling the toilet, and so old that opening one stall door throws both doors open and you have to avert your eyes when you walk by in order to not see the startled expression of some other unsuspecting dude sitting with his head in his hands, unaware that the stall door just hit him on the knee, exposing his nude bottom half to the person who is now walking out the door. There aren’t a lot of good reasons to do this, and ‘anxiety attack’ says a lot in just two words. And most people can relate.

My friend, the spider, has moved to the lamp. It seems like it would be too hot for him, but he’s swinging up and down, building his little web to catch microscopic dust mites that float through the air. It’s getting late and probably no more work is going to be done on my novel tonight. I believe that there is pie in the refrigerator in the house. I have milk, so I think I have a plan for the next 45 minutes until I go to bed and let the CPAP take me into the lovely world of dreams and sleep until the alarm goes off and another work day begins. It’s nice that this Sunday doesn’t find me anxious and distressed. I wish I knew what I did to make this happen. Maybe I’ll review my journal to see if any behavior patterns appear. But, probably I’m going to read while I eat pie and then go lay down with the cats.

Life is good.

* Update: Three days later and I found myself, yet again, hiding under the sheets this morning. But, that’s okay because I now have an appointment with the psychologist tomorrow morning to have the assessment done. They tell me that I’ll be sitting alone in one of their offices answering questionnaires. That’s not the one-on-one experience that I longed for, but something about this guy makes me trust him. He did tell me that the actual therapy would begin after the assessment was done. While I’m there tomorrow they will set up an appointment for me to come discuss the results, once the doctor has analyzed my answers. Fair enough. And that will be the golden assessment that I will be able to take with me and be received with open arms at any office I might want to visit. (He did say that I could choose to stay with his office, but he didn’t seem exactly excited about that. I have a feeling that his main bread and butter comes from other sources, like people visiting him at the behest of a judge.)

I’m sitting at my desk with the Surface plugged into the docking station and my friend, the spider, is spinning his web on the larger monitor. He has a buddy with him; two spiders spinning in concert on my monitor while I work on my novel and my blog. I guess my dad is looking out for me after all; he seems to be in it for the long haul. Usually, the spider/Dad is gone in less than an hour, but this little dude has a roommate (Dad’s brother, Ken?) and they’re building a web, making themselves at home. Like they’re gonna see this thing through with me.

And, Life is still good.

View fullsize

My friend, the spider