Ins-purr-ation
As those of you who read my blog know, I often look to my cat, Kitty O, for inspiration.
His patience as he sits outside the back door waiting to be let in is something I admire. I am too often impatient to get things done, especially when it comes to writing. A few months ago I was stuck, unable to write, unable to edit, unable to do anything writing related. My agent kept asking me to send her pages, but alas, there was nothing I could attach in an email.
Then I thought of Kitty O waiting for who knows how long, outside the door. He has no idea when it will be opened, but he has absolute surety that someone will come, and he will get to dash inside the house. With that in mind, I told myself of all the other times I had had writer's block (I hate those two words) but that ultimately, I had been able to write again. So I waited. And I waited. But the days added up to a week, then the weeks into a month and it was getting harder and harder for me to maintain Kitty O's optimism.
So one day I went outside and hid and watched him. Kitty O simply sat, in one spot, only occasionally ruffling his furs. He would turn his head at sounds, but other than that, he quietly and calmly waited and sure enough, even though I was outside, someone did open the door and in he went.
I told this to the only other writer I know who shook her head at my folly and said that she watched movies when hit with writer's block.
As for me? I waited.
And waited.
And then, suddenly, without any fanfare, one day I stared at the blank screen of my monitorand my fingers took me back to the village in east India where the story takes place, to the children who go missing, to my Commissioner Oscar D'Costa, who solves the problem.
His patience as he sits outside the back door waiting to be let in is something I admire. I am too often impatient to get things done, especially when it comes to writing. A few months ago I was stuck, unable to write, unable to edit, unable to do anything writing related. My agent kept asking me to send her pages, but alas, there was nothing I could attach in an email.
Then I thought of Kitty O waiting for who knows how long, outside the door. He has no idea when it will be opened, but he has absolute surety that someone will come, and he will get to dash inside the house. With that in mind, I told myself of all the other times I had had writer's block (I hate those two words) but that ultimately, I had been able to write again. So I waited. And I waited. But the days added up to a week, then the weeks into a month and it was getting harder and harder for me to maintain Kitty O's optimism.
So one day I went outside and hid and watched him. Kitty O simply sat, in one spot, only occasionally ruffling his furs. He would turn his head at sounds, but other than that, he quietly and calmly waited and sure enough, even though I was outside, someone did open the door and in he went.
I told this to the only other writer I know who shook her head at my folly and said that she watched movies when hit with writer's block.
As for me? I waited.
And waited.
And then, suddenly, without any fanfare, one day I stared at the blank screen of my monitorand my fingers took me back to the village in east India where the story takes place, to the children who go missing, to my Commissioner Oscar D'Costa, who solves the problem.
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Dear Barbara,I love your puns! perhaps you should start a blog entitled Cat Out of the Bag.....I will wait to hear more anon from you.
Thanks for following my blog. I so appreciate it.
Purrs and Meows,
Ace
A cat at heart, i am completely with Kitty O in the patience department: for some things one simply has to....wait. But the wsiting is a teaching moment, I've found, no matter how long or short it may be, and the patient waiting is necessary to the re-inventing process, wherher that be storytelling or the re/inventing/re-potting of one's self. And for some, like your fellow writer Ann Cherian, it is a kind of reward, the better to watch movies!
I look forward to your new Oscar D'Costa mystery, which will show that there is a "purr-pose" after all to the "ins-purr-ation" you derive from your teaching pet, Kitty O. His O must be for Optimism!
A devoted reader