Thoughts on Impasses

This week, I want to write about a character who showed up who I thought of writing out. (For the sake of the story and for this character, who is quite shy, I'm not going to tell you anything about her or her name. I can see how that would be annoying. I hope you can forgive me. I think this post has some interesting ideas about how story is created. Please read on!)

Here's what happened. I tussled with my draft this week. Let me say that I'm not of the “write a first draft without thinking” school. I figure out a lot of things in my first draft. I don't feel comfortable moving ahead until it feels right to me. That doesn't mean that's it's perfection. It has to make basic sense to me. I want my characters to learn things in interesting ways. I want twists and turns. This may should like a “pantser,” a writer who makes things up as she goes. I'm not. I have a solid sense of the basic components of the story before I start out. But characters do surprise me.

Last week, I came to an impasse. I knew where the story had to go. I knew what needed to happen, but none of my characters wanted to do it. I couldn't imagine the scene. I kept trying different settings, different angles. None of it clicked. The first thought I had was of character sacrifice. Maybe the problem was this particular side story. Maybe I had bitten off too much. Maybe I had asked a character to do too much. Maybe other characters were mad because it was taking up some of their story time. So I wrote an outline where that character didn't exist. (Note: This is one of my favorite writing tools. When I wrote the first draft of my first book, I would often write out a numbered list of the story scenes before I began each writing time. It kept me on track. It comforted me. I felt if I knew the story, and I could write it off the top of my head, in “Well, this happened, then this happened” way, there was a good chance that the story made sense. I still do it now, but not usually every session, when I have moments like this when I feel like I may have walked in the woods rather than staying on the trail.)

Anyway, when I started this outline without this character, I first felt exhilarated. It was working! Of course! Then I felt sad. The story felt so short, rather impoverished without this character. She had to be in it. I went back to what I was doing. I tried to place myself in it. I tried to imagine what the other characters would be doing, how they would be feeling, but I couldn't find a way that made me happy. I resolved if I felt this way tomorrow, I would just write a crappy scene that took me to scenes where I felt more comfortable and know that it would just be a placeholder so that I could continue.

But then I woke up this morning, and I had the answer. At least I think I do. I haven't yet worked on my draft today. The character comes in later. It seems so obvious now. That's why I felt that initial happiness working on that draft. I had just forced the entrance of this character. Since she's shy, she's happy to come in later, and it makes sense for the story.

The lesson here for me and perhaps for you? Have faith that the answers will come. Try to look at the impasse as an interesting puzzle. Those pieces don't fit, no matter how hard you try. You have to surrender. If characters don't want to do something, listen to them. Otherwise expect super boring material or no shows. See where they want to connect.

I hope this is helpful to you. If you would like to share your creative process story, please feel free to do so in the comments below.

Twinkle Lights

The other day, while I was innocently watching Atypical and eating my lunch in the bedroom, Mike set up twinkle lights around the threshold of my office. When it was time for me to work again, I was greeted by these sparkling wonders. It was the best gift ever, and it got me to thinking about my writing environment and the decisions I've made to make my writing practice fun.

I want my creative surroundings to feel magical, whimsical, and special. Twinkle lights fit right into this vibe. So do pens with flowers taped on to them so that you can imagine your writing blooming. And all around me, there's blank books with covers of my favorite color or with images on them that mean things to me, waiting to be filled. How can I say no?

When I write, there's always music. For me, I write to jazz standards. These songs have gotten into my bloodstream., and I can listen to them forever. During my practice, I listen to these songs through headphones. This is a private experience. They're telling me things directly. I also have a writing tree, Isabella, who looks out for me outside my window. I have images of cats, horses, owls, and the ocean on my walls surrounding me. (And I write in bed. I feel that's a given to me for so long that I now forget to mention it. I have this great big, blue support pillow that I call “Cookie” after Cookie Monster that hugs me while I work. It's comfortable and luxurious, and it makes me want to be here.)

Finally, there's our cats. I write about cats. I live with cats. They're part of our family. Our eldest cat, Scooter, has lately let me know that he wants to be around me when I work. So I make sure that happens. He's the eldest member of our family. He's a cat. He has earned my reverence.

So that's how I've made writing fun for me. What do you do? What works for you?

The Loudest Meow on Kindle

My latest book, The Loudest Meow, is now up on Kindle. It’s free through Thursday, September 13th. i’m very proud of this book. It’s the first in a series, the Cats of the Afterlife. I hope you will give it a try, and if you have a spare moment, write an honest review of what you thought. it would really help get this book out into the world. Thank you.

Some Thoughts on The Loudest Meow

 If all goes according to plan, my talking cat fantasy novel, The Loudest Meow, will be released on Kindle this week. The paperback version will be available in the following week. I'm excited to share this book with you.

Every time I write a book, I learn things. Here are some thoughts I picked up from writing The Loudest Meow:

1. Writing is a wonderful way to deal with grief. I embarked on this project because our calico cat died. She fell ill, and the vet gave us a last-hope remedy to try that weekend to see if we could turn it around. During those last days, when it was clear that she was not going to get better, I made a promise to her that I would write a book where she would be the star. It's been a way for me to keep her in my mind and my heart after her passing. It has helped a lot.

2. Creativity changes things. Many of the cats in the book are based on family cats that have passed on. But somehow, all of them, when they entered the story, changed. Their traits became exaggerated. The other day, I found an old photo of my dear orange cat, Pumpkin, and I had to laugh, comparing her to Marmalade in the book. The cats in the book all became characters with their own lives.

3. I am now more attentive to cats in the world. I have the great fortune to work at home, and so I get to watch our three cats go about their lives every day. But I now feel that I have an agreement with the Great Cat Tribe that any cat who wants to be in my book can make that known to me, and I will do my best to make it happen. I'm the type of person who always visits the shelter cats at our local pet food stores. I take walks in my neighborhood, and cats sometimes come up to me. I talk to my friends' cats. I have felt an affinity to cats ever since I was a young child. I want to celebrate their greatness and their importance in the world.

4. I thought more about the thin veil between death and life while I wrote this book. It made me more conscious and less afraid of passing away. I came out of it feeling very connected to my extended cat family. I believe in Rainbow Bridge. I know that one day I will have the joy of being with my beloved animals again.

5. This is the first time I've started a series, and I found it challenging. I had a hard time figuring out the ending. I originally had set it up as more of a cliffhanger, and my characters complained to me in my head until I changed it so that their stories were resolved enough in this book that it could end here. I'm hard at work on Book 2 and deeply in love with it. But if anything should happen and this is the only book that these cats appear in, there is a satisfying ending. That was very important to me.

I think that's it for today. I'll put up an announcement when The Loudest Meow is up this week. Until then, take care.

Characters Who Show Up

Spoiler Alert: This post contains woo-woo content. If that is not your thing, I understand. But this is my writing life.

With every book. I am a brainstormer and an outliner. However, when I start writing a book linearly, characters always pop up and demand their time.

I've already written a post on Margaret, the grandmother in Joy Returns!, who commanded me that she had to be a character, and she had to appear in the first chapter. I tried to ignore her. After all, I'm the writer. In my opinion, this character needed to respect my authority. But Margaret won out, and I'm glad that she did.

Then there were the horses in Kate and the Horses. I dreamed a whole another horse story one night. I even woke up in the middle of the night with the story intact in my head, but I told myself that I didn't have to write it down, I knew it, and went back to sleep. You can imagine the rest of the story. I woke up with just the knowledge of having dreamt a horse story. And for a moment, I crashed into despair, but then I heard these voices in my head of horses I'd known in my childhood. I had never heard them before, but it was immediately clear to me who they were. They told me not to worry. “We have a story for you.”

For The Loudest Meow, coming out this September, there's a grey cat who I've never known before who just appeared in ink while I was writing out a scene. I hadn't even consciously thought of her, but my pen knew, and there she was, a beloved character who I think about all the time and sometimes think I see out in this “real world.”

Right now I'm writing the second of that talking cat fantasy series, tentatively titled Here Come the Kittens! I've been thinking about it for months, and I told myself that I would start writing it linearly once all our summer guests had left. A voice in my head scoffed, “You have way too many other things to do! You won't be ready.” I responded, “Let's see.”

On that Monday after they all left, I found myself in my writing bed with my hot pink composition book, the delegated notebook for Book 2, writing Chapter 1. And then a character showed up. Alasdair had been in Book 1 but only in reference or on the other end of a telephone conversation where we never heard him actually talk. I had him in my outline for this book, but I didn't think he would show up this soon.

And this is the place where I issue the warning. In my current imagining of this character, Alasdair is an academic blowhard. He imagines himself high up above the common cat (i.e., everyone else). When he made his request to be in Chapter 1, I okayed it. It made sense to me. But then in real life, I had a very unpleasant encounter with an Alasdair-like person who did not respect my thoughts or my feelings and basically tried to squash me like a bug. I didn't make the connection at the moment of that interaction, but later on, when I wrote, I understood what happened. That day I began writing Alasdair into the chapter. Before that occurred, he visited me.

“But I already said you could be here,” I told Alasdair. “Why did you have to hit me over the head with a sledgehammer?”

I'm still not sure. I have some theories. In these books, I have a character who idolizes Alasdair and another who has learned the hard way that she has to learn how to work with him. I had basically fallen in with the cats who find him ridiculous. Perhaps this was Alasdair's way of reminding me about his claws, his bite. It will be interesting to see how we work together on this book.