Why is a cat like a book?
Remember how Alice was stumped by the Hatter's infamous riddle: Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Why is cat like a book, you ask? Because both generate such strong reactions...for a variety of reasons, both sage and bizarre. I've known an entire family fall in love with a dumpster rescued kitten, scrawny, with eyes that filled its fearful face. And I know others who hate the sight of any cat, glorious or otherwise.
It's the same with books. People love them or hate them and sometimes just that initial, instinctive response is enough, without any "because."
As a writer struggling with plot, I didn't have the time to think about readers. But now that I have readers, I love learning from them. A few have not liked my debut mystery, "The Girl Who Went Missing," with one reviewer noting that it wasn't "my cup of tea." Fair enough. I understand that totally because I drink green tea and loathe Earl Grey. Another fretted that Commissioner Oscar D'Costa doesn't get enough type time in the novel and hoped he would have a bigger role in the next one. Point taken. I am, even now, giving D'Costa more pages in the second book. It's lovely to have this back and forth of words over time and space, which, selfishly, help me in my quest to be a writer.
Apparently readers wrote Lewis Carroll as well and bugged him enough about the riddle that he came up with an answer: "Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat, and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front."
Notice his spelling of never; it's nevar, which is raven spelled backwards.
I am not as clever as Charles Dodgson, though I do koo for cats...and thereby hangs a tale.
Why is cat like a book, you ask? Because both generate such strong reactions...for a variety of reasons, both sage and bizarre. I've known an entire family fall in love with a dumpster rescued kitten, scrawny, with eyes that filled its fearful face. And I know others who hate the sight of any cat, glorious or otherwise.
It's the same with books. People love them or hate them and sometimes just that initial, instinctive response is enough, without any "because."
As a writer struggling with plot, I didn't have the time to think about readers. But now that I have readers, I love learning from them. A few have not liked my debut mystery, "The Girl Who Went Missing," with one reviewer noting that it wasn't "my cup of tea." Fair enough. I understand that totally because I drink green tea and loathe Earl Grey. Another fretted that Commissioner Oscar D'Costa doesn't get enough type time in the novel and hoped he would have a bigger role in the next one. Point taken. I am, even now, giving D'Costa more pages in the second book. It's lovely to have this back and forth of words over time and space, which, selfishly, help me in my quest to be a writer.
Apparently readers wrote Lewis Carroll as well and bugged him enough about the riddle that he came up with an answer: "Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat, and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front."
Notice his spelling of never; it's nevar, which is raven spelled backwards.
I am not as clever as Charles Dodgson, though I do koo for cats...and thereby hangs a tale.
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