Cat Wars

Not long ago in a living room a variable distance away …

Yes, I did.

Background: The Girl has a kitten but The Boy already has a full-grown cat. The kitten, Nimoy, can usually catch her tail, and then chews on it for a full minute before she realizes it’s not prey, it’s her. Darth Jingles hunts rodents, birds, reptiles, and butterflies. Any insect really, but she prefers butterflies.

Darth Jingles is black like the dark soul she’s partially named after, slinks through the house like a ninja, and doesn’t use her claws when playing with her humans. Usually. Hubby is an exception. Nimoy thunders like a horse, which is odd because she’s tiny and just barely stopped waddling.
Her claws and teeth are in constant play and razor sharp (which is odd because we clipped her claws in self defense). Both have bells on their collar, but in Darth Jingle’s case it does little good. You hear her jump or run, but otherwise she’s silent as the grave. Nimoy can’t breathe without initiating a silver tinkle of tiny bells. Seriously, the cat’s noisy. Jingles ‘speaks’ when it’s necessary, Nimoy won’t shut the hell up and she’s loud enough to hear over the TV.

There have been a few minor scuffles, but nothing to speak of and Darth Jingles has made no effort to put Nimoy in her place. It’s like Jingles knows this annoying ball of fluff is The Girl’s pet and she’s not allowed to rough it up. I figure one really good whack should do it. Maybe. Nimoy’s dim, so maybe two. But Jingles just leaves or settles somewhere out of reach of the tiny annoyance. The tension is killing us. Also, snow, so both cats are inside all day and the cats and kids are doing this strange dance to keep the curious kitten (did no one tell her about curiosity?) and the cat with cabin fever away from each other unless supervised. Then there’s me, walking around, opening doors and “Releasing the Katzen!” to just get it over with.

Darth Jingles has been provisionally renamed “Darth Huffy” because she’s fed up with this kitten nonsense but won’t do more than huff her displeasure. Mostly at The Girl who awarded her the new name. Nimoy, who was named after Leonard Nimoy (of Star Trek fame in particular and who died earlier this year) is an issue. Not the cat, her name. Actually, I like “Nimoy.” I think it’s cute and told The Girl I may borrow it for a character sometime. She shrugged. Naming one cat in the Star Wars universe and another in the Star Trek universe doesn’t seem at all unusual in our household. But changing “Darth Jingles” to “Darth Huffy,” however temporary, maybe, tips the scale for Star Wars.

It has nothing to do with The Force Awakens, which we’ve all seen and I won’t discuss. Although The Girl won’t stop bursting into our room at odd hours with new theories about where the new trilogy (assumed) is headed.

Anyway, we have a Star Trek cat in a Star Wars house. For naming purposes, in reality it’s the other way around. So I put it to the family last night as we sat around playing Cards Against Humanity. (Yes, I’m an interestingly questionable parent to cave to both kids’ request for the game for Christmas. Worse to actually play with them.)

So Darth Jingles/Darth Huffy and … ? Hubby thought about it and looked at Nimoy settled in The Girl’s lap batting at the cards as she played them.

“Jar-Jar.”

The Girl, unfortunately, was drinking milk and snorted it out her nose at her dad’s answer. Not in laughter like me and The Boy, but indignation that anyone would suggest such a thing about her kitten.

For the rest of the night, three out of four humans called Nimoy “Jar-Jar” and the male members of the house kept talking to her in an annoying, nearly unintelligible manner. It’s really weird to hear Cards Against Humanity hands in that voice. Just saying.

Feline Showdown

Here’s the thing about cats – you introduce a new one to the house and it starts a minor war. I feel like our cats are modeling their conflict after the 100 Years war. It’s overly pessimistic of me, but I’m not seeing much progress in their attitudes on the situation.

So I kept Jingles inside all day yesterday to force her to acknowledge we have a kitten: Nimoy. Is that not the best name ever for a kitten? She’s a gray tabby with medium length hair that I’m praying will be shorter as she matures, but have a sneaking suspicion will fill out and she’ll be a cat with long hair that we have to brush to keep it from turning to feline dreadlocks. *takes deep breath after horrible run-on sentence*

Anyway, I kept Jingles inside. The cats have met face to face a few times, but thanks to humanoid intervention, bloodshed has yet to ensue. I’m concerned that they will meet without one of their humans nearby and then there’ll be a problem. Hence my attempt to gain a feline peace treaty, or at least form a lasting truce.

So they met. There was growling from Jingles, and stunned silence and wide-eyed caution from Nimoy who moved tentatively to the protection of my side after being cornered by the fireplace when The Boy plopped himself down with Jingles in his arms.

I should probably take a moment to describe the relative qualities of the contestants in yesterday’s competition for … whatever they were trying to convince the other of. Nimoy is a 2 ½ pound ball of fluff that meows as loud as a car alarm when lonely (all night, also like a car alarm). Her attempts to communicate can be heard in every corner of the house (but not through headphones if she’s downstairs and you’re upstairs with the door closed). Jingles is a sleek and muscular 8 pounds of furious, cat-shaped angst. There really is no contest here about dominance, which was the reason why The Girl has a kitten instead of a cat. I would rather not wake to a cat fight under my bed at 2 am (again) when the cats run free at night. At the moment, we’re keeping them separated with almost pathological desperation.

What did each cat communicate yesterday? I don’t speak cat. However, from what I could tell, Jingles sent forth a concise “I don’t like you” vibe. Nimoy responded with “I’m harmless.” Jingles rebounded with “I still don’t like you.” Nimoy edged to my side, widened her eyes, and proclaimed she was “cute.” To which Jingles responded with “I will cut you.” About that time, The Boy got tired of sitting on the floor and took Jingles back to his room.

I should also point out Hubby’s role in the feline dramas. Jingles blames him for everything bad that has ever happened to her. Everything. Even if Hubby is the one who saves the cat from – oh, say the time The Girl tried to give her a bath, it’s still his fault that The Girl had the idea in the first place.  Jingles knows Mommy (me) wouldn’t do anything so unforgivable as bathe her, and I know she understands the kids are our offspring, so The Girl clearly got that obnoxious tendency from Hubby (it’s how genetics works) and therefore it’s his fault. Until now, The Girl has never been held responsible for her own actions. Neither has The Boy, but his widespread immunity holds.

Now let’s look at Nimoy’s view of Hubby: He has a beard. She likes his beard. It’s fluffy. *bat, bat, bat* Not a big thinker, that one.

While Jingles has declared my pillow to be her new nighttime bed, it’s usually only on the outside edge, away from Hubby, or along the top. I’m really glad we have a king bed so there’s room for the three of us. I added another pillow just for her, on the edge of the bed and shored up by the nightstand. She’s good with this arrangement because I make an effective barrier between Hubby (who is seriously in trouble for this kitten nonsense) and her. As a rule, Nimoy isn’t allowed in The Boy’s room, or mine. I see this as allowing Jingles a couple of safe havens that are hers to allow her to escape the obnoxious furry car alarm and depressurize before she kills something. (Jingles hunts, Nimoy can’t hold onto a ribbon.) So it was a really bad situation last night when Jingles precedes me up the stairs into my room, to find the door was open, and Nimoy was curled up on her pillow!

Jingles jumped up on the bed and froze, staring at the naughty fluffball. I shifted the laundry to one him and grabbed Jingles in the other arm before something unfortunate happened, and began yelling for The Girl and mentioning phrases like ‘child endangerment,’ ‘call feline social services,’ ‘custody battle,’ and ‘going to be grounded’ before starting to count backwards from ten, in German.

Note to parents out there: if you really want to freak out your kids, don’t just count – do it in German. The language itself sounds angry so it really adds punch to those numbers.

The Girl showed up, rescued Nimoy, and I made a big show of changing the pillowcase for Jingles. It’s going to be a long winter.

Write First, Polish Later

Last day for NaNoWriMo!

Those who aren’t participating but living with someone who is are getting ready to sigh in relief. Participants who are ahead are similarly relieved. On schedule: mildly apprehensive perhaps, but also relieved. Other participants may be frantic or even depressed. Don’t worry about it.

Congratulations to all of those who accepted the NaNo challenge, as they say (or will) on the official site – you’re all winners!

I’d like to add a qualifier to that statement. Winning NaNoWriMo isn’t about word count. Sure, it’s great if you achieved that goal, as arbitrary as it is, but as I mentioned before – NaNo is about breaking bad habits and learning. If you learned from the experience, you won. That win is much bigger than consistently writing 1667 words a day. I hope everyone learned to write consistently, either a little each day or a minimum number of days each week. Focus on the story, save the editing for later. Pick a story and commit to it – if you have an idea for a book, there’s no time like the present to write it and don’t let other ideas distract you from writing the last chapter. (Just make a note of the other ideas for later.) Use the right words the first time, but don’t worry about polishing your prose until revisions.

I imagine most people didn’t finish their book, 50,000 words isn’t a novel by most standards. December is a busy month, and don’t worry if finishing stretches into January, or even February. When you finish, there’s a choice to be made. The accepted practice is the let that book sit awhile before you come back to it for revisions. You need time to step away from the plot, the characters, the twists, and the climax so when you read it again, you’re actually reading what you wrote not reliving the writing process. I firmly believe in this policy, almost.

When I write, I find plot holes and inconsistencies as I go. I don’t usually fix them, I mark them in the text and make a notation in my notepad to check and fix something. Maybe it’s something small, like a secondary character’s eye color changed or I might be inconsistent with the spelling of something. I’ll check my book bible/style guide later and fix it, things like that aren’t worth interrupting my flow to deal with. Maybe it’s something bigger, like I have a character driving somewhere, but upon reflection they neither have a car nor a license and they’re 15 so it’s obvious. Or someone could have just used their cell phone to fix a problem but I didn’t realize the obvious solution. Whatever it is, I don’t consider the story finished until I address the list of notes I make while writing it. And I do one revision after all of that for spelling and obvious grammar issues. 

Why do a revision before I shelf a book and get distracted with something else? Because when I come back to it, I want to be able to see that book clearly for what it is. I know I get distracted by some spelling and grammar issues, and I don’t want my minor hang-ups to interfere with the revision process when I come back to the book. I know what pulls me out of a story, and I don’t want that to happen when I read mine for the first time since finishing it. If I get pulled away from the plot, it needs to be for something big, something that needs to be addressed (plot-wise) not because I wrote too fast and used the wrong ‘there’ or used ‘an’ instead of ‘a’ or other simple things. Polishing comes later. Hopefully that’s something everyone learned this month. If nothing else, remember that. Write first, polish later.

Adding Structure To A Story

Apparently I’m a grandmother now. But wait, some of you might be thinking, she only has two teenagers. That’s right, I do. The Girl is 17, The Boy is 15. And the cat is spayed, if you’re thinking that’s the problem. So the culprit? I should blame Hubby.

The Girl has been having panic attacks, and Jingles hasn’t been doing her part to calm her down and cheer her up. Among other things, a ‘comfort animal’ was discussed. In short, Hubby caved to The Girl wanting her own cat. Kitten. Even though she goes to college next fall. Maybe her own cat means she’ll stay closer to home. Or at home. Hmm.

As I mentioned, we have a cat. Jingles has reigned dominant in the house since she was tiny. With a couple of blips – when we tried introducing an adult Siamese that started a minor war, and a near constant irritation with the stray our cul-de-sac feeds – she hasn’t had to share anything. Now we bring home a kitten. We know better than to try to introduce an adult cat, Jingles has been clear she won’t share the throne. A kitten, however, isn’t a threat to her. She’s older, bigger, and can train up the new addition with the understanding she’s in charge. (Delicately reach out a paw, and whap!)

We introduced She-Who-Has-Not-Been-Named to Jingles. The kitten, safely snuggled in The Girl’s arms, failed to react. Jingles, after a vigorous petting and lovey session and still in my arms riding her “I’m a deity” high, didn’t initially respond either. I continued petting, waiting for Jingles to realize what she was seeing. She tentatively reached out to sniff the object in The Girl’s arms (no doubt hoping it’s a stuffed animal and this is all a joke). Sniff, ears back, hiss.

That hiss sounded like a King Cobra being shot with a squirt gun at short range.

Kitten still failed to register the situation.

We’re keeping them apart for now, only bringing them together for supervised meetings. Jingles tends to watch the intruder with wide eyes and tense muscles. Sort of like when she’s watching prey she know she can’t catch, like a hummingbird. Maybe The Girl should name the cat ‘Hummingbird.’

Anyway, that’s not what I promised for this week’s blog. Let’s talking about plot structure. I mean physical plot structure, not tropes/plot types.  

The idea behind the three act structure is to plan your novel like the classic play in three acts (Beginning, Middle, End). Makes sense, right? Actually it works well for a lot of books and I think it’s good because it sets basic length guidelines for how to proportion your novel.

Act 1 is pretty straightforward: you introduce the characters, setting, conflict, and stakes. This starts at the beginning of the book (obviously) and ends when your main character passes the point of no return. This can be an action or the point where your character accepts they have to win to be happy or have a normal life, whatever your stakes are. This is about the first 20% of the book or less. This is a hint you do not need to accomplish all of this in the first scene/chapter/page.

Act 2 is the battle, literal or figurative. It’s a fight to the death although death might not be physical. It can be psychological or death of an idea – it’s a vague sort of thing. The battle could be a journey toward a goal, it doesn’t have to be a physical thing, but in that journey you’re building suspense and interest. This act ends with another crisis, discovery, some sort of game changer/surprise. This may vary in length.

Act 3 is the confrontation/battle, and resolution. Movies frequently balance this to be about as long as Act 1, with the bulk of the story sandwiched in the middle. The climax isn’t the end, there’s loose ends to tie up. Usually. This isn’t the time to introduce a new complication, only expose and quickly resolve things that were hinted at before (if you must do that sort of thing). 

Now keep in mind this is one structure guideline, there are others. There are lists, like the seven or eight point structures where you have a sort of checklist (Write A then B then C sort of thing), or variants of the three act structure where act one and three comprise a quarter each of the novel and act two is half the book or the snowflake method that takes the simple three act concept and builds on it to create a sort of ‘how to write a novel’ example. There are suggested ‘formulas’ for some genres, and if you want to submit to a publisher for a specific line, you may need to follow their formula to be considered. The formula series that come to mind for me are the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries and some romance lines.

Formulas can be rigid and may or may not be easy for all writers to adhere to. Depending on your genre, there are probably a hundred tips out there on when in your book something should happen or how you should structure this or that.

The most important thing to remember is if you spend all your time planning and worrying about balance, you won’t get anything written. That’s a bigger fail that getting your proportions off or putting a key scene too far forward or back. These things can usually be fixed in revisions. Remember structure is all about balance, and is only a set of guidelines to make the book feel more satisfying for the reader. Writing for your own sake is sometimes enough. If you plan to publish your work, you need to consider structure because you want readers to have a satisfying experience.

Keeping that in mind, there is more to giving a satisfactory experience for your readers than the structure of your book. Your plot could be perfectly balanced, but still be too long, have underdeveloped characters, plot holes, and such.

How do you know what structure to use? I recommend writing and revising a book first. Then see what that work seems to follow so you’re choosing one that already fits your writing style. At least in part. If you want to choose a structure before writing, possibly to assist in plotting your book, I suggest considering your favorite books or something similar to what you want to write. Outline a basic plot of the book, where the plot points fall relative to the book’s length, and compare to some structures to find what may work for you.

Whichever method you choose, having a guide will help make you a stronger writer in the end and hopefully eliminate a messy story filled with plot holes or bunnies.

Apparently Not.

A friend read my last blog post and came by to have it out with me over NaNoWriMo.

"It's national novel writing month, not national novel writing three weeks!"

Well, yeah, but ... I flipped him off because I didn't have a response for that. Yeah, I'm a wordsmith. Worse, in our chat he reminded me of something else that I have to accomplish in November that I didn't have on the scales of writing already: Christmas. I'm behind. Really behind. 

Uncharacteristically and unforgivably behind, and I can't pass my behind-ness off on Hubby because one of the things I'm behind on is nagging him to get his own list taken care of. Just lovely.

One of the things I wrote in my last post was:

Fine, 2500/day. Will I have inspiration to help me? Yes actually. I’ve had this novel seething in the back of my mind while I dealt with other things. My fingers are twitching to get it finished. Inspiration makes words flow. I’d feel better if I had a more solid ending in mind. Right now it’s a vague concept and I’m not comfortable with that. It won’t be a problem though.

I know how a write, even when I outline I’m a pantser. My characters look over the nice, neat outline I set forth and laugh. Then they go do their own thing. It’s incredibly frustrating. The ending will come into focus when my characters get closer to it. And I haven’t missed NaNoWriMo since I took up writing again. Yes, Christmas will be an issue, I have a lot to do this month, deadlines are looming, and starting this late just adds to the pressure.

Pressure? I can do this. There’s nothing like talking myself into ‘I can’t do this’ to make me need to do it.

Decision made on Saturday, I focused on getting as much done on Sunday as I could before my ‘deadline.’ Sounds logical, right? It’s suspiciously close to planning, and life chose Monday morning to remind me I’m a pantser, not a planner.

What happened? My own personal Drama Princess, again. Oddly, last year at this time we had almost exactly the same problem: sitting in the emergency room when obviously we’d rather she was in school. Then spending hours the next day visiting a doctor while he scratched his head and shrugged. The good news: she’ll be okay and able to throw a curve ball at me again next year. The bad news: I can anticipate her being whiny off and on for another week.

Darth Jingles is caught inside by ‘fluffy rain’ which others might know as ‘frozen mix’ so that should be a source of comfort for The Girl. And it is, off and on. Jingles gives her loves, then wanders off in search of somewhere she can sleep without having to listen to Adventure Time in the background. I totally empathize with her. I love my cat and won’t subject her to that nonsense even if it does sooth The Girl. Okay, I won’t subject her to it often of for very long. Not all day.

Needless to say, no NaNoWriMo this year. Last year I was ahead when disaster struck, and was able to bounce back from falling behind. This year I’m already behind by too much to make a ‘comeback’ anything less than determined misery. I’m not willing to do that to myself, I don’t have anything to prove.

I will cheer everyone else on, however. As of today, November 12^th, you should be almost half-done. In word count that’s easy to quantify, but on your story? That’s quite a bit harder. And you may be nowhere near half done on your story, the total length may (probably will) exceed 50k. The target length depends on genre and your plans for the piece. That makes it difficult to gage your progress, and makes word count nearly useless (with the exception of NaNoWriMo.)

So how do you know if you’re doing well? Is your plot established by now? Not your resolution, but the conflict should be exposed and your characters should have goals. How far they’ve gone to achieve those goals will vary, but they should still be working on them. The end doesn’t need to be in sight yet, so don’t fret about that. In fact, the climax doesn’t even need to be in the near future. Maybe I need to have a chat about balancing your story. Hmm. Next time. For now, keep writing.